WASHINGTON, March 16: In a discussion on its website, editors of the far-right National Review magazine have suggested that in the event of a nuclear or radiation device being used in a terrorist attack on the United States, an appropriate response could be to attack selected Arab capitals with atomic bombs.

The suggestion has come in the midst of the controversy sparked by the administration’s nuclear posture review document that proposes keeping the nuclear option open for possible use against Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, China, North Korea and Russia.

National Review editor Rich Lowry said in a piece earlier this month that among people he spoke with, there was a lot of “sentiment for nuking Mecca (Makkah). ..... If we have clean enough bombs to assure a pinpoint damage area, Gaza City and Ramallah would also be on the list.

“Damascus, Cairo, Algiers, Tripoli and Riyadh should be put on alert that any signs of support for the attacks in their cities will bring immediate annihilation.”

When another National Review writer suggested that destroying Makkah might cause permanent outrage among one billion Muslims, Lowry said: “This is a tough one, and I don’t know quite what to think. Mecca seems extreme, of course, but then again, few people would die and it would send a signal.”

Last autumn, one of the contributors to the National Review, Ann Coulter, had advised invading Muslim countries, killing their leaders and converting them to Christianity. When the magazine published an apology, Coulter objected, and was dropped as a contributor.

The World Socialist website asserted, in a comment on Friday, that in considering the National Review’s attitude, it should be remembered that Lowry and his colleagues have close ties to the Republican Party, and that at last month’s Conservative Political Action Conference of which the magazine was one of the major sponsors, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was one of the speakers as well as Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson.