I'm not against nuclear proliferation. As a matter of fact, I'm very much for it. I'll grant you that allow idiotic regimes like Saddam Hussein's Iraq or North Korea at any time in history to have the bomb might be a bad idea, but pretty much every one else should have it.I make exceptions for people like Saddam because they have a great penchant for strategic miscalculation. He couldn't get out of bed in the morning without saying something like, "I think I'll invade Iran or Kuwait today. What could happen?" As it happens, quite a bit, actually.
On the other hand, that sounds an awful lot like how the U.S invasion was planned, so I'm rethinking even that qualification on nuclear non-proliferation.
I'm for nuclear proliferation because it makes conventional war almost unthinkable. Nuclear powers go to war against non-nuclear powers all the time, only to be tied down in endless quagmires that eventually break their national will and end in humiliation (for example, the United States in Vietnam and Iraq, the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, France in Algeria and Israel in Lebanon.) Insurgencies have broken major powers before, and they'll continue doing so until the end of time. However, the world is safe from the once-gathering threat posed by Grenada, and that has to count for something ... doesn't it?
But atomic states aren't inclined to make war with one another, unless a speed and steroid addled cripple of a president with inferiority issues decides to provoke a nuclear confrontation to cover up a total inept "invasion" of the goddamned Caribbean. Thankfully, that doesn't happen a lot.
Nuclear states don't go to war with one another for the simple reason that it isn't in their national interest to. You see, the "national interest" is usually determined by asking whether an interest is important enough for large numbers of foreigners to die over. Rarely is an interest so overwhelming as to threaten your own nation's survival. In the end, Saddam Hussein decided that defending his occupation of Kuwait with chemical and biological weapons wasn't important enough to lose Baghdad over. That was a pretty savvy analysis.
But if Kuwait had its own tactical nuclear force, Saddam wouldn't have invaded the first place, the United States wouldn't have wound up in Saudi Arabia, and Osama bin Laden wouldn't have had such a bug up his ass. 9/11 might never have happened. History is weird that way.
Iran's dwarfish and weird president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is the current American boogeyman de jour. If I didn't actually know anything about Iran, I'd describe him as the "New Noriega," but Noriega had power and influence in Panama that Ahmadinejad never will in Iran.
I find it incredibly odd that the know-nothing American media describes Iran as a theocracy, yet ascribes almost supernatural powers to a guy who holds no religious title or office. As a matter of practise, the Iranian presidency has nothing at all to do with the foreign policy, armed forces or nuclear program of the Islamic Republic. At the end of the day, he's slightly less influential than I am.
But he does like to thunderously resurrect the ghost of Nikita Khrushchev at the United Nations from time to time. In fact, he did so just this past Monday.
As the celebrated scholar if political Islam, Reza Aslan, notes in the Daily Beast, Ahmadinejad made a number of good points. Just as I do, Mr. Aslan hates it when it that happens.
(Note: in the bloquotes below, Ahmadinejad will be bolded and italicized, and Aslan will merely be italicized.)
“Nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation have not come true, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has not been successful in discharging its mandate.”As a matter of fact, I'd go much further. The signatories of the NPT, and the Big Five on the Security Council in particular, have been the biggest of nuclear proliferators.
That’s right. The NPT has failed as an anti-proliferation tool, not just because it has been unable to stop countries like North Korea, Israel, Pakistan, and India from developing nuclear weapons, but because it is based on the faulty premise that no one but the five permanent members of the UN Security Council should be allowed to develop, test, and maintain nuclear weapons. That may have made sense in the 1950s and 1960s, when the outlines of the non-proliferation regime were first established. But in 2010, when any PhD in Physics has the knowledge needed to build a nuclear device, it is simply no longer a tenable solution to nuclear proliferation. In any case, there is no surer sign of the inherent weakness of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty than the fact that Iran has managed to cheat and lie its way through it for two decades and still remain a signatory.
China was instrumental in the weapons design of Pakistan's bomb and the missile development
of North Korea. France helped Israel develop their bomb while the United States looked the other way, and Israel aided South Africa with its Apartheid-era weapons. India reverse-engineered a Candu reactor given to it by Canada, which facilitated its successful 1974 test.
As a matter of fact, the Nixon administration was dying to give ready-made reactors to ... wait for it ... Iran. But Iran was considered America's Middle East "policeman" then and part of the Nixon-Kissinger "two corners" strategy in the region, the other corner being Israel.
Presidents Reagan and Obama are wrong. Nuclear weapons will always exist, unless the United States somehow manages to outlaw college physics, the national security interests of other countries and the profit motive. I thought that Reagan was ridiculous when he spouted that nonsense in the 80s and I think that Obama is ridiculous now.
“The production, stockpiling, and qualitative improvement of nuclear armaments in a given country have served as the best justification for the others to develop their own arsenals, a trend that has sustained over the past forty years in violation of the commitments set forth in the NPT.”Moreover, the United States tends to be somewhat fickle in its foreign policy. Yesterday's "strategic assest" very quickly becomes tomorrow's mortal enemy, as the Iran, Iraq and Panama can all tell you.
Right again. The very notion of deterrence is problematic because without a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (which the U.S. Congress refuses to ratify) nuclear-armed countries are compelled to constantly update and refine their arsenals in order to keep up with each other. Ahmadinejad has a point: the deterrence policy has contributed to the escalation of the nuclear arms race. Take President Obama’s recently released Nuclear Posture Review, which, while prohibiting the development of new weapons nevertheless calls for tactical improvements to America’s current arsenal. How should China and Russia respond to America’s decision to improve the lethality of its nuclear weapons?
Mr. Aslan has a striking point. Obama's Nuclear Posture Review makes the American position not unlike Lou Reed's 1985 anti-drug ad, in which he said "I did drugs. You shouldn't." Except the Obama administration is telling everyone else to "just say no" while it has a needle dangling from its inner thigh.
“No effective mechanism has been devised to address the actual threat of nuclear weapons, which must be in fact the most important mission of the IAEA. All efforts in this respect have been only limited to talks that lack any binding force guarantee and effectiveness.”Does anybody think that the IAEA has even bothered to even ask the United States, Russia, China and France to subject themselves to same security and monitoring standards that are demanded of everybody else? Remember that the U.S refuses to admit that Israel even has a program, let alone an arsenal; France and China have histories of proliferation; Oh, and China and Russia are the world heavyweight champions of murdering their own people. And if England insists on exporting its reality and talent shows, who knows where they'll stop?
Absolutely correct. Ahmadinejad’s point is that the IAEA has been pressuring non-nuclear weapon states to abandon their nuclear ambitions while nuclear states have had full immunity to develop and constantly improve their arsenals. This despite the fact that the NPT specifically requires that the original five nuclear powers agree to take concrete steps to fully disarm.
How’s that coming along?
“Cessation of all kinds of nuclear cooperation with non-member states of NPT and adoption of effective punitive measures against all those states which continue their cooperation with such non-member states.”I've been writing about the India deal for over a year now. India violated all of the international standards that Iran is accused of today. As a matter of fact, so has Israel. But only India was rewarded for it, because the wise counsel of the Bush White House insisted that we believe that New Dehli are "our kind" of international outlaws.
Yup! Article One of the NPT explicitly forbids nuclear weapon states to directly or indirectly assist in the development of nuclear weapons by non-signatory states. Someone should have reminded the U.S. Senate of this before it enthusiastically authorized a multi-billion dollar nuclear trade deal with India that makes no real distinction between India’s civilian and military program. What’s to keep Russia or China from signing a similar deal with Iran or Syria?
That's the elephant in the room, friends. No one is ever going to take the United States seriously about "a nuclear-free Middle East" as long as Washington refuses to even acknowledge Israel's arsenal of about 200 warheads compared to everybody else's none. Worse, the American position regarding Israel justifies Russia and China's tacit defense of Iran's interests.
“[Iran calls for the] immediate and unconditional implementation of the resolution adopted by 1995 Review Conference on the establishment of a nuclear free zone in the Middle East.”
Ironic? Sure. Disingenuous? Of course. And yet, positively correct. Let’s not forget that a big part of why the last NPT review ended in total failure was the United States’ refusal to back its own commitment to a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East, thanks in part to its even greater commitment to shield Israel’s nuclear arsenal from international inspections. To think that we could thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions while ignoring the other nuclear armed states in the region—Israel, India, and Pakistan—all of whom receive billions of dollars from the United States in spite of their refusal to accept NPT protocols, is ridiculous. Iran has learned the lesson that all teenagers eventually discover: it is easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.
The United States, Russia, China, Britain, and France are somehow exempt from the Non-Proliferation Treaty. India, Pakistan and Israel are immune from it because they never signed it, but all three have been rewarded by the United States despite their intransigence. Nor has anyone taken action against China, France or Israel for their past proliferation.
So can anyone explain to me how the Non-Proliferation Treaty was ever supposed to mean anything to anyone?
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