| |
Proliferators under
pressure
By Stephen Blank
Iran's response to the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) demand on Friday that it prove by
October 31 that it is not building an atomic weapon more
or less indicates that Tehran actually is doing so.
The doctrine that a sovereign state no longer
has to account for its actions abroad or with regard to
international security is already long outdated, and
generally is the last resort of rogues. This is
especially the case where the observance of an
international treaty, namely the Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NTP), is concerned.
In an August 26
report, the IAEA said that it had found traces of
weapons-grade highly enriched uranium at an enrichment
facility at Natanz, and Friday's IAEA resolution in
Vienna follows on this. There have been reports for many
years in news stories, by opposition revelations and
intelligence leaks describing aspects of Iran's nuclear
program and its international links to Russia, China,
North Korea, and Pakistan.
What is new now is
the IAEA's new-found willingness to hold members
accountable for compliance with treaties and a signal
diplomatic victory for Washington, which again has
marshaled a coalition on critical issues of
proliferation.
This is the Bush administration's
second victory in a short time with regard to
proliferation, the first being the formation by a
coalition of states of the Proliferation Security
Initiative that will board ships of states suspected of
trafficking in nuclear contraband and which will seize
those materials.
Both of these represent what
multilateralism in action can achieve, because it is
always the result of the strongest actor concerned
taking the lead and persuading others of its rightness
in the case at hand. Although most commentary has
focused on North Korea, a serial exporter of both
missile technology and nuclear contraband, the fact is
this initiative also strikes at Iran's program because
it is the potential recipient as well as possible
exporter of such contraband.
Indeed, Iran and
North Korea, among other states, have been joined at the
hip with regard to proliferation, and each embodies the
phenomenon of secondary or tertiary proliferation. These
terms refer to states that either have, or are seeking
to acquire, a viable nuclear capability and delivery
system to export to each other or to nuclear aspirants
the materials needed to make progress towards realizing
those objectives. Neither Iran nor Korea is alone in
this process. Russia, China and Pakistan are all charter
members of this club.
North Korea and Iran,
however, are both vulnerable. Both are, or have in the
past, collaborated with terrorists or have committed
terrorism abroad as instruments of their foreign policy.
Therefore, they both would be suspected immediately of
using nuclear weapons, either as commercial material for
such groups or to extend deterrence to them. In the
latter case, they would stand behind terrorists and use
the nuclear umbrella to do so. Certainly, both of these
states would be emboldened to behave more aggressively
should they come into possession of these weapons, and
force others to do so as well.
Iran has openly
supported the Palestinian Authority's terrorism, as well
as the Islamic Jihad and Hizbollah in Lebanon, while
committing acts of anti-Semitic terrorism abroad. North
Korea has tried to decapitate the entire South Korean
government. As a result, Israel has already made clear
that it is considering its option of a preventive strike
should Iran come close to achieving a nuclear weapon.
Indeed, Jane's recently reported that Israel's
air force acquisitions and force building programs of
the past decade have been conceived primarily with the
option of striking in this manner at Iran. Should Israel
feel itself threatened by the advent of an actual
Iranian nuclear missile capability, there is little
doubt that it might resort to a preventive strike in its
self-defense, as it did in 1981 against Iraq.
By
the same token, the Bill Clinton administration, not to
mention the Bush administration, made clear that North
Korea's development of a nuclear capability is
unacceptable. And the multilateral negotiations in
Beijing last month indicated that the rest of the region
shares that viewpoint. Hence Pyongyang's sulky responses
afterwards, but also the apparent suspension of activity
at the Youngbyon reactor site.
In the past,
proliferators have been easily able to give the IAEA,
and thus the international community, the slip, thereby
narrowing the options for effective multilateral and
international policing of the relevant arms control
treaties and emboldening them to act still more
aggressively. The upshot always was a diminution of
genuine regional or international security. As a result,
it invariably fell to the US as the most powerful actor
in the international system to take the lead in
formulating a reply to states like Iraq, Iran and North
Korea - the so-called "axis of evil".
Stephen Blank is an analyst of
international security affairs residing in Harrisburg,
PA.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co,
Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication
policies.)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
