A Path to Peace with Iran
By Scott Ritter
04/20/06 "Alternet"
-- -- It has been more than a week now since
the Iranian government announced that it had "joined the nuclear
club" by successfully enriching uranium, albeit for nuclear
fuel, not a weapon. Once a nation has the capacity to enrich to
the former, enrichment to the latter is simply a matter of time;
the technology is the same. Iran's declaration immediately made
headlines around the world, with stunned punditry engaging in
wild speculation about the potential ramifications of this turn
of events. From a simple laboratory-scale enrichment experiment,
a massive nuclear weapons program grew Pheonix-like from the
ashes, prompting dire warnings from US Government officials such
as Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and
Nonproliferation Stephen Rademaker, who told a press conference
in Moscow, where he was visiting to discuss the Iranian nuclear
issue with Russian officials, that Iran "...may be capable of
making a nuclear bomb within 16 days."
Rademaker was referring to the mathematical possibilities
arising from Iran enriching uranium to weapons grade-levels at
its centrifuge enrichment plant at Natanz, using a
50,000-centrifuge cascade system the United States and others
say is capable of being installed at the facility. In a nod to
the hypothetical nature of his outlandish remark, Rademaker did
note that the Iranians have gone on record as only wanting to
install a 3,000-centrifuge cascade at Natanz. In that case,
Rademaker said, "We calculate that a 3,000-machine cascade could
produce enough uranium to build a nuclear weapon within 271
days." Apparently 271 days isn't as terrifyingly sexy as 16
days, given that the majority of the media reported Rademakers
initial statement.
In all fairness to Mr. Rademaker, the full 16 days window he
postulated remains open, and so it is perhaps too harsh to pass
criticism until it is known whether or not his prediction will
come to pass. But I'll wager a dime to a dollar that come 16
days -- or even 271 days -- the world will find Iran no closer
to a nuclear bomb than it is today, because the reality is Iran
does not possess an active, ongoing, viable nuclear weapons
program. In all reality, Iran does not yet even possess the
capability to enrich uranium on an industrial scale. Its claims
regarding the laboratory-scale work that was conducted -- a
limited run of some 164 centrifuges which enriched Uranium
hexafluoride gas (UF6) from 0.7% to 3.5% U235 -- has yet to be
verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which
is in the process of collecting samples of the enriched gas for
further analysis.
The fact that the IAEA safeguard inspections are at play in Iran
may in itself come as a surprise to most observers of the
ongoing Iranian nuclear saga. Iran is still very much a member,
in good standing, of the non-proliferation treaty, and all of
its nuclear activities continue to be under the stringent
monitoring of the IAEA safeguard inspectors, an odd reality for
a nation only 16 days away from being able to replicate the
American attack on Hiroshima, if Stephen Rademaker is to be
taken seriously. It takes an extraordinary stretch of the
imagination to have Iran fabricating a nuclear weapon right
under the nose of IAEA inspectors who today manage an inspection
process that is not only technologically advanced, but seasoned
after years of sleuthing after nuclear weapons programs in Iraq,
North Korea, South Africa and Iran. To liken these
professionals, as is the habit of many in the Bush
administration today, to "keystone cops" is like comparing the
US Marine Corps to the Boy Scouts. The IAEA inspectors are the
best in the world at what they do. The fact that they have not
found a "smoking gun" to back up what has been to date nothing
more than irresponsible speculation concerning the existence of
an Iranian nuclear weapons program should ease the fears of
those politicians and pundits prone to panic. Unfortunately,
this has not been the case, and as a result the world finds
itself inching ever closer to a tragically unnecessary war
between the United States and Iran.
The problems that plague Washington DC on the issue of Iran are
the same problems that haunt America overall regarding Iraq --
no clear understanding of why we as a nation are doing what we
are doing where we are doing it, and absolutely no system of
accountability for those who are implicated, directly through
their actions or indirectly through abrogation of duties and
responsibilities, in embroiling America in such senseless
conflict. There seems to be, especially among the so-called
"anti-war" crowd, a tendency to blame the "system" for all that
ails us, with a specific trend to isolate particular nodes of
economic and/or political power for special indictment.
In this light, the current war in Iraq and the real possibility
of war with Iran becomes the responsibility of "Big Oil," the
"Neo Cons," the "Military Industrial Complex," and more
recently, the "Israeli Lobby." There are more names one can add
to the list; everyone, it seems, is to blame. Congress, while
not getting a pass, does get special dispensation in so far that
we can understand why the elected representatives of the people
abrogate the trust and confidence we place in them by noting
that they have fallen under the ever expanding control of
"special interests," namely the aforementioned power nodes that
are to blame for everything. Likewise, since these power nodes
also control the mainstream media, one can begin to understand
why it is that the pro-war message trumps the anti-war message
every step of the way.
Of course, there is much merit in all of the above arguments.
There are in fact special interest groups (the so-called "power
nodes") which exude influence, both in terms of influencing the
legislative agenda of elected officials as well as the overall
"thematic" of mainstream media, far in excess of that which is
healthy in an ostensibly representative democracy. But it is
wrong, and futile, to simply blame these power nodes, or the
institutions they have come to so heavily influence. These power
nodes did not simply appear out of nowhere. They are a product
of American history and culture, a manifestation of the reality
that, even more so than the processes of representative
democracy, America is a product of unadulterated capitalism.
All that is good and bad about our society today stems from that
basic truth. The American capitalist system exists to make
money, and that money ends up concentrated in the hands of a
few, while the majority of Americans toil in support of this
massive capital generating behemoth. As a nation over time we
have tinkered with the American system (imperfectly, it may be
argued) in a way that seeks to protect the civil liberties of
the individual. But in the end we are compelled not to bite the
hand that feeds us, and the corporation for the most part has
benefited at the expense of the citizen. Some would argue that
the gains of the corporation translate into the gains of the
citizen. This is true, as long as there remains a system of
checks and balances through the vehicle of the rule of law that
stays the hand of excessive greed at the expense of individual
rights. But in the end the strongest proponent of individual
rights must be the individual citizen, and when the system of
capitalism dulls the attraction of citizenship based upon the
rule of law (a process that is extraordinarily time consuming
and difficult) with the allure of consumer-based creature
comforts delivered to the masses, the individual is faced with
an up-hill struggle of immense proportions that cannot be won
unless a helping hand is offered by the very system of
capitalism the individual is struggling against.
In short, America as a nation is genetically constructed in a
manner that places a premium on greed. However, the DNA that
drives this greed gene requires a compliant host, which we could
call the American citizenry, if it is to survive. There has
always been a complicated Kabuki-type dance occurring between
the American corporation and the American citizen, with a
Constitutionally mandated system of governance, replete with
pre-programmed checks and balances, serving as puppet master in
an effort to preserve a relative balance. But, as President
Eisenhower foretold when warning America about the ascendancy of
the military-industrial complex back in the 1950's, if this
delicate balance is disrupted, the system is in danger of
collapsing.
The American system has been in collapse for many decades now,
with the rise of corporate power occurring in direct
relationship with the demise of concept and reality of
individual citizenship. How America as a nation reacted to the
horrific events of September 11, 2001 clearly put the
manifestation of this collapse on center stage. Americans for
the most part remained mute and motionless as the rights of the
individual were infringed on irrationally by the so-called
Patriot Act. The various economic and political power nodes,
once held in check by a Congress which at one time recognized
its responsibilities to the individual citizen, now ran rough
shod over the elected representatives of the people by
exploiting the fear of the people generated by the people's own
ignorance of the world they lived in. In short, the current war
in Iraq, and the looming war with Iran, can be explained as a
manifestation of American capitalism gone mad.
Some might argue that this very definition in itself provides
justification for a total rejection of the current manifestation
of the American system, and the need to seek a new path or
direction. There are those in the anti-war movement today who
articulate such an argument. I, for one, am not prepared to
embrace this way of thinking. I recognize both the good and bad
inherent in the difficult blending of capitalistic greed and
individual humanism that is modern America, and accept that this
system is the best model in existence today, as long as it
maintains a system of checks and balances that keeps the forces
of excessiveness under control. In likening America to a
biological entity suffering from genetic mutation, I not only
attempt to identify the problem, but also the cure.
The delicate balancing act that exists between capitalism and
individual rights is a pre-requisite for American national
survival. Right now this system is out of balance, and America
is teetering down a path of self-destruction. Fortunately, like
most biological beings, there is an internal mechanism that
recognizes when a system is out of alignment, and seeks to make
the appropriate adjustments in time to forestall its demise.
Since America is, first and foremost, a capitalist system, it is
to capitalism that one must look to for these adjustments. We
got the first inklings of this very sort of attitudinal wake-up
call just this week, when Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, a
Republican of distinction who chairs the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, called for the Bush administration to "cool
it" on the issue of Iran.
Senator Lugar did not base his arguments on grand ideological
principles of peace and justice, but rather the more base
passion of prosperity. Speaking before an audience at the
Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, Senator Lugar warned
that a confrontation between the United States and Iran over its
nuclear programs could trigger economic collapse at home and
abroad should Iran's oil and gas resources be withdrawn from the
global energy market. With global consumption of oil on the
rise, not only in the United States but also developing
economies such as China and India, spare production capacity has
dwindled from 10 percent in 2002 to less than two percent today,
Lugar noted. If Iran pulled its oil and gas resources from the
market, or had them pulled indirectly through sustained US
military intervention, the global energy market would be thrown
into a crisis the likes of which have never been seen.
Senator Lugar spoke of the threat that exists simply if the
price of oil is sustained at the $60 a barrel level, noting that
Americans paid 17 percent more for energy in 2005 than in the
previous year, an increase which accounted for more than a third
of the American trade deficit. "If oil prices remain at $60 a
barrel through 2006, we will spend about $320 billion on oil
imports this year." As of this writing, oil prices were just
above $70 per barrel, with the Iranian government noting that in
their opinion the price of oil was still below its "real value."
What Lugar did not engage in directly, but referred to
obliquely, was that the forces of capitalism which drive America
also drive the global oil market, and that if America, which
currently consumes 25 percent of the world's oil, engages in
actions with Iran that disrupt the global oil market, the
competition which fuels speculative oil pricing would go out of
control as the United States, Europe, China and India competed
to lock down energy supplies they all need to survive. Lugar
spoke of his concerns over oil prices sustained at $60 per
barrel. Imagine the consequences of sustained oil prices of $100
per barrel, or more.
This reality is understood not only by Senator Lugar, but also
various conservative foreign policy figures, including those who
articulated in favor of war with Iraq. Influential persons such
as Richard Haas and Richard Armitage have come out recently in
favor of broad diplomatic and economic engagement with Iran,
versus the extreme confrontational approach of the Bush White
House. These conservatives are loathe to take the lead on such a
volatile issue on their own initiative. Instead, their posturing
away from confrontation with Iran is more likely a manifestation
of the reality that the conservative capitalist circles they
operate in are becoming increasingly nervous about the damage
such confrontation could bring to the economic system that
currently sustains them.
It is said that politics makes for strange bedfellows. If there
is to be any hope of forestalling a disastrous war between the
United States and Iran, there must be an internal realignment of
the delicate Kabuki dance between capitalism and individualism
in America that seeks to sustain the American way of life,
versus destroy it. Today, many in the anti-war movement decry
conservative capitalists as being the source of all that ails
America, and the nurturing point which feeds the various
economic and political power nodes that produce the variety of
special interest groups the anti-war movement likes to pin
responsibility for war in Iraq (and the possibility of war with
Iran) on. Likewise, this total disconnect between many of those
that populate the anti-war movement and the conservative circles
in which Richard Lugar, Richard Haas, and Richard Armitage
operate in means that there is no tendency on the part of these
conservatives to reach out to the anti-war movement for help in
forestalling a conflict both sides agree is wrong for America.
Many in the anti-war movement seem to recognize that there is a
need to expand the base of this movement to be much more
inclusive of mainstream America. I suggest that the pace of
current events dictate a much more dramatic solution -- that the
anti-war movement begin to reach out to the very institutions
that it condemns and make common cause for the preservation of a
way of life -- the unique blend of corporate capitalism and
individual rights -- that is at risk from the policies of the
Bush administration. It is not likely that there will be many
points of agreement on the long-term path that America should
take regarding achieving the ideal balance between these two
competing, and somewhat contradictory, concepts. But one thing
is certain: if the Bush administration has its way regarding war
with Iran, both concepts will be put at risk in the chaos which
will follow.
© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
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