SPEAKING
FREELY Terror and nuclear
confrontation By A Vinod Kumar
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It is rarely that
the man on the street relates to the high politics
of nuclear weapons and diplomacy; and rarely so
for people in a third country to be affected by
politics of two states in another region. Earlier
this month, an elite Delhi neighborhood witnessed
what could be termed as a sideshow of a raging
crisis in West Asia. The bombing of the Israeli
embassy vehicle in Delhi, described as a terror
incident by the Indian government, is
increasingly being seen as a
spill-over of the West Asian turmoil, aggravated
by Iran's purported nuclear weapon plans.
The Delhi attack, coinciding with similar
events in Tbilisi and Bangkok that the Iranian
government also denied a part in, comes at a time
when Iran has been subjected to stringent economic
sanctions spearheaded by the US and European
Union, following Tehran's non-compliance with
international demands to come clean on its nuclear
program. Since 2003, when Iran's alleged
clandestine activities were first reported, the
Islamic Republic has been resisting scrutiny over
its suspected facilities by the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which had reported
evidences of uranium enrichment capability beyond
the requirements of a non-nuclear weapon state
(NNWS) under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT).
Persistent diplomatic efforts
initiated by various parties failed as Iran
obstinately defied calls for greater transparency
as demanded by various United Nations Security
Council (UNSC) resolutions since 2006. As the
standoff intensified, there have been perennial
reports of Israel planning military strikes
against Iranian facilities, resembling its similar
action against Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981 and
Syria's al-Kibar facility in 2007. Amidst a
prevailing sentiment that the IAEA's November 2011
report, suggesting Iran's progress towards weapons
capability, could prepare the ground for military
action, there is renewed fear that the latest
series of attacks could be casus belli for
a pre-emptive strike.
It is beyond doubt,
however, that a military action against Iran could
definitively trigger a major conflict in the
region, with global economic and political
ramifications. For, Tehran has in recent years
considerably upgraded its military capabilities,
including long-range missiles, to respond to
aggression on its territory, and even potentially
disrupt the crucial sea-lanes passing through the
region.
Thereby, the futility of military
means or consequences of punitive actions have
long been recognised by the countries seeking to
force Iran's subjugation to the international
writ. However, not foreseeing major gains in
diplomatic efforts, key players in this crisis are
alleged to have initiated covert operations
against the Iranian nuclear program. In the past
many months, major instances of sabotage and
subversion targeting the Iranian nuclear
infrastructure were reported, which Tehran
squarely blamed on the US and Israel.
Besides what seemed to be targeted
assassinations of at least three nuclear
scientists, the cyber-attack on Iran's centrifuge
facility and the November bombings on a missile
facility at Bid Ganeh and a uranium facility in
Isfahan exemplified the existence of a
'decapitation' program. The shooting down of a US
drone in December by Iranian forces merely
confirmed the obvious.
Albeit an Iranian
tit-for-tit retaliation to these operations was
not anticipated, that Israel has blamed Tehran and
its proxies for the recent attacks is testament to
a vicious cycle of violence that could further
expand to supranational theatres. Relevant to this
eventuality would be the reports that Iranian and
Lebanese nationals are being monitored after the
Delhi attack even as Israeli citizens were
reportedly deported from the Southern Indian state
of Kerala.
With both parties exercising
plausible deniability, the need to curb all modes
of violence and subversion might be the need of
the hour. While the Delhi attack easily qualifies
to be a terror incident, the bombings of Iranian
facilities and targeted assassinations including
their collateral civilian damage may not transcend
the semantics of terror either. The international
consensus against Iran's defiance may be used to
justify preventive measures against an alleged
clandestine program. But, in an equation where
both sides indulge in subversive activities
involving civilian casualties, it would be
difficult to classify one action as
counterproliferation and other as terrorism.
Thereby, the relevance and efficacy of
counterproliferation and other punitive methods to
tackle proliferation comes into question again.
While the US-led counterproliferation initiatives
have claimed successes in thwarting numerous
proliferation attempts by countries like Libya,
North Korea and Iran, the military campaign in
Iraq, purportedly to remove weapons of mass
destruction having ended up in a regime change,
only justified the attempts of countries like Iran
to seek greater security measures, especially
against anti-proliferation mechanisms that
masquerade political missions. Similarly, the
failure to stop North Korea's nuclear expansion
illustrated the relative effete of military means
to deal with proliferation – a fundamental theme
of counterproliferation.
As things stand
today, the inefficacy of diplomacy and
counterproliferation, having led to preference for
covert measures would be a sad commentary on the
state of the non-proliferation regime, and NPT as
its cornerstone, in dealing with cases of
non-compliance or redressing security deficits
that drives states towards nuclear weapons. Iran's
alleged progress towards a weapon capability
hardly augurs well for the NPT, which has failed
to reform itself to address the systemic pressures
caused by the changing geo-strategic environment.
Under these circumstances, the means for punitive
actions against non-compliance may need a new
approach as the reality of more states seeking
security and power outside the existing framework
of the non-proliferation regime would be hard to
ignore.
A Vinod Kumar is
Associate Fellow at the Institute for Defence
Studies and Analyses, New Delhi, where he
specializes on nuclear policy issues. The views
expressed here are his own.
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