Implications of the Threat to Bomb Iran
The U.S. refusal to do anything to further the goal of a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East comes despite the fact that it is formally committed to that goal, as well as to the goal of preventing any attack on Iran’s nuclear program. Echoing the prohibition on the use of force in the U.N. Charter, the final declaration issued by the Nuclear Review Conference stated that “attacks or threats of attack on nuclear facilities devoted to peaceful purposes jeopardize nuclear safety, have dangerous political, economic and environmental implications and raise serious concerns regarding the application of international law on the use of force in such cases” and “underscores the importance of the establishment of nuclear-weapons-free zones where they do not exist, especially in the Middle East.”[29]
In fact, as the formal U.S. commitment to establishing a nuke-free zone in the region goes back to at least 1991. U.N. Security Council Resolution 687 recalled “the objective of the establishment of a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the region of the Middle East” and noted “the threat that all weapons of mass destruction pose to peace and security in the area and of the need to work towards the establishment in the Middle East of a zone free of such weapons”. It called upon Iraq to destroy all its WMD and stated that this represented “steps towards the goal of establishing in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction”.[30]
A New York Times headline from May 2 declared “U.S. Is Pushing to Deter a Mideast Nuclear Race” – by seeking sanctions against Iran, which does not have nuclear weapons, while refusing to live up to its formal commitment to establish a nuclear-weapons-free zone, which would require the U.S. to pressure the only nation in the region that actually possesses nuclear weapons to join the NPT and come clean on its nuclear program.[31]
As the Washington Post observed in a headline the same week, “Israel’s stance on nuclear arms complicates efforts against Iran”. Post reporter Walter Pincus explained that a working paper being circulated at the conference contained a pledge by member states not to offer Israel any nuclear assistance so long as it refuses to sign the NPT or put its nuclear program under the safeguards of the IAEA. The working paper also called “for signatory countries, including the United States, ‘to disclose all information available to them on the nature and scope of Israeli nuclear capabilities, including information pertaining to previous nuclear transfers to Israel.'” This is problematic for the U.S. because “France and the United States have been identified as key suppliers to Israel’s secret nuclear weapons development program in the 1950s and 1960s.” A senior U.S. official responded by saying that any refusal by the U.S. to offer nuclear assistance to Israel unless it joins the NPT regime and U.S. disclosure of information about Israel’s program “will never happen, never”. It was in 1974, Pincus noted further, that Egypt and Iran first proposed the establishment of a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East, which gained the approval of the U.N. General Assembly, and the U.S. formally committed itself to that goal in a resolution passed at the 1995 NPT Review Conference.[32]
The Washington Times hinted at a more plausible explanation for the U.S. refusal to live up to its obligation at the time of the NPT Review Conference, reporting that “President Obama’s efforts to curb the spread of nuclear weapons threaten to expose and derail a 40-year-old secret U.S. agreement to shield Israel’s nuclear weapons from international scrutiny, former and current U.S. and Israeli officials and nuclear specialists say.”[33]
Given the actual facts and circumstances, which Goldberg does his best to obfuscate, an elementary corollary is that the best options available to the U.S. to prevent any further proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East would be to pressure Israel to join the NPT safeguards regime and end its illegal occupation and land grabbing. Yet the U.S. rejects the former option (despite its formal obligation) and works against the latter (despite its empty rhetoric to the contrary). Any attack on Iran would have dire consequences and enormously destabilize the region, including by exponentially increasing the risk that Iranian leaders might make the decision to seek a nuclear deterrent to prevent any similar attacks in the future. It would undermine the NPT regime and IAEA safeguards system and shatter the already dim hope for meaningful progress towards implementation of the international consensus on a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As a further corollary, that the predictable consequences would be precisely the opposite of the stated intent serves to demonstrate, if we presume policy makers are competent, that Middle East peace and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons are not high priorities in U.S. policy decisions.
[1] Jeffrey Goldberg, “The Point of No Return”, The Atlantic, September 2010 <http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/09/the-point-of-no-return/8186/>.
[2] “Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities”, National Intelligence Council, November 2007 <http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20071203_release.pdf>. Mark Hosenball, “Intelligence Agencies Say No New Nukes in Iran”, Newsweek, September 16, 2009 <http://www.newsweek.com/2009/09/15/intelligence-agencies-say-no-new-nukes-in-iran.html>.
[3] “Recent Media Report on Iran”, IAEA Press Statement, September 17, 2009 <http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/MediaAdvisory/2009/MA200919.html>.
[4] Sylvia Westall, “No sign Iran seeks nuclear arms: new IAEA head”, Reuters, July 3, 2009. <http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL312024420090703>. Jeremy R. Hammond, “The New York Times’ ‘fit to print’ version of the IAEA in Iran”, Foreign Policy Journal, August 31, 2009. <http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2009/08/31/the-new-york-times-fit-to-print-version-of-the-iaea-in-iran/>.
[5] See, for example: William J. Broad and David E. Sanger, “Iran Said to Have Nuclear Fuel for One Weapon”, New York Times, November 19, 2008 < http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/world/middleeast/20nuke.html>.Reuters, July 3, 2009. Vivienne Walt, “Is Iran Running Out of Uranium?” TIME, April 27, 2010
<http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1984657,00.html>. Joseph Cirincione and Elise Connor, “How Iran Can Build a Bomb”, Foreign Policy, July 1, 2010 <http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/07/01/how_iran_can_build_a_bomb>.
[6] Ethan Bronner, “Just How Far Did They Go, Those Words Against Israel?”, New York Times, June 11, 2006 <http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/weekinreview/11bronner.html?_r=1>.
[7] “Bush Vows to Prevent Iran From Acquiring Nuclear Arms”, Washington Post, March 20, 2008 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/21/AR2008032101833.html>.
[8] “Text of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Speech”, New York Times, October 30, 2005 <http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/weekinreview/30iran.html>.
“Iranian President at Tehran Conference: ‘Very Soon This Stain of Disgrace [i.e. Israel] Will Be Purged From the Center of the Islamic World – and This is Attainable'”, Middle East Media Research Institute, October 28, 2005 <http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/1510.htm>.
[9] MEMRI, October 28, 2005.
[10] Juan Cole, “Hitchens the Hacker; And, Hitchens the Orientalist And, ‘We don’t Want Your Stinking War!'”, JuanCole.com, May 3, 2006 <http://www.juancole.com/2006/05/hitchens-hacker-and-hitchens.html>.
[11] Jonathan Steele, “If Iran is ready to talk, the US must do so unconditionally”, The Guardian, June 2, 2006 <http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/jun/02/comment.usa>.
[12] Peter Rippon, “Wiped off the map?”, BBC, March 6, 2007 <http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/03/wiped_off_the_map.html>.
[13] New York Times, June 11, 2006.
[14] Speech by Chairman of the Expediency Council Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Tehran), December 14, 2001; translation by BBC Worldwide Monitoring. “Qods Day Speech (Jerusalem Day)”, GlobalSecurity.org, December 14, 2001 <http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iran/2001/011214-text.html>.
[15] United Nations Security Council Resolution 487, June 19, 1981 <http://www.un.org/Docs/scres/1981/scres81.htm>, <http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/un/un487.htm>.
[16] “Implications of Israeli Attack on Iraq”, Interagency Intelligence Assessment, July 1, 1981 <http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB80/wmd01.pdf>.
[17] Dan Williams, “Israel plays wargame assuming Iran has nuclear bomb”, Reuters, May 17, 2010 <http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64G66820100517>.
[18] Trita Parsi, “A campaign for war with Iran begins”, Salon, August 13, 2010 <http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/08/13/trita_parsi_jeffrey_goldberg>.
[19] Gareth Porter, “Iran Proposal to U.S. Offered Peace with Israel”, IPS, May 24, 2006 <http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=33348>, <http://ipsnews.net/iranletterfacsimile.pdf>.
[20] Elise Labott, “Clinton faces off with Iran’s leader at UN nuclear conference”, CNN, May 4, 2010 <http://edition.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/05/03/un.ahmadinejad/index.html>. Walter Pincus, “Israel’s stance on nuclear arms complicates efforts against Iran”, Washington Post, May 4, 2010 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/03/AR2010050304341.html>. William J. Broad and David E. Sanger, “U.S. Is Pushing to Deter a Mideast Nuclear Race”, New York Times, May 2, 2010 <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/world/03nuke.html>. Louis Charbonneau, “US, other big powers back Mideast nuclear arms ban”, Reuters, May 5, 2010 <http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0519181920100505>. Louis Charbonneau, “Conference on Mideast WMD ban gets go ahead”, Reuters, May 28, 2010 <http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64R4RL20100528>. “189 Nations Agree to Nuke Disarmament Plan”, Associated Press, May 28, 2010 <http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/28/world/main6528140.shtml>.
[21] Dan Williams, “Israel won’t move on U.N. call for nuclear-free zone”, Reuters, May 7, 2010 <http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6463DS20100507>.
[22] Aluf Benn, “U.S. officials tell lawmakers clash likely over PM’s refusal to support two-state solution”, Haaretz, April 8, 2009 <http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/obama-team-readying-for-confrontation-with-netanyahu-1.273770>.
[23] Tom Baldwin, “Barack Obama hints at tougher line on Israel”, The Times, May 5, 2009 <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6229180.ece>.
[24] “Israel ‘will not bow’ to US settlement freeze call”, Sydney Morning Herald, May 31, 2009 <http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/israel-will-not-bow-to-us-settlement-freeze-call-20090531-brhn.html>.
[25] “U.S. re-approves Israel loan guarantees program”, Reuters, June 30, 2009 <http://www.haaretz.com/news/u-s-re-approves-israel-loan-guarantees-program-1.279123>.
[26] Natasha Mozgovaya, “U.S.: We won’t exert economic pressure on Israel”, Haaretz, July 24, 2009 <http://www.haaretz.com/news/u-s-we-won-t-exert-economic-pressure-on-israel-1.280684>. Nina Donaghy, “State Department Walks Back Suggestion U.S. Will Exert Financial Pressure on Israel”, FOX News, July 23, 2009 <http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/23/state-department-walks-suggestion-exert-financial-pressure-israel/>.
[27] “UN: US, EU Undermine Justice for Gaza Conflict”, Human Rights Watch, September 30, 2009 <http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/09/30/un-us-eu-undermine-justice-gaza-conflict>.
[28] Adrian Blomfield, “US drops demand for Israeli settlement freeze”, Telegraph, November 1, 2009 <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/6480482/US-drops-demand-for-Israeli-settlement-freeze.html>.
[29] Final Document, Volume I, 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT/CONF.2010/50[Vol. I]) <http://www.un.org/en/conf/npt/2010/docs.shtml>, <www.reachingcriticalwill.org/legal/npt/revcon2010/FinalDocument.pdf>.
[30] United Nations Security Council Resolution 687, April 3, 1991 <http://www.un.org/Docs/scres/1991/scres91.htm>, <http://www.fas.org/news/un/iraq/sres/sres0687.htm>.
[31] New York Times, May 2, 2010.
[32] Washington Post, May 4, 2010.
[33] Eli Lake, “Secret U.S.-Israeli nuclear accord in jeopardy”, Washington Times, May 6, 2009 <http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/6/us-weighs-forcing-israel-to-disclose-nukes/print/>.
How often national security policy is based on an inaccurate of what someone said…….
The points you made are indeed very true ,, as someone who has personally been present in some of the events that are mentioned I also delare that the point of view from which you have seen the issue is the very correct angle.
What is interesting for me to know is that the dept of western media’s influence is so much that even effects most of those who are considered to be as the ‘above the average people’ around the world, as most the so called intellectuals also do not see the truth and are driven by the invisible forces that happen to run most of the world, or at least the western world.
This is the most informed analysis of Iran’s nuclear issue I’ve ever seen! Very well-argumented and enlightening!
Thanks, Brian. Please share!
I was very encouraged to find this site. I wanted to thank you for this special read. I definitely savored every little bit of it including all the comments and I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you post.