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Derailing a deal
By Noam Chomsky
10/08/07 "Khaleej
Times" -- -- NUCLEAR-armed states are
criminal states. They have a legal obligation, confirmed by the
World Court, to live up to Article 6 of the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty, which calls on them to carry out
good-faith negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons entirely.
None of the nuclear states has lived up to it.
The United States is a leading violator, especially the Bush
administration, which even has stated that it isn't subject to
Article 6.
On July 27, Washington entered into an agreement with India that
guts the central part of the NPT, though there remains
substantial opposition in both countries. India, like Israel and
Pakistan (but unlike Iran), is not an NPT signatory, and has
developed nuclear weapons outside the treaty. With this new
agreement, the Bush administration effectively endorses and
facilitates this outlaw behaviour. The agreement violates US
law, and bypasses the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the 45 nations
that have established strict rules to lessen the danger of
proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control
Association, observes that the agreement doesn't bar further
Indian nuclear testing and, "incredibly, ... commits Washington
to help New Delhi secure fuel supplies from other countries even
if India resumes testing." It also permits India to "free up its
limited domestic supplies for bomb production." All these steps
are in direct violation of international nonproliferation
agreements.
The Indo-US agreement is likely to prompt others to break the
rules as well. Pakistan is reported to be building a plutonium
production reactor for nuclear weapons, apparently beginning a
more advanced phase of weapons design. Israel, the regional
nuclear superpower, has been lobbying Congress for privileges
similar to India's, and has approached the Nuclear Suppliers
Group with requests for exemption from its rules. Now France,
Russia and Australia have moved to pursue nuclear deals with
India, as China has with Pakistan — hardly a surprise, once the
global superpower has opened the door.
The Indo-US deal mixes military and commercial motives. Nuclear
weapons specialist Gary Milhollin noted Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice's testimony to Congress that the agreement was
"crafted with the private sector firmly in mind," particularly
aircraft and reactors and, Milhollin stresses, military
aircraft. By undermining the barriers against nuclear war, he
adds, the agreement not only increases regional tensions but
also "may hasten the day when a nuclear explosion destroys an
American city." Washington's message is that "export controls
are less important to the United States than money" — that is,
profits for US corporations — whatever the potential threat.
Kimball points out that the United States is granting India
"terms of nuclear trade more favourable than those for states
that have assumed all the obligations and responsibilities" of
the NPT. In most of the world, few can fail to see the cynicism.
Washington rewards allies and clients that ignore the NPT rules
entirely, while threatening war against Iran, which is not known
to have violated the NPT, despite extreme provocation: The
United States has occupied two of Iran's neighbours and openly
sought to overthrow the Iranian regime since it broke free of US
control in 1979.
Over the past few years, India and Pakistan have made strides
towards easing the tensions between the two countries.
People-to-people contacts have increased and the governments are
in discussion over the many outstanding issues that divide the
two states. Those promising developments may well be reversed by
the Indo-US nuclear deal. One of the means to build confidence
throughout the region was the creation of a natural gas pipeline
from Iran through Pakistan into India. The "peace pipeline"
would have tied the region together and opened the possibilities
for further peaceful integration.
The pipeline, and the hope it offers, might become a casualty of
the Indo-US agreement, which Washington sees as a measure to
isolate its Iranian enemy by offering India nuclear power in
exchange for Iranian gas — though in fact India would gain only
a fraction of what Iran could provide.
The Indo-US deal continues the pattern of Washington's taking
every measure to isolate Iran. In 2006, the US Congress passed
the Hyde Act, which specifically demanded that the US government
"secure India's full and active participation in United States
efforts to dissuade, isolate, and if necessary, sanction and
contain Iran for its efforts to acquire weapons of mass
destruction."
It is noteworthy that the great majority of Americans — and
Iranians — favour converting the entire region to a
nuclear-weapons free zone, including Iran and Israel. One may
also recall that UN Security Council Resolution 687 of April 3,
1991, to which Washington regularly appealed when seeking
justification for its invasion of Iraq, calls for "establishing
in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction
and all missiles for their delivery."
Clearly, ways to mitigate current crises aren't lacking.
This Indo-US agreement richly deserves to be derailed. The
threat of nuclear war is extremely serious, and growing, and
part of the reason is that the nuclear states — led by the
United States — simply refuse to live up to their obligations or
are significantly violating them, this latest effort being
another step toward disaster.
The US Congress gets a chance to weigh in on this deal after the
International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers
Group vet it. Perhaps Congress, reflecting a citizenry fed up
with nuclear gamesmanship, can reject the agreement. A better
way to go forward is to pursue the need for global nuclear
disarmament, recognising that the very survival of the species
is at stake.
Noam Chomsky's most recent book is Interventions, a
collection of his commentary pieces distributed by The New York
Times Syndicate. Chomsky is emeritus professor of linguistics
and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in
Cambridge, Mass.
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