IRAN’S CALLS FOR N-FREE MIDEAST SHOULD BE BACKED

WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, 12 Apr 2010

Linda Heard – Arab News

From April 17-18, Iran intends to host a nuclear disarmament summit just four days after Washington concludes a nuclear security summit to which Tehran was not invited. Under the banner “Nuclear energy for everyone, nuclear arms for no one”, Iran calls for a nuclear-free Middle East and an end to nuclear proliferation globally.

Instead of singling out Iran, the world should rally behind this effort and give Iran the benefit of the doubt.

It’s ironic that the only nation that has ever used its nuclear weapons on an enemy, the US, in tandem with Israel, that refuses to disclose its own, is leading the charge against Iran’s fledgling program. As you know, in 1945, America dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killing up to 80,000 and leaving 230,000 injured or suffering from the effects of radiation.

You may not be aware that Israel was on nuclear alert twice; once in 1967 when two bombs were armed and again in 1973, when Golda Meir’s Cabinet readied 13 atomic bombs destined to destroy targets in Egypt and Syria. If Israel feels threatened with annihilation under what it terms its “Samson” option, it will thrust itself and its foes into oblivion rather than surrender.

It’s ironic, too, that unlike Iran which allows the nuclear watchdog the IAEA to inspect its nuclear sites under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Israel hasn’t signed the NPT and, moreover, it is abetted by Washington in its policy of nuclear ambiguity.

A further irony, is the way the US and its allies are currently portraying Iran as the world’s most dangerous country when, unlike the US and Israel, it hasn’t invaded another country within recent history. In fact, it was sucked into an eight-year war by Saddam Hussein at a time when he was acting as Washington’s proxy and now Tehran is bracing for military strikes on its nuclear sites by both Tel Aviv and Washington, which relentlessly beat the drums of war.

As to whether Tehran does have a covert nuclear weapons program, this is unproven. In July 2009, incoming IAEA head Yukiya Amano told Reuters that he had seen no evidence in IAEA official documents that Iran was developing nuclear arms.

A report by the IAEA board of governors on implementation of IAEA safeguards dated Feb. 18, 2010 summarizes thus: “While the Agency continues to verify the nondiversion of declared nuclear material in Iran, Iran has not provided the necessary cooperation to permit the agency to confirm that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.” In other words, the IAEA has no concrete proof that Iran is engaged in manufacturing nuclear weapons. This is exactly the stance taken by the IAEA prior to the invasion of Iraq.

In another twist of fate, then IAEA chief Mohammed El-Baradei, who during 2002/3 refused to give Iraq a clean bill of health in the UN Security Council is blasting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as “failures”; possibly in the hopes of winning over the Egyptian street as part of his potential presidential bid. He has recently admitted that he knew Iraq had long abandoned its nuclear ambitions all along. Iran maintains that it has no ambition to develop nuclear bombs, which the ayatollahs along with the Iranian people according to polls describe as anti-Islamic. The US argues that a country like Iran that is sitting on massive reserves of oil doesn’t require nuclear energy. But this view isn’t supported by history.

Indeed, it wasn’t the Islamic republic of Iran that initiated the program but the Shah, who during the 1970s planned to construct 23 nuclear power stations by the year 2000, which were blessed by the US and Europe. The administration of President Gerald Ford issued a paper that read “the introduction of nuclear power will both provide for the growing needs of Iran’s economy and free remaining oil reserves for export or conversion of petrochemicals.”

If there were concerns in the 1970s about depleting oil reserves, those concerns are heightened today. So why did the US back the Shah’s bid for nuclear energy while, today, it casts suspicions on the Islamic republic’s? The answer is simple. The Shah was America’s man until Washington feared he was becoming too powerful when he was thrown to the wolves. When the Ayatollah Khomeini came to power the entire program was canceled.

Whatever one thinks of the Iranian regime’s ideology, it does have an absolute right under the NPT to nuclear energy, including the right to enrich uranium. Furthermore, nuclear signatories to the NPT are obliged to assist Iran in this goal, which, apart from Russia, they have refused to do. That really is the bottom line. And in an extraordinary display of bias, the US backed nuclear-armed India, which is not an IAEA signatory, to the extent of signing a nuclear cooperation agreement with New Delhi in 2005.

It goes without saying that the current contretemps between Iran and the West has more to do with perceptions rather than fact. Iran is seen as hostile to US and Israeli interests while its neighbors disapprove of its ideological spread along with its financial/military support of non-state regional actors. Attacking the Iranian nuclear program is an attempt to conflate the issues, although it is true that if Iran were to succeed in arming itself with nukes this would affect the regional and global balance of power.

In truth, no country would welcome a nuclear-armed Iran, which is understandable. But cornering Iran with military threats and sanctions isn’t helpful. The more isolated Tehran feels, the more it will look to its own defense. Even if Iran’s original desire was to produce civilian nuclear energy it may now decide to pursue a nuclear deterrent — if it hasn’t made that decision already.

The international community wants Iran’s leaders to throw up their hands, relinquish their country’s rights and admit that Iran is a rogue state that can’t be trusted. No matter how much pressure is piled upon them, it’s not going to do that.

Finally, as long as the West turns a blind eye to Israel’s nuclear arsenal the chances of regional proliferation will always exist. If the world fears Iranian nukes it must demand a nuclear-free Middle East without exception.

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The author can be contacted at Sierra12th@yahoo.co.uk.

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