The West claims that they are afraid that Iran should never get its hands on nuclear weapons. They cite as their core objection that Iran is ruled by a monstrous regime that is capable of abusing such weapons. Is Iran being singled out only because it is a Muslim country?
This is a somewhat hypocritical and presumptuous claim coming, as it does, from the USA and Israel – both nuclear weapon states. So, why, one would ask, can one nation be nuclearized and others not. That question becomes even more pertinent when one considers how the US and Israel have track records of invasive wars that have no justification in international law. The US has, in fact, used dangerous weapons in Vietnam, Iraq, and Bosnia. And, the world has not forgotten Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Their drones, uranium depleted shells, and other documented, but not exposed, forms of brutal and barbaric warfare are too numerous to be listed here. The United States has the second-biggest nuclear stockpile in the world. No one knows precisely what Israel has. And yet, both have audacity to forbid others to have their own?
I am not trying to make the case for nuclear weapons here. Weapons of mass destruction and redundant for a civilized world in which dialogue is used as the only weapon (if it can be called that) as a way of conflict resolution. It is important to bear in mind that there exists a longstanding proposal for a Nuclear Free Weapons zone in the Middle East under which all parties will refrain from possessing nuclear weapons and disallow any third parties from stationing nuclear weapons on their oil. This was further reaffirmed in 1991 during the Madrid Peace talks until it broke down in 1995 because of Israeli non-cooperation. They simply refused to come under the watch of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). A Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (NWFZ) would have pre-empted many of the current debates and geo-political tensions.
In this article we share with you, Noam Chomsky reminds us of the U.N. Security Council Resolution 687 (1991) which explicitly commits signers to establishing a WMDFZ (Weapons for Mass destruction Free Zone) in the Middle East. In the fracas that the US and Israel have raised over the potential Iranian threat, this resolution has taken a back seat even though the resolution had many of the region’s most powerful voices supporting it. Obviously, this does not suit Israel and the USA. They will keep at what they do best – project Iran as a demonic country that can abuse its nuclear potentials- and, as in Iraq, start a war that destabilises and weakens Iran as much as is possible.
Obama has warned Iran that his threats to hit hard are not mere bluffs. America does not learn it seems. It is not capable of learning. Lessons from Afghanistan and Iraq where their escapades ended in utter doom should have taught its leaders a few things about shunning war and pursuing the dialogue track. Concurrently, Israel wants its military power to remain uncontested and is dangerously prompting a break out of conflict which can only retard any kind of broader acceptance by countries in the region.
When will the US and it’s ally-in-arms US learn that there is merit in taking the risks of peace rather than pursuing the risks of war?
In solidarity,
Ranjan Solomon
Editor
What Are Iran’s Intentions?
U.N. Security Council Resolution 687 (1991) . . . explicitly commits signers to establishing a WMDFZ in the Middle East.
By Noam Chomsky
March 2, 2012
The January/February issue of Foreign Affairs featured the article “Time to Attack Iran: Why a Strike Is the Least Bad Option,” by Matthew Kroenig, along with commentary about other ways to contain the Iranian threat.
The media resound with warnings about a likely Israeli attack on Iran while the U.S. hesitates, keeping open the option of aggression – thus again routinely violating the U.N. Charter, the foundation of international law.
As tensions escalate, eerie echoes of the run-up to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are in the air. Feverish U.S. primary campaign rhetoric adds to the drumbeat.
Concerns about “the imminent threat” of Iran are often attributed to the “international community” – code language for U.S. allies. The people of the world, however, tend to see matters rather differently.
The non-aligned countries, a movement with 120 member nations, has vigorously supported Iran’s right to enrich uranium – an opinion shared by the majority of Americans (as surveyed by WorldPublicOpinion.org) before the massive propaganda onslaught of the past two years.
China and Russia oppose U.S. policy on Iran, as does India, which announced that it would disregard U.S. sanctions and increase trade with Iran. Turkey has followed a similar course.
Europeans regard Israel as the greatest threat to world peace. In the Arab world, Iran is disliked but seen as a threat only by a very small minority. Rather, Israel and the U.S. are regarded as the pre-eminent threat. A majority think that the region would be more secure if Iran had nuclear weapons: In Egypt on the eve of the Arab Spring, 90 percent held this opinion, according to Brookings Institution/Zogby International polls.
Western commentary has made much of how the Arab dictators allegedly support the U.S. position on Iran, while ignoring the fact that the vast majority of the population opposes it – a stance too revealing to require comment.
Concerns about Israel’s nuclear arsenal have long been expressed by some observers in the United States as well. Gen. Lee Butler, former head of the U.S. Strategic Command, described Israel’s nuclear weapons as “dangerous in the extreme.” In a U.S. Army journal, Lt. Col. Warner Farr wrote that one “purpose of Israeli nuclear weapons, not often stated, but obvious, is their ‘use’ on the United States” – presumably to ensure consistent U.S. support for Israeli policies.
A prime concern right now is that Israel will seek to provoke some Iranian action that will incite a U.S. attack.
One of Israel’s leading strategic analysts, Zeev Maoz, in “Defending the Holy Land,” his comprehensive analysis of Israeli security and foreign policy, concludes that “the balance sheet of Israel’s nuclear policy is decidedly negative” – harmful to the state’s security. He urges instead that Israel should seek a regional agreement to ban weapons of mass destruction: a WMD-free zone, called for by a 1974 U.N. General Assembly resolution.
Meanwhile, the West’s sanctions on Iran are having their usual effect, causing shortages of basic food supplies – not for the ruling clerics but for the population. Small wonder that the sanctions are condemned by Iran’s courageous opposition.
The sanctions against Iran may have the same effect as their predecessors against Iraq, which were condemned as “genocidal” by the respected U.N. diplomats who administered them before finally resigning in protest.
The Iraq sanctions devastated the population and strengthened Saddam Hussein, probably saving him from the fate of a rogues’ gallery of other tyrants supported by the U.S.-U.K. – tyrants who prospered virtually to the day when various internal revolts overthrew them.
There is little credible discussion of just what constitutes the Iranian threat, though we do have an authoritative answer, provided by U.S. military and intelligence. Their presentations to Congress make it clear that Iran doesn’t pose a military threat.
Iran has very limited capacity to deploy force, and its strategic doctrine is defensive, designed to deter invasion long enough for diplomacy to take effect. If Iran is developing nuclear weapons (which is still undetermined), that would be part of its deterrent strategy.
The understanding of serious Israeli and U.S. analysts is expressed clearly by 30-year CIA veteran Bruce Riedel, who said in January, “If I was an Iranian national security planner, I would want nuclear weapons” as a deterrent.
An additional charge the West levels against Iran is that it is seeking to expand its influence in neighboring countries attacked and occupied by the U.S. and Britain, and is supporting resistance to the U.S.-backed Israeli aggression in Lebanon and illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. Like its deterrence of possible violence by Western countries, Iran’s actions are said to be intolerable threats to “global order.”
Global opinion agrees with Maoz. Support is overwhelming for a WMDFZ in the Middle East; this zone would include Iran, Israel and preferably the other two nuclear powers that have refused to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: India and Pakistan, who, along with Israel, developed their programs with U.S. aid.
Support for this policy at the NPT Review Conference in May 2010 was so strong that Washington was forced to agree formally, but with conditions: The zone could not take effect until a comprehensive peace settlement between Israel and its Arab neighbors was in place; Israel’s nuclear weapons programs must be exempted from international inspection; and no country (meaning the U.S.) must be obliged to provide information about “Israeli nuclear facilities and activities, including information pertaining to previous nuclear transfers to Israel.”
The 2010 conference called for a session in May 2012 to move toward establishing a WMDFZ in the Middle East.
With all the furore about Iran, however, there is scant attention to that option, which would be the most constructive way of dealing with the nuclear threats in the region: for the “international community,” the threat that Iran might gain nuclear capability; for most of the world, the threat posed by the only state in the region with nuclear weapons and a long record of aggression, and its superpower patron.
One can find no mention at all of the fact that the U.S. and Britain have a unique responsibility to dedicate their efforts to this goal. In seeking to provide a thin legal cover for their invasion of Iraq, they invoked U.N. Security Council Resolution 687 (1991), which they claimed Iraq was violating by developing WMD.
We may ignore the claim, but not the fact that the resolution explicitly commits signers to establishing a WMDFZ in the Middle East.
Source: The Wisdom Fund
http://www.twf.org/