ARAB states used Libya’s voluntary disarmament of its weapons of mass destruction yesterday to demand that Israel should also be made to surrender its non-conventional weapons, including hundreds of nuclear warheads.

As the region came to terms with the impact of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s gesture, the debate quickly moved to who should be next. In just one week, the debate on disarmament in the region has changed, after Iran also agreed to allow experts to make spot inspections of its nuclear facilities.

“By taking this initiative, (Libya) wants all countries to follow its steps, starting with the Middle East, without any exception or double standards,” Libya said in a statement.

Shokri Ghanem, the Foreign Minister, said: “We are turning our swords into ploughshares and this step should be appreciated and followed by all other countries.”

Many Arab nations interpreted this message as an appeal to the West to force Israel to come clean about its weapons programmes, in particular its nuclear weapons stockpiles.

“It’s a good step which has echoes around the world, and it must also have an echo in Israel,” President Mubarak of Egypt said yesterday. “Israel must also eliminate its weapons of mass destruction.”

Certainly, any hope of one day ridding the Middle East of all weapons of mass destruction would have to include Israel, the regional superpower. Yediot Aharonot, the bestselling Israeli newspaper, concluded yesterday that only Syria and Iran now posed a non-conventional threat to the Jewish state.

However, Arab attempts to shift the debate ignored the political realities in the region. When President Bush said that he hoped “other leaders will find an example in Libya’s announcement”, he was almost certainly referring to Iran and North Korea, the last two members of his “axis of evil” trio, and other countries on America’s list of “rogue states”.

The most obvious candidate is Syria, which is accused of producing chemical weapons, of conducting research into biological weapons and of having missiles able to hit targets hundreds of miles from its border.

President Assad, the country’s young leader, has been willing to co-operate with the West in its War on Terror by sharing intelligence on al-Qaeda and handing over to Turkey people suspected of involvement in the suicide bombings on synagogues, the British Consulate and the HSBC bank building in Istanbul last month.

Washington has made clear, however, that it wants greater concessions from Syria, which, after the fighting to depose Saddam Hussein, has thousands of American troops along its border with Iraq. On December 12 Mr Bush signed the Syria Accountability Act, which threatens sanctions against Damascus unless it meets a set of conditions, including dropping support for terrorist groups and abandoning its weapons of mass destruction programmes. “The Syrian regime does not yet understand that since the war in Iraq they are in a completely different strategic position, one that requires them to adapt,” Judith Kipper, of the Council on Foreign Relations, which is based in Washington, said. “They seem to forget the US are on their border.”

Iran, too, will be under scrutiny over the coming months, as inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency begin to examine its nuclear programme.

If Libya’s disarmament is genuine and the Iranians are seen to co-operate fully, then it will become difficult for other states to avoid being drawn in. In addition to Israel and Syria, Egypt also has built up stocks of chemical agents, carried out research into biological weapons and has long-range missiles. Yemen, too, has missile capability.

North Korea may be geographically and politically isolated from events in the Middle East, but it will not be unaffected by the dramatic changes that are underway. Its development of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons is not a matter of speculation, nor is its advanced work on long-range missiles.

However, most of the customers for its weapons of mass destruction equipment are in the Middle East and that key trade could start to dry up if arms control comes into force in the region.

Progress in the Middle East would also put pressure on key Asia countries such as China, Japan and South Korea to find a solution to their own stalemate with Pyongyang.

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