|
Bullying Iran is not an option
Before Western leaders seek sanctions against Iran, they should put
their own houses in order on nuclear weapons and nuclear power
By
Mary Riddell
01/08/06 "The
Observer" -- -- This week, barring a last-minute
climb-down, Iran may get back to building a nuclear bomb. It is a
small moment, and a big one. Small because the threat has lingered
for years; big because the consequences could convulse the region
and the world.
If Iran ends its 30-month freeze on uranium tests, the long
diplomatic mission by the West will be in ruins. The Foreign Office
says all bets will be off; Condoleezza Rice signals that Iran is
heading for the UN Security Council, and thus for resolutions and
sanctions. Every diplomat and onlooker knows the steps of that
quadrille. They danced it for Iraq.
As Iran moves towards the ultimate in WMD, George W Bush must be
thinking he fought the wrong war. Now, as Israel says Iran's nuclear
missile programme 'can be destroyed', the scent of another conflict
hangs in the air. Even if President Ahmadinejad steps back from the
brink, as he is prone to, there is a wider threat.
In the last few days, a 55-page European intelligence assessment has
surfaced. This document is an audit of the quest, by rogue states,
to buy the kit to make weapons of mass destruction. Syria and North
Korea have been stocking up, along with Pakistan, and Iran is
allegedly working towards a long-range missile that would reach
Italy.
In addition, New York Times reporter James Risen claims in a new
book that the CIA inadvertently helped Iran build a nuclear bomb by
supplying flawed blueprints that the country's scientists may have
corrected and used. Obviously, leaked intelligence on WMD comes with
some health warnings. How dodgy, exactly, are these dossiers?
Maybe the CIA is daft enough to offer up DIY bomb manuals, though
this sounds implausible. The Tesco-isation of the nuclear trade
raises another caveat. According to the leaked European report, the
world is a shopping mall for nukes and the boardrooms and
universities of Europe are the bombers' Bond Street.
Hardly any of this is top secret or new. Dubious regimes have indeed
been stockpiling illicit technology, as if buying beans in Waitrose.
A briefing for the Carnegie Endowment think-tank, published in
September 2005, two months after the leaked report was written,
lists a worldwide history of nuclear deals, including Iran's links
with the rogue Pakistani scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan.
Nuclear arms never held many surprises. J Robert Oppenheimer, their
inventor, called himself 'the destroyer of worlds'; hopes that
lavish death could forge a better universe faded faster than the
prayers of the pastor who commended to God the Enola Gay, bound for
Hiroshima.
Sixty years on, the notion of nuclear nemesis has not sunk in. Last
year's make-or-break US conference to revive the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty achieved nothing. The pact, ratified in
1970 and signed by 187 countries, was designed to ensure that
unarmed states never acquired weapons and that armed nations, in
return, would wind down their arsenals.
That cornerstone of a peaceful world is crumbling, partly because
Bush wants new weapons while demanding that other regimes forswear
them, but also because the treaty is fatally flawed. Its aims, to
eradicate nuclear weapons while championing the spread of nuclear
energy, are irreconcilable. Atoms for Peace, suspect in Eisenhower's
day, is an oxymoron in a globalised age.
Any rogue state can build up a civil programme, opt out of the
treaty with six months' notice and begin making weapons. Iran has
always claimed, to universal disbelief, that it is only exercising
its right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. Pakistan, a
non-signatory, was last week reported to be buying up to eight
reactors from China, which has long been suspected of helping with
its weapons programme.
On the campuses of Tehran, even moderately minded students are
aggrieved. Who are Bush and Blair to preach while laying in new
nukes and welcoming India, with its illicit weapons, into their
nuclear club? Israel is stacked with unauthorised nukes, a Nato base
sits at Herat and the US Fifth Fleet trawls the Persian Gulf. Why
should Iran, so besieged, not have a deterrent?
One answer is that Ahmadinejad is a Holocaust-denier who thinks
Israel should be 'wiped off the map'. No one could sleep easy with
his finger trembling on a nuclear button. But there are more
dangerous prospects even that the Iran bomb. Professor Paul Rogers,
of Bradford University, thinks it conceivable that Israel could
launch a pre-emptive attack against its loose-mouthed neighbour.
Ariel Sharon's successor, needing to look tough, may be keener than
his predecessor to do so.
Israel would have to move fast, though. A few months from now,
Iran's powerful Bushehr reactor could be up and running and few
attackers would dare unleash a reprise of Chernobyl. Such a threat
may seem far-fetched, but the tolerance of George W Bush for a
regime he calls 'the world's primary sponsor of terror' is as thin
as skin.
What a year for Britain to announce a £25 billion replacement for
the Trident missile, plus a new generation of nuclear power
stations. Tony Blair, intent on both schemes, is braced for protest
on weapons but foresees little trouble over energy.
Britain is not keen on taking fewer cheap flights and turning out
the bathroom light. Nuclear power, touted as a painless option, is
costly, risky and produces waste that stays dangerous for 240,000
years. A combination of renewables, energy saving, fossil fuels and
carbon storage could provide an alternative. Besides, Britain has a
duty to set some example. On nuclear power, the case is far from
made.
Trident, by contrast, is straightforward. Its replacement should be
fought by everyone bothered about world security. More weapons for
Britain would be a come-on to every failed state on the planet.
In Israel, a leader lies in hospital. In Iraq, 130 people were blown
up last Thursday. In North Korea, promises of nuclear disarmament
have withered. In Iran, the nuclear scientists resume their work.
This may be the most dangerous time since superpowers threatened
mutually assured destruction.
The world, once an atomic Athenaeum, has become a bomber's eBay,
full of murky bidders with pseudonyms and of nukes for auction. The
nuclear aristocracy is dead, destruction is democratised and Iran,
angry at the West's hypocrisy on the nuclear race, believes that
what's good for Totnes is good for Tehran.
There is also hope. Iran's theocrats might oust Ahmadinejad.
American voters may elect a President who realises, as Blair must
too, that the West has to reduce its own arms if it is to persuade
others to do likewise. But, for now, Cold War politics looks easy.
The abyss was always safer than the quicksand. This time, we cannot
simply walk away.
mary.riddell@observer.co.uk
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
Translate
this page
(In accordance with Title 17
U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to
those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes.
Information Clearing House has no affiliation whatsoever with the
originator of this article nor is Information Clearing House
endorsed or sponsored by the originator.) |
