Iran: Nuke treaty mess reaches
critical mass By Kaveh L
Afrasiabi
After nearly two weeks of
intense debates, the United Nations Security
Council has yet to reach a decision on the Iran
nuclear issue, and already dire warnings about the
adverse impact of this crisis on the
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) can be heard
aplenty.
This rising chorus of concerns
now includes Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov, who has suggested that the NPT could fall
apart as a result of the Iran crisis. Lavrov's
statement that "the NPT should remain intact" is a
diplomatic way of conveying the concerns of not
just Russia but also of many other states party to
the NPT about the potential of the row over Iran's
nuclear program
to
trigger a systemic breakdown of what has until now
been a relatively successful regime, irrespective
of its shortcomings.
In turn, this calls
for a serious scrutiny of the US and European
approach toward the Iran issue, which is
habitually justified in the name and interest of
the non-proliferation regime, yet may well have
the unintended opposite consequence of harming and
eroding the pillars of this regime.
At
last year's NPT Review Conference in New York, the
US representative, Stephen Rademaker, articulated
the US-European approach by stating that they "are
seeking to reach a diplomatic solution to the
Iranian nuclear problem, a solution that, given
the history of clandestine nuclear-weapons work in
that country, must include permanent cessation of
Iran's enrichment and reprocessing efforts, as
well as dismantlement of equipment and facilities
related to such activity".
Calling the
United States' demands "arbitrary" and based on
"self-serving criteria", Iran's then foreign
minister, Kemal Kharrazi, rebutted Rademaker's
demand at the same conference and declared that
Iran "is determined to pursue all legal areas of
nuclear technology, including enrichment,
exclusively for peaceful purposes".
One
year later, Iran's position remains the same
despite the escalation of pressures now channeled
through the Security Council and, with the growing
warnings of military strikes against Iran by both
the US and Israel, the larger issue of the
non-proliferation regime's viability and relevance
has been cast under a thickening cloud of
suspense.
The deficits of the
non-proliferation regime For 36 years, the
non-proliferation regime has been a cornerstone of
global stability. Centered on the NPT and
encompassing complex norms and institutions, such
as the implementation arm of the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which operates
through a whole array of bilateral safeguards and
verification agreements with the member states,
the non-proliferation regime is today experiencing
a pile-up of deficits or shortcomings sliding it
toward crisis.
Various experts have
attributed three types of interrelated problems to
this regime: lack of universality, in light of the
de facto nuclear states of India, Pakistan and
Israel; insufficient disarmament pertaining to
Article VI of the NPT; and lack of adequate
nuclear cooperation among the nuclear haves and
have-nots.
Often referred to as "managed
proliferation" rather than non-proliferation pure
and simple, this regime has been a byproduct of a
relatively stable bipolar Cold War order now
impacted by the tumults and turmoil of the
post-Cold War era, the salient feature of which is
US unilateralism and hegemony increasingly
challenged by a variety of state and non-state
contestants.
The chief deficits of this
international regime relate to the lack of
commitment by some states to their respective
treaty obligations, not to mention defection from
the regime by North Korea and/or the more
sedimented legitimacy deficit stemming from the
"exclusive club" of nuclear-weapon states; Article
IX of the NPT strictly restricts
nuclear-weapons-state status to those states that
manufactured and exploded a nuclear weapon prior
to June 1, 1967.
Thus the rather
(Orwellian) hilarious nature of the congressional
move in the US to approve the controversial
US-India nuclear deal, citing nuclear India as a
"non-nuclear state". The gap between the legal
approach and the objective reality has grown so
wide as to undermine the longevity of the
non-proliferation regime's legal framework.
As William Potter, director of the Center
on Non-Proliferation Education in California, has
rightly noted, in signing the "nuclear sharing"
deal with India, the administration of US
President George W Bush has subordinated the
non-proliferation considerations to "other US
foreign-policy considerations". According to
Potter and echoed by a host of other nuclear
experts, this deal in effect means that
"technology control is no longer the cornerstone
of US nuclear export and non-proliferation
policy".
A fundamental problem of the
non-proliferation regime is, to quote Hans Blix,
that "many of the non-nuclear-weapons states feel
cheated by the nuclear-weapons states for going
back on their commitments ... notably on the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty". Blix, who headed
the UN inspection of Iraq's alleged weapons of
mass destruction (WMD) before the US invasion of
that country, has raised questions about the real
purpose of discussing Iran's case at the Security
Council, stating in his recent interview in
Fletcher Forum, "I am a little curious as to what
would be the purpose of taking the Iran issue to
the Security Council. It may be a basis for a
claim that it should be handled by forceful
unilateral measures."
The US
national-security doctrine of preemption was
reiterated this month by the Bush administration,
even though it is clearly outside the UN norms and
simply augments the security vulnerabilities of
states that dare to challenge the present global
imbalance of power. The United States' singular
emphasis on nuclear superiority, its
nuclear-weapons modernization plans, and its
reliance on tactical nuclear weapons for use in
conventional theaters affect the overall
non-proliferation calculus of those states, at
least in the long run.
Clearly, the
non-proliferation regime, to the extent that it
operates within the global hierarchy of power, is
adversely impacted by the power competitions
pitting the US power against certain regional
powers. Short of a paradigm shift in world power,
the non-proliferation regime remains in a state of
starvation vis-a-vis its lofty objectives obviated
by the world powers; the latter have yet to adopt
the fissile-material cutoff treaty championed by
the UN secretary general.
Yet another
major deficit of the non-proliferation regime is
caused by so-called "Israeli exceptionalism", in
light of the fact that Israel is the only Middle
East state that is not a party to the NPT and has
reportedly amassed some 200 nuclear bombs. Giant
steps by Israel with respect to entering safeguard
and monitoring relations with the IAEA are needed
if Israel is serious about Middle East
non-proliferation.
As a regime erecting
legal barriers to the proliferation of nuclear
weapons, the non-proliferation regime has been a
candidate for rewriting, so far without much
success, thus prompting the US and Europe to
pursue the more de facto methods of coercive
counter-proliferation reflected in the punitive
measures loudly talked about against Iran. If
followed by action, this course may have the
opposite effect on the de jure revisionism of the
NPT, by weakening the Third World states' loyalty
to non-proliferation principles and norms.
Strengthening the NPT via the Iran
crisis In light of the coming US-Iran talks
on Iraq, which has been blessed by both President
Bush and Iran's spiritual leader, there is a ray
of hope for a successful resolution of the nuclear
crisis. While both sides are adamant that the
talks will focus exclusively on Iraq, there is
ample reason to believe otherwise, particularly if
the talks prove productive, in which case they can
be telescoped to other outstanding US-Iran issues.
Assuming for a moment that Iran and the US
reach some understanding on how to forge a
partnership for peace and stability in the region,
then there is no doubt that this will have a
positive impact on the nuclear talks currently
happening at the Security Council (without direct
Iranian input so far).
A second draft
statement has been circulating at the Security
Council that represents a minor improvement over
the initial draft by citing the "inalienable
right" of nations to pursue peaceful nuclear
technology. This right, pertaining to Article IV
of the NPT, has been called an unfortunate
"loophole" by the US president, claiming that it
allows the would-be proliferators such as Iran to
take advantage of it. This draft "recalls the
right of states party to the NPT, in conformity
with Articles I and II of the treaty, to develop
research, production and use of nuclear energy for
peaceful purposes without discrimination".
But there is no such loophole if the US
and Europe place enough faith in the IAEA and its
robust inspection regime.
On the other
hand, the US-Iran talks on Iraq could well extend
to the issue of regional security and include
discussion of a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the
Persian Gulf, as well as the Middle East. Iran is
reportedly now willing to discuss such a
weapons-free zone in the Gulf, and this is a
welcome step, representing a break with the past
antipathy to this idea, which was disfavored
because of exclusion of Israel. Yet many experts
are convinced that the adoption of the Persian
Gulf as a nuclear-weapons-free zone is bound to
have direct ramifications for the entire Middle
East, including by forcing Israel to take concrete
steps toward compliance with the norms of the
non-proliferation regime.
Clearly the Iran
nuclear crisis carries both positive and negative
potential with respect to the non-proliferation
regime, and its eventual outcome is not pre-fixed;
rather, it depends on the will and acumen of
leaders and decision-makers who are involved in
this crisis threatening the world peace.
Any false first steps at the Security
Council can have disastrous results down the road,
which explains why some permanent members are
disinclined to appease the Iran-bashing US envoy,
John Bolton, who has declared: "I'm not in the
carrot business." Maybe Bolton is in the wrong
business, since the UN business is the business of
crisis prevention and not escalation.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the
author of After Khomeini: New Directions in
Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and
co-author of "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear
Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume
XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu.
He is also author of
http://www.booksurge.com/product.php3?bookID=GPUB05984-00001
Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus
Fiction.
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