OutlookIndia.com
Web | May 17, 2005
OPINION
Global Nuclear Divide
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Seven foreign ministers from Asian, African, European and South American countries that do not have nuclear weapons summarized the NAC's stance in the International Herald Tribune in the following fashion: ‘When the nuclear NPT came into force 35 years ago, the central bargain was that non-nuclear-weapons states like us would renounce their right to develop nuclear weapons while retaining the inalienable right to undertake research into nuclear energy and to produce and use it for peaceful purposes… while the five declared nuclear-weapon states reduced and then eliminated their nuclear weapons [Article VI]."
By now, it has become crystal clear that this bargain has not been -- and will not be -- kept. The New Agenda Coalition criticized the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for spending all its time and energy monitoring and enforcing compliance by non-nuclear-weapon countries suspected of wanting to develop such weapons, while overlooking the obvious -- that the nuclear powers have not implemented the commitments they made at the NPT review conferences of 1995 and 2000.
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full --
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This gets to the very heart of the matter.
Invariably, whenever the subject of Iran and nuclear weapons come up, most people nod their heads in agreement that it would be 'better' if Tehran was prevented from realizing its ambitions.
Conservatives say this is because of Iran's membership in that dumbest of word constructions, *the axis of evil*. Liberals mention the need for peace and stability, the status of women in Iran and *keeping the nuclear genie in the bottle*.
The subtext of Anglo/American hand wringing is a belief that Iran is a rogue Islamist state, dangerous and untrustworthy, and every effort should be exerted (including, the delusional shout, military action) to bring this business to a decisive conclusion.
But there's a problem. As long as Israel has these weapons -- indeed, as Hiro correctly points out, as long as all other nuclear armed nations across the globe continue to stockpile and develop atomics -- there's no logical reason for the Iranians to cease.
Were I the Iranian Defense Minister and noted American occupied Iraq to my west, American occupied Afghanistan to my east and nuclear missile armed Israel to the west of American occupied Iraq I would be inclined to move, with all deliberate speed, to create a deterrent.
Because the rest of the world has yet to show a serious intention to de-nuke their arsenals, the only argument that can be made against Tehran's objective is a simple, 'you're not nice enough, as we reckon niceness, to have such weapons'.
Strip away the complex justifications and this is what you're left with wrapped in a threadbare cloak of Anglo/American moral posturing (something liberals and conservatives can heartily agree on).
If people like Seymour Hersh, who seem convinced the Bush admin is determined to attack Iran, are right (overstretched military be damned...there's always the Air Force) forcing the Iranians to respond, we may come to wish Tehran had completed its weapons program and, by so doing, given the war lovers sufficient pause to save us a whole new category of trouble.
Because I'm convinced that if Iran is attacked, the world will indeed change in terrible ways we can scarcely imagine.
.d.