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The Government’s decision to ask Parliament to extend Canada’s current mission to 2011 (2) is linked to one of the more wrong-headed but still prominent complaints voiced in the current Canadian debate over Afghanistan. It is the charge that the Germans and others with forces in the more stable north are not doing any “heavy lifting” and thus are undermining the fight against the Taliban and, what some seem to find even more disturbing, putting the future of NATO in question.

Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier echoed that line of argument when he told CTV News that “there is no job outside of the south where you actually need extra troops right now. In fact, there is contemplation all the time in military circles of “Can you move troops from the rest of the country into the south where the need is most definite?” (3)

It is a deeply counter-productive approach because the international forces in the north are in fact mounting credible and essential operations that could well turn out to be the most important for the long-term viability of development and good governance in Afghanistan. Cutting back forces in the north (we can take “north” as shorthand for those parts of the country generally onside with the Government and not heavily challenged by insurgent forces) and redeploying them to the counter-insurgency war in the south (with “south” being shorthand for the parts of country plagued by a growing insurgency and where suspicions of the Kabul Government run highest) would not reliably improve chances of suppressing the insurgency but would definitely put the stability of the north in further jeopardy.

Reports of deteriorating security in the north are now frequent, with the always present violence of crime exacerbated by growing political attacks. (4) Northern Militia leaders are said to be “exploiting Kabul’s preoccupation with the violence-ridden south and east in order to stake claims to their old fiefdoms.” Some are rearming in order to prepare what they fear may be another war with a resurgent Taliban.(5) A new Oxfam International report on development and humanitarian priorities for Afghanistan also warns that the focus on the south is leading to neglect of the north and the danger of spreading insecurity.(6)

Successful peacebuilding and stability in the north are critical to Afghan avoiding the descent into a civil war that engulfs the whole country. And for the north to remain stable and for human security to be advanced there, international stabilization forces must continue to contribute to conditions that are conducive to peacebuilding, that is, to reconstruction, disarmament, security sector reform, and accountable governance. The Manley Panel’s claim that “there is not yet a peace to keep in Afghanistan” ignores the fact that it is in the North where there is in fact a realistic prospect of gradually shifting security responsibility from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to Afghan forces.

But that will take increased attention to training police that are trusted and to building the kind of economic and social conditions on the ground that are conducive to political stability. In the “clear, hold, and develop” framework, the north was essentially “cleared” of the Taliban in the 2001 invasion by US and Northern Alliance forces, and has since been “held” by a combination of Afghan (Government and militias) and ISAF forces. The “develop” phase (reconstruction and governance in particular) has however been chronically under-resourced, with governance reform often resisted by both central government and local officials and politicians (and militia leaders) in efforts to preserve their own advantages under a still prominently corrupt system.

The priority in the North, broadly speaking, is therefore now to focus on the hold and develop tasks in order to assure a stable future for Afghans there. And, of course, the name that is usually given such a process is post-conflict peacebuilding. International forces in the north are thus following the proven model of peace support operations, what contemporary peacekeeping has become, that are designed protect people in their homes, communities, and places of work so that reconstruction can proceed. They operate under a UN Chapter VII mandate and can certainly involve the resort to lethal force, whatever national caveats may be in place. Such operations include instances of combat, but of a kind that is clearly distinguishable from the counter-insurgency fighting that tries to defeat the Taliban on their home ground.

The latter operations in the south are in the process of repeating history√Ç — namely, that insurgencies rooted in a strong ethnic community, with independent means of support (the poppy trade), and with access to havens of retreat, are not generally amenable to military defeat.

The impending danger is not that NATO will fail to find another 1000 soldiers to operate with Canadians in the south, but that the focus on the south will result in the further neglect of security, reconstruction, and governance challenges in the north.

If Parliament passes the new Afghanistan resolution, we might well renege on the military imperative to keep the peace in the north and on the diplomatic imperative to seek the peace in the south.

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1) Independent Panel on Canada’s Future Role in Afghanistan, Chaired by John Manley, reported at the end of January 08 (http://www.canada-afghanistan.gc.ca/cip-pic/afghanistan/pdf/Afghan_Report_web_e.pdf).

2) On Feb. 8 the Government tabled a motion calling for “the continuation of Canada’s current responsibility for security in Kandahar to the end of 2011.” (Available at http://www.canadaeast.com/news/article/207019.)

3) “German troops to stay in Afghan north despite pleas,” CTV.Ca, February 1, 2008.

4) “Afghan suicide blast kills 40,” “Fighters loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former mujahideen leader who is battling the Kabul government independently from the Taliban are known to be active in Baghlan,” BBC News, November 6, 2007 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7081012.stm).

5) Ron Synovitz, “Afghanistan: Armed Northern Militias Complicate Security,” Radio Free Europe, November 4, 2007 (http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/11/ffca5de1-b96c-4cdf-810b-831bec1b5a6c.html).

6)”Afghanistan: Development and Humanitarian Priorities, Oxfam International, January 2008 (http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/RMOI-7BE2T6/$File/full_report.pdf).

It took only one paragraph in the President’s Abu Dhabi speech, the only major foreign policy speech of his Middle East tour, to display the bankruptcy of the Bush non-proliferation strategy. Opening with the familiar evils of terrorism, he quickly turned to Iran. Besides deploring its support for terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Palestine, he repeated the other familiar charge that Iran “defies the United Nations and destabilizes the region by refusing to be open and transparent about its nuclear programs and ambitions.”

And the remedy? “The United States,” he explained, “is strengthening our longstanding security commitments with our friends in the Gulf — and rallying friends around the world to confront this danger before it is too late.”(1) And since “weapon” is the primary word for strength and security in the Bush lexicon, he came prepared with a $20 billion arms deal.

It’s not as if this kind of deal is anything new for Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbors. In the last eight years, as in the decade before that, Saudi Arabia has, by a large margin, been the world’s leading weapons importer – averaging almost $6 billion per year since 1999.(2) Other Gulf States, notably the three visited by the president, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates, are of course much smaller but also well within the top 20 weapons recipients.

The US, of course, is not the only arms supplier to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. Fully two-thirds of their acquisitions come from Europe, and we can be sure that the new $20 billion American deal will be more than matched by other eager suppliers.

There is only one problem. The radical militarization of regional security arrangements is not a deterrent to nuclear proliferation, but is in fact its chief driver. States are not threatened into disarmament, nor will Iran be.

For the moment Iran is bent on acquiring nuclear technology for civilian energy production, but it has made a point of using that drive to acquire dual use technologies – technologies like uranium enrichment that can also be used to build weapons – precisely to keep its options open in the face of what it perceives as growing regional threats.

Iran, in other words, is following the Japan model, gradually, but inevitably, developing the knowledge and skills needed to build nuclear weapons. And the only way to persuade Iran, again much like Japan, not to weaponize its nuclear technology will be to persuade it that it lives in a safe neighborhood. But the strategy that Mr. Bush paraded around the Gulf is designed to do the opposite – to persuade Iran it lives in a hostile neighborhood – and the result will be heightened proliferation pressures in Iran.

In the meantime, Saudi Arabia’s massive and still expanding military is not only a threat to Iran – it is a threat to the House of Saud itself. King Abdullah heads a calcified monarchy whose management of an oil-rich economy consists largely of ignoring crisis-level unemployment while brandishing the world’s most ostentatious displays of private wealth – all that in a region saddled with chronic and multilayered conflict, deeply rooted underdevelopment, and broad swaths of debilitating poverty.

As a result, the King and his extended family remain vulnerable to any internal opposition that stands a chance of winning the support of lavishly funded armed forces. Of course, the Royals have not survived this long by ignoring the obvious. The King has in fact taken care to employ divide and rule tactics to create a splintered military, tactics that have included building up the Saudi Arabia National Guard as a tribal force to protect the Royal family from both internal rebellion and the regular Saudi Army.(3) And Canada, by the way, has been a faithful supplier of armored vehicles to that same National Guard for more than a decade.(4)

Terrorism has many and complex roots, but one thing is clear, the Bush-Saudi formula – the unrestrained arming of a “Muslim” oligarchy that hordes what should be public resource wealth and that stays in power by overtly catering to the interests of the “Christian” West – is an al Qaeda recruiter’s dream. Thus, not only has there been an increase in terror attacks within Saudi Arabia, but, as attacks in the US, Europe, Indonesia and well beyond obviously demonstrate, Saudi terror recruits and their international partners now criss-cross the globe.

The threat of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East is intensified by a heightened threat environment, and the threat of global terrorism is unfortunately bolstered by the West’s deepening alliance with Middle East regimes that brazenly defy the rights and well-being of the people they rule. President Bush’s aggressive arming and public coddling of King Abdullah last week made the world more dangerous, on both counts.

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1. “President Bush Discusses Importance of Freedom in the Middle East,” Emirates Palace Hotel,
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, January 13, 2008),
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/01/20080113-1.html.

2. Richard F. Grimmett, Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1999-2006, Congressional Research Service Report to Congress (Document RL34187), September 26, 2007.

3. GlobalSecurity.org, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/gulf/sang.htm; Mark Silverberg, “Bush’a Folly,” The International Analyst Network, January 16, http://www.analyst-network.com/article.php?art_id=1605.

4. See, December 23, 2007 posting: “Why is Canada Arming the House of Saud” ( whyiscan).

“The nuclear powers could…expand the amount of information they publish about the size of their arsenals, stocks of fissile material and specific disarmament achievements. The lack of an authoritative estimate of the total number of nuclear weapons testifies to the need for greater transparency.” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon[i]

To be sure, it is a modest call to action. Obviously we need nuclear weapon states (NWS) to disarm, not just to provide more information about their arsenals. But, in fact, dramatically improved transparency (linked to verification) will be central to progress in nuclear disarmament, and the UN Security Council must finally rise to the transparency challenge issued by the Secretary-General.

For the spreading and welcome calls for nuclear abolition (most recently Global Zero, http://www.globalzero.org/) to bear fruit the UNSC’s permanent five (P5) will have to embrace with rather more enthusiasm than they have shown to date the principle of openness with regard to their weapons programs and intentions for disarmament. To be fair they have made some progress. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review process has extracted some limited transparency concessions from the P5.

The 1995 agreement to extend indefinitely the NPT rested fundamentally on the principle of “permanence with accountability.” Accountability was to be strengthened through refinements to the review process, and at the 2000 Review Conference a new reporting requirement was added. Step 12 of the Final Document’s “practical steps” to implement the Treaty’s disarmament provisions called for “regular reports.”

The reporting requirement was framed by the demands of three internationally agreed nuclear disarmament decisions:

· “cessation of the nuclear arms race” (Article VI of the NPT);[ii]

· “reduction of nuclear weapons globally, with the ultimate goals of eliminating those weapons” (Paragraph 4[c] of the 1995 Decision on “Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament”);[iii] and

· the “obligation to achieve a precise result—nuclear disarmament in all its aspects” (the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice of 8 July 1996).[iv]

The P5 have certainly resisted the idea that they are actually obliged to report on their actions, and progress, in meeting those three objectives. China and Russia are the only ones to have submitted formal reports (once in 2005). The others have refused to submit reports that they specifically identify as being in response to the 2000 agreement on reporting, but, at the same time, all five regularly report generally and informally to NPT review process meetings (including annual preparatory committees) by circulating national statements, working papers, fact sheets, and other background material. And it must be said that such reporting, while it varies considerably, has increased in detail and scope since 2000.

The principle of mutual accountability has been slow in developing within the NPT. The degree to which the reporting obligation is honored by the P5 is the degree to which they actually regard themselves as accountable to other States Parties to the Treaty – and to date it’s clear that the idea that they are beholden to any other state in these matters has clearly not caught on. Non-nuclear weapon States Parties to the Treaty on the other hand see reporting as a formal and essential expression of accountability to other States Parties. They expect reporting to become much more detailed and systematic and to mature into an effective tool by which States Parties can assess each other’s compliance with Treaty obligations.

What the nature and extent of reporting should be has received some discussion[v] in the context of the NPT along the following lines:

1. General assessments of developments and trends relevant to the implementation of the Treaty;

2. Information on details of national nuclear holdings and doctrines, for example:

• transfers or acquisition of nuclear materials,

• holdings of fissile materials,

• nuclear facilities of all kinds (military and civilian),

• holdings and production/dismantling of nuclear weapons (including the numbers, types, and yields of warheads, as well as numbers and types of delivery vehicles),

• operational status of all weapons held, and

• nuclear weapons doctrines (including security assurances) and policies to govern the use of those weapons;

3. descriptions of disarmament policies, initiatives and programs;

4. identification of advocacy and diplomatic priorities;

5. information on agreements reached and commitments undertaken;

6. regular declarations of dompliance – annual public assurances to other signatories, on an article-by-article basis, of their full compliance with the Treaty.

Accountability is the fundamental point of reporting, and reporting even at current minimal levels has at least begun to help States to better understand the approaches and activities of other States in the NPT and to generate a general attitude that each owes the others an accounting of what they are doing to implement and strengthen the disarmament and nonproliferation regime.

Even though the NPT now calls for regular reporting, it lacks the institutional infrastructure to even receive such reports, much less formulate responses to them. That’s where the Security Council could come in.

The Council has on more than one occasion called on all States to meet the requirements of the Treaties they have signed, and reporting is one means of recording and assessing compliance. In the absence of a permanent secretariat for the NPT to receive reports, the “regular reports” of NPT States could and should go directly to the Security Council. The Secretary-General should then be tasked to compile and assess them and then report annually to the Council on the state of progress toward meeting the international community’s agreed nuclear disarmament objectives.

Until resolution 1540[vi] the Security Council had never requested or received reports on nuclear weapons and disarmament, to serve as the basis for an assessment of progress in pursuit of the objectives set by Articles 11 and 26, which mandate the General Assembly and the Security Council to pursue the regulation and reduction of arms (it has, of course, received reports on specific horizontal nonproliferation situations on its agenda, such as that in Iraq).[vii] The Council’s resolution 487, on 19 June 1981, in response to Israel’s attack on Iraq’s nuclear research reactor called on Israel to place its nuclear facilities under safeguards and asked the Secretary-General to inform the Council of implementation of the resolution but was not followed up. Nor has the Council called for any updates on progress in meeting “the need for all Member States to fulfill their obligations in relation to arms control and disarmament,” as its 1992 Summit statement put it.

As the Egyptian diplomat Nabil Elaraby put it in 1996, given that the Council Summit (in 1992) concluded that “the proliferation of all weapons of mass destruction constitutes a threat to international peace and security,” it would be reasonable to “expect the Council to look at that statement, adopted at the highest possible level, and see if it should do something about it.”[viii] Lucy Webster, former political affairs officer with the UN office of disarmament, has proposed the appointment by the Secretary-General of a special rapporteur to investigate and submit regular reports to the Security Council on nuclear weapons proliferation.[ix] Other analysts have proposed that the Security Council elaborate benchmarks to help it to determine, according to objective criteria, “whether to designate a situation one of nuclear proliferation, and therefore a threat to the peace, triggering chapter Nowadays it’s never been more affordable to purchase viagra online order check these guys out from a pharmacist in your locality you can viagra at any authorized online pharmacy. Erectile dysfunction (ED) is nothing but the inability of the person to achieve and sustain male erection for satisfactory viagra generico 5mg http://miamistonecrabs.com/viagra-5382 intercourse. It is a new way to have normalized sexual health and get male-pride back. buy brand viagra It was known that wine had something to do with a blockage of normal blood flow into the penis.This tablets relax the blood vessels in the body) which is caused by heart disease, high cholesterol, and HIV. you can look here rx viagra VII.”[x]

Pierre Goldschmidt, the former deputy director general of the IAEA, calls for horizontal nonproliferation enforcement mechanisms that are objective and consistently applied: “The most effective, unbiased, and feasible way to establish a legal basis for the necessary verification measures in circumstances of non-compliance is for the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to adopt (under Chapter VII of the UN Charter) a generic (i.e. not state -specific) and legally binding resolution stating that if a state is reported by the IAEA to be in non-compliance, a standard set of actions would result” (emphasis in the original).[xi]

A similar mechanism, along with objective benchmarks, is required to assess compliance and define noncompliance regarding Article VI. Goldschmidt points out that resolution 1540 “provides a framework within which nations can question one another about activities that suggest illicit trafficking or other proscribed activity.”[xii] The Security Council could set up a similar mechanism to facilitate the same kind of questioning and accountability for getting first-hand accounts of Article VI compliance efforts. The priority disarmament agenda articulated in the NPT review process essentially defines key current benchmarks for progress and there is no doubt that in the context of the NPT review process, the P5 already have an obligation to outline steps taken toward compliance.

There remains the obvious but critical question of political will. It is true that consensus against horizontal proliferation is well advanced within the P5. But they should also obviously be aware that any moves toward tougher and coercive approaches to horizontal nonproliferation compliance will be increasingly challenged by NNWS members if compliance with Article VI obligations continues to be kept away from multilateral scrutiny.

The Security Council should thus pass a resolution to formalize the understanding that all nuclear proliferation is a threat to international peace and security, and within that to set the framework for regular reports, deliberations on the implications of those reports, and efforts to agree on follow-on undertakings to meet agreed benchmarks.

Transparency is not compliance, but it is a large step toward accountability, which in turn encourages compliance. In the absence of effective legislative, judicial, or enforcement action on disarmament, a Security Council commitment to promoting and formalizing transparency and accountability could still encourage discernable progress toward the “unequivocal undertaking,” agreed by them in 2000, “to accomplish the total elimination of nuclear weapons” as promised in Article VI of the NPT.

[i] UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in and address to the EastWest Institute (EWI), New York. 24 October 2008.

[ii] Non-Proliferation Treaty, Article VI: “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

[iii] 1995 NPT Decisions and Resolution, Decision 2: Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament: 4 (c) “The determined pursuit by the nuclear-weapon States of systematic and progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally, with the ultimate goals of eliminating those weapons, and by all States of general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

[iv] The Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice of 8 July 1996 [relevant excerpts]: Paragraph 99: “The legal import of the (Article VI) obligation goes beyond that of a mere obligation of conduct [of negotiations in good faith]; the obligation involved here is an obligation to achieve a precise result – nuclear disarmament in all its aspects – by adopting a particular course of conduct, namely the pursuit of negotiations in good faith. Paragraph 100: This two-fold obligation to pursue and to conclude negotiations formally concerns the [then] 18 States parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, or, in other words, the vast majority of the international community.”

[v] See the Ploughshares report, Transparency and Accountability: Reporting: NPT Reporting 2002-2007 (http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/Abolish/NPTreporting02-07.pdf).

[vi] Resolution 1540 requires States to take extensive measures, including reporting, to prevent the diversion of weapons of mass destruction to non-state actors and to “refrain from providing any form of support to non-State actors that attempt to develop, acquire, manufacture, possess, transport, transfer or use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and their means of delivery.”

[vii] Early on, after the formation of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1946, the Council received reports from the Commission but simply passed them along to the General Assembly. Kono, p. 83.

[viii] Nabil Elaraby, “The Security Council and Nuclear Weapons,” 28 May 1996 presentation to the NGO Working Group on the Security Council, Global Policy Forum, www.globalpolicy.org/security/docs/elaraby.htm.

[ix] Lucy Webster, “The Security Council and Nuclear Weapons,” 28 May 1996 presentation to the NGO Working Group on the Security Council, Global Policy Forum.

[x] Jack I. Garvey, “A New Architecture for the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” Journal of Conflict and Security Law, Volume 12, Number 3, 2007, 339-357.

[xi] Pierre Goldschmidt, “Priority Steps to Strengthen the Nonproliferation Regime,” Policy Outlook, February 2007, Carnegies Endowment for International Peace, www.carnegieendowment.org/files/goldschmidt_priority_steps_final.pdf.

[xii] Peter van Ham and Olivia Bosch, “Global Non-Proliferation and Counter-Terrorism: The Role of Resolution 1540 and Its Implications,” in Global Non-Proliferation and Counter-Terrorism: The Role of Resolution 1540 and Its Implications, eds., Peter van Ham and Olivia Bosch (Brookings Institution Press, Chatham House and Clingendael Institute 2007), 19-20.

India, Israel, and Pakistan remain outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and all three have nuclear weapons, so the international community still regularly calls on them “to accede to [the NPT] as non-nuclear-weapon States promptly and without conditions.”[i]

For the three states to do that they would obviously first have to disarm, which they are not about to do under the current circumstances. Nevertheless, it remains appropriate for the international community to continue to articulate its understanding of the bottom-line, long-term obligations of the three.

According to the NPT there are only five states that are recognized in international law as Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) – China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and United States – inasmuch as the NPT acknowledges only those states that had nuclear weapons at the time it was negotiated, 1968. All other states are required to stay disarmed and to make that disavowal of nuclear weapons permanent and legal commitments as signatories to the NPT. So NPT signatory states continue to call on India, Israel, and Pakistan to reverse their nuclear arms programs, as did South Africa, and to join NPT states in the treaty, as non-nuclear weapon states (NNWS).

As defacto nuclear weapon states (DNWS as opposed to NWS) with waxing rather than waning nuclear ambitions, they will continue to turn a deaf ear to disarmament appeals. That is no reason to discontinue challenging them, but it is good reason for the international community to set out some steps the three could take in order to move at least modestly toward ending their nuclear pariah status. In 2000 the Review Conference of the NPT agreed to 13 practical steps that NWS should take toward meeting their disarmament commitments under Chapter VI of the NPT, and there is now an excellent opportunity for the international community to set out some initial steps for the DNWS to follow.

The opportunity is linked to the proposed US-India deal which proposes the normalization of relations with India for the purposes of civilian nuclear cooperation. The danger in that deal is that it could lead to extensive concessions toward India in civilian nuclear cooperation without requiring any significant steps from India linked to reining in its weapons program. There are two basic steps that are most commonly called for by disarmament advocates – ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and ending the production of fissile materials for weapons purposes pending agreement on a fissile materials treaty (FMT).

A recent letter[ii] to Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG) countries, initiated by the Arms Control Association in Washington and signed by a large number of international exports and organizations, raises a number of important flaws in the agreement and makes the point that “before India is granted a waiver from the NSG’s fill-scope safeguards standard, it should join the other original nuclear weapon states by declaring it has stopped fissile material production for weapons purposes and, like the 177 other states that have singed the CTBT, make a legally-binding commitment to permanently end nuclear testing.” An additional requirement should be that, inasmuch as the exemption from the full-scope safeguards rule would essentially treat India as if it were a NWS, India should also be required to issue a national declaration that it understands itself to be bound by the basic Article VI disarmament commitments.

If the above formula were applied to all three non-NPT states, the bottom line requirement would remain the same – requiring the three to ultimately join the NPT as NNWS – but it would be a way of encouraging some positive steps in exchange for some concessions on the rules related to civilian nuclear cooperation.

Some have suggested adding a protocol to the NPT[iii] (so the Treaty itself would not be amended) to cover the situation of these three. It would acknowledge their defacto nuclear weapon status but would limit the further development of their weapons programs and prohibit testing and prohibit or phase out production of fissile material for weapons purposes. It is a constructive idea, but it would be a long, long process that might ultimately probably prove impossible, if for no other reason than Middle East states would be highly unlikely to accept Israel’s nuclear status.

A more immediate prospect for action is through the NSG – that is, to use the carrot of civilian nuclear cooperation to extract some real commitments. India’s intense domestic opposition to any concessions at all on its nuclear weapons program pretty much ensures that such a formula has little chance for success, but the real point here is to ensure that the rules at the NSG will not be changed without getting at least some disarmament/non-proliferation payoff in return.

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[i] This demand continued to be voiced by a number of states, including Canada, at the 2007 NPT PrepCom and 2007 UN First Committee.

[ii] “Fix the Proposal for Renewed Cooperation with India,” Arms Control Association, January 7, 2008 (http://www.armscontrol.org/pressroom/2008/NSGappeal.asp).

[iii] Avner Cohen and Thomas Graham Jr., “An NPT for non-members,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May/June 2004, pp. 40-44 (Vol. 60, No. 03).

Canada is helping to train the Afghan National Army (ANA) to become a disciplined security force that has the capacity to support Afghan stability and protect the people of Afghanistan. The political context in Afghanistan is still such that it remains rather a long way from reaching that goal, but it is important to prepare security forces for that day, and that takes disciplined skills training, the development of a culture of respect for human rights and international humanitarian law, and appropriate equipment.

If even a small part of that equipment is to come from Canada it needs to be vetted through the meticulous application of export controls consistent with Canadian policy and international standards. Before we can know whether that responsibility has been met in the transfer of automatic rifles to Afghanistan, answers to several questions are needed.

1. Does the transfer conform to the requirement, in Canadian legislation, that the export of automatic firearms is prohibited to states not on the Automatic Firearms Country Control List (AFCCL)?

The Export and Import Permits Act is clear that automatic rifles (which are prohibited firearms under subsection 84.1 of the Criminal Code) may be exported only to countries on the AFCCL.[i] For a country to be added to the list it must have “an intergovernmental defence, research, development and production arrangement” with Canada.[ii]

There is no apparent provision in the Act to exempt direct Government-to-Government transfer. Indeed, when Canada transferred surplus C-5 fighter aircraft to Botswana, it had to be added to the AFCCL before the deal could go through because the C-5s were equipped with automatic weapons (20 mm cannons)[iii] – of course, just what might be involved in a Canada-Botswana “defence, research, development and production arrangement” is another matter.

Foreign Affairs officials have so far not responded to inquiries about how the AFCCL requirement functions in the case of the automatic firearms transferred to Afghanistan – since Afghanistan is certainly not on the AFCCL.

2. What provisions have been made to ensure that the C-7s will be under effective inventory control in Afghanistan and that diversion will be prevented?

Very few illegal guns start out that way. Guns legally transferred to places where inventory control is weak, and all reports about the current Afghan National Army suggest that the description applies, invariably end up being diverted in large numbers to unauthorized users or into a black market. A September 2006 report from the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction “charged that the Department of Defense transferred hundreds of thousands of pistols, assault rifles and machine guns to Iraqi security forces without recording serial numbers or establishing any other mechanism for accountability.”[iv]

Similarly, many of the arms supplied to the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan before and during the early stages of the war launched against Afghanistan in 2001 have made their way into the hands of armed militias and individuals. Indeed, according to Oxfam International there could be as many as10 million small arms circulating in Afghanistan, a country of 23 million people.[v]Whatever the true number, the legal status of most of these weapons is at best ambiguous and illegal armed groups are a threat to constitutional authority throughout the country. Any supplier that decides to add still more weapons to that super-saturated small arms environment had better be in a strong and confident position to ensure that none of them are diverted to exacerbate the extraordinary challenge that small arms already present to a country not short on challenges.

3. Has Canada entered into a formal and verifiable agreement with Afghanistan to require that the arms which the C-7 are replacing will be destroyed and prevented from cascading down to illicit users?

Even more difficult than assuring ongoing ANA control over the new C-7s will be preventing the AK-47s which the C-7s replace from drifting into the small arms supermarket that flourishes in Afghanistan. There have even been reports of warlords linked to the Northern Alliance selling some of their current surpluses to the Taliban.[vi] The urgent objective is now to collect those widely circulating weapons, not to add to their number.

In the 2001 UN Small Arms Program of Action, Canada signed on to a political commitment to ensure that whenever new arms are provided, there is an obligation to ensure that the old arms which become surplus are responsibly disposed of, “preferably through destruction.”[vii] Of course, 2500 new weapons is a small number in the Afghanistan scheme of things, but the principle is fundamental and the Department of National Defence needs to explain the arrangements it has made to prevent cascading.[viii]

4. What assessment has the Department of Foreign Affairs made to ensure that the transfer conforms to its human rights guideline for arms transfers?

The current guideline does not prohibit the sale of weapons to states of significant human rights violations; rather it is designed to prevent such transfers if there is a significant risk that the particular weapons involved will be used against civilians. On the surface at least, that would seem to be a serious risk in this instance.

Automatic weapons are obviously designed to be used against people, and human rights organizations report abuses by Afghan security forces. Since the rifles are going to the ANA Brigade that Canada supports, we have to assume that any misuse issues will be addressed. Nevertheless, it would be helpful to understand how Foreign Affairs has assessed the risk.

5. How has Foreign Affairs dealt with the Canadian policy guideline against the supply of arms to countries engaged in armed conflict or where such conflict is imminent?

Obviously, Canada is directly engaged in the Afghan conflict, and thus it would be rather strange for Canada to prohibit arms transfers to the Armed Forces of the very state for which we are providing security assistance. On the other hand, we do need to hear from Foreign Affairs how it understands the relevance of this particular arms transfer principle. The proposed international arms trade treaty states this principles in slightly different terms – as a prohibition on arms transfers that risk undermining the national and regional security situation.[ix] Here too it would be useful for Foreign Affairs to explain the relevance of this particular guideline.[x] Is it irrelevant only in this case, or has there been a policy shift which regards the guideline more broadly irrelevant?

6. Is Ottawa hoping that the donation of 2500 C-7s will be followed-up by sales of much larger quantities of these Canadian-built weapons?

Not all agree that the introduction of C-7s into the ANA is wise. David Pugliese’s Ottawa Citizen Blog helpfully elaborates on the arguments.[xi]ANA soldiers are accustomed to AK-47s, they are the weapons of choice of the region, they are reportedly easy to use and require less maintenance and cleaning to keep them reliable in the dust and sand of Afghanistan. The C-7s, on the other hand, require much more extensive care and maintenance for them to work effectively. Why, in a projected Army of 50-70,000, introduce 2500 guns that require special training and different ammunition from the primary weapon, the AK-47?

Or does DND know something we don’t, namely that these 2500 C-7s are seedlings that are expected to sprout into much larger shipments for sale and profit?

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[i] Import Export Permits Act, Section 7.(2):

“The Minister may not issue a permit under subsection (1) to export any thing referred to in any of paragraphs 4.1( a) to ( c) [prohibited weapons], or any component or part of such a thing, that is included in an Export Control List unless

( a) the export is to a country included in an Automatic Firearms Country Control List; and

( b) the prohibited weapon or component or part thereof is exported to the government of, or a consignee authorized by the government of, that country.”

http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/ShowFullDoc/cs/E-19///en?noCookie

[ii] Section 4.1 of the Act (http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/ShowFullDoc/cs/E-19///en?noCookie).

[iii] Ken Epps, “The Automatic Firearms Country Control List and Canada’s firearms exports,” The Ploughshares Monitor, Spring 2006, volume 27, no. 1 (http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/monitor/monm06c.pdf).

[iv] Susan Waltz, ” US Policy on Small Arms Transfers:

A Human Rights Perspective,”Working Paper no. 43, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, 13 October 2007(http://www.du.edu/gsis/hrhw/working/2007/43-waltz-2007_rev.pdf).

[v] Available at Oxfam,http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/conflict_disasters/downloads/bn_afghanistan.pdf,

or through the Council of Foreign Relations,

http://www.cfr.org/project/1294/council_special_report_on_small_arms_and_light_weapons.html

[vi] Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi, IWPR staff reporter in Mazar-e-Sharif , “The Northern Alliance may supply arms to Taliban, Institute for War and Peace Reporting, March 12, 2006 (http://www.rawa.org/arm-taliban.htm).

[vii] “Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects, 2001, UN Document A/CONF.192/15 ,Section II, Para 18

(http://disarmament.un.org/cab/poa.html).

[viii] Afghanistan: Where the rule by the gun continues, IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (http://www.irinnews.org/InDepthMain.aspx?InDepthId=8&ReportId=34289&Country=Yes).

[ix] Elaborated in Ernie Regehr, Canadaand the Arms Trade Treaty, Canadian Institute of International Affairs (Vol. 64, No. 6), http://www.igloo.org/ciia/Publications/behindth

[x] The current guideline promises to “closely control” exports to countries “that are involved in or under imminent threat of hostilities.” Report on Exports of Military Goods from Canada 2003-2005(www.exportcontrols.gc.ca).

[xi] David Pugliese, “Is Giving C-7s to the Afghan National Army the Right Move?” Defence Watch(OttawaCitizen.Com),http://communities.canada.com/ottawacitizen/blogs/defencewatch/archive/2008/01/03/is-giving-c-7s-to-the-afghan-national-army-the-right-move.aspx.

Stephanie Nolen’s incisive New Years Day report in the Globe and Mail on Somalia[i] was a welcome and informative antidote to the dearth of attention to the ongoing tragedy there. One key assertion – that the current troubles are rooted in the 2004 peace deal that “produced a transitional government made up largely of warlords” – invites a small quibble, but the unending horror faced by Somalis, and vividly portrayed in her report, is the only history that matters.

As noted once before in this space, I had the privilege of being present as an observer at the first meeting of the new Parliament of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) established by that deal, and neither it nor the subsequent Cabinet was, or was thought to be at the time, dominated by warlords. There were warlords present, not least being President Abdullahi Yusuf, but the problem was really the opposite. That first Parliament was built on a careful and complicated formula for balancing clan representation, and one important reason that it failed to establish itself in the capital, Mogadishu, was that it lacked the backing of warlords, or at least the support of any credible national or multilateral security forces.

It was the warlords of Mogadishu who kept it out, partly because they did not want their own self-defined power and authority supplanted by a more broadly-based Government and partly because Abdullahi Yusuf, with links to Ethiopia, assembled a Government that was perceived to be overtly pro-Ethiopian (and antagonistic to the Hawiye clan dominated warlords of Mogadishu).

The peace process, brokered by Kenyan diplomat Bethuel Kiplagat on behalf of the Horn of Africa regional organization, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, involved more than 500 delegates in broadly based negotiations involving clan representatives, women, civil society groups, and, to be sure, some warlords. The TFG it produced had its share of internal difficulties, but it especially faltered when the pleas for international peacekeeping forces to support it fell on deaf ears and when the warlords with the clout to protect it refused to accept it.

But that is history, and whatever hope there was at the time has now been thoroughly dashed. When the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) brought welcome stability to the Capital in mid-2006, as it had to other parts of the country earlier, there were hopes, and talks toward that end, of the UIC and TFG working out a power-sharing arrangement. The failure to pass through that briefly opened window of opportunity is a mixed tale of conflicting clan, Islamist, warlord, and foreign interests.

The Ethiopian invasion at the end of 2006, accompanied by some independent US attacks on claimed al-Qaeda strongholds, was ostensibly to support the TFG, but its only achievement was the return to chaos and inspiration for an insurgency that shows no signs of abating. Since then half of the population of Mogadishu, 600,000 people (a million in the country as a whole), have fled the fighting. The promised African Union peacekeeping force of 8,000 has reached only about 1,700 (1,600 Ugandans and 100 newly arrived Burundians).[ii]

The Security Council has instructed UN Secretary-General to develop contingency plans for a possible UN deployment, despite Ban Ki-moon’s own statements earlier that the situation was too dangerous even to send an assessment team.[iii]

In the meantime, the fighting is as intense as ever and hope is as remote as ever.

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[i] “Ferocity of conflict threatens Somali,” January 1, 2008 (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080101.wxsleepersomalia01/BNStory/International/).

[ii] “Burundi soldiers arrive in Somalia,” December 23, 2007, Aljazeera.net (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/530BA7EA-8C4E-4021-B81C-55A318660BA4.htm).

[iii] Claudia Parsons, “UN Council urges more support for AU in Somalia,” Reuters, December 19, 2007 (http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N19627596.htm).

Canada’s provision of helicopters to Pakistan’s military deserves the same kind of scrutiny that is finally raising serious questions in Washington[i] about the utility of showering President (and former General) Pervez Musharraf with cash and weapons to prosecute the “war on terror.”

At least some US experts on South Asian political and military affairs were pointing out well before the assassination of Benazir Bhuto that Islamabad sees its strategic interests running more toward fomenting terrorism than fighting it. In its conflict with India, a country that far outstrips it in military, economic, and diplomatic power, Pakistan depends on the asymmetric tactic of inducing militant insurgents to disrupt Kashmir. As for Afghanistan, Christine Fair of the US Institute for Peace[ii] points out that Pakistan sees it more as a client state than a neighbor and thus shows little interest in promoting its stability, especially in support of a factional government whose sympathies lean more toward New Delhi than Islamabad.

Doug Saunders of the Globe and Mail sums up the Pakistan card that the west has been playing: “For seven years, Western governments have been making an expensive bet: that by an alliance with Pakistan’s military dictatorship, we can make Afghanistan more stable and peaceful, reduce international terrorism and, eventually, have a Pakistani leader who is not an unelected general. Canada spends $50-million a year on aid, much of it intended to achieve this goal. The U.S. spends 20 times more. And NATO is betting much of its Afghan mission on it.”[iii]

Since 2001 US military aid to Pakistan has exceeded $10 billion, much of it unaccounted for and intended as a general reimbursement for Pakistan’s hoped for anti-terror initiatives, with some of it used, as the New York Times reports, to buy refurbished Cobra attack helicopters.”[iv] But, along with the Cobras, in 2004 and 2005 there were shipments of $240 million[v] worth of Canadian-built Bell 412 utility helicopters:[vi]

Though built in Canada, the 26 helicopters were shipped as part of the US military sales program – initially provided under a US financed lease arrangement, but then handed over to the Pakistan military in late 2007.[vii] The helicopters are defined as civilian in Canada, but in Pakistan they are specifically earmarked for “war on terror” activity – at a November 2007 handover ceremony, the Pakistan Director General of Army Aviation, Major General Syed Taqi Naseer Rizvi said he hoped the Bell 412s “would go a long way in fortifying the country’s capability to effectively combat the menace of terrorism.”[viii] (The company prefers to highlight the humanitarian role of the Bell 412s, which, following the 2005 Pakistan earthquake was substantial – “In the 45 days following the earthquake, the 16 Pakistani Army 412s flew 4,580 missions, an average of 102 missions per day. They logged 2,743 hours and were credited with rescuing 54,960 people. The Pakistani Army 412s were supported by the nine-member Bell Team located in Pakistan.”)[ix]

Canada currently prohibits the shipment of any military equipment to Pakistan – a policy in place since Pakistan’s 1998 nuclear weapon tests.[x] However, the helicopters get through to the Pakistan military because they are designated civilian and thus are not on the Export Control List and do not require an export permit. The most recent Foreign Affairs report on military exports explains that “civilian goods and technology that are not covered by any group in the Export Control List are not normally subject to export controls, even if they are intended for sale to a military end user” – adding, disingenuously at best, that “these are items such as fuel and food.”[xi] The report is silent on the helicopters.

Exporting utility helicopters to the Pakistan military is an explicit but unexamined foreign policy statement by Canada. Having absolved itself of the responsibility to grant or withhold an export permit for these helicopters, Ottawa abdicates its responsibility to carefully assess the wisdom of relying on Pakistan to militarily defeat insurgents, both in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Seven years into Washington’s “war on terror,” insurgents in both countries have proven themselves not to be amenable to military defeat. President Musharraf, at the same time, finds this less alarming than might be expected and is certainly a less than enthusiastic ally in the effort to stabilize Afghanistan. Like its Afghanistan policy, Ottawa’s Pakistan policy requires some careful assessment – an assessment that should have preceded the shipment of helicopters.

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[i] “Between Cheney and a hard place: America wants its counter-terrorism money’s-worth from Pakistan,”The Economist, March 1, 2007 (http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=8776347).

CNN, Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees, November 6, 2007 (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0711/06/acd.02.html): Joe Johns, CNN Congressional Correspondent: “Ever since the horror and shock of 9/11, some say the U.S. war on terror has meant a blank check for Pakistan. Since 2001, the United States has kicked in $10.5 billion in funding to Pakistan. In fact, it’s probably more. Some of the money is off the books because it’s called covert spending. Experts claim U.S. officials have no idea what the money is really buying.”

[ii] Christine Fair, a specialist in South Asian political and military affairs at the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention at the United States Institute for Peace (October 2006, PBS programs on the “Return of the Taliban.”)http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/taliban/pakistan/fair.html.

[iii] Doug Saunders “Back off, but don’t walk away,”Globe and Mail, December 29, 2007 (http://ago.mobile.globeandmail.com/generated/archive/RTGAM/html/20071228/wessay_saunders29.html.

[iv] By David Rohde, Carlotta Gall, Eric Schmitt And David E. Sanger, “U.S. Officials See Waste in Billions Sent to Pakistan,” The New York Times, December 24, 2007 (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/24/world/asia/24military.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print).

[v] Ken Epps, Statistics Canada search, http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/sc_mrkti/tdst/tdo/tdo.php#tag.

[vi] Ken Epps, “Canadian helicopters to Pakistan armed forces,” The Ploughshares Monitor, Summer 2004 (Vol. 25, No. 2) (http://ploughshares.ca/libraries/monitor/monj04f.htm).

[vii] “As part of a 235-million dollar project, Pakistan leased the Bell-412 helicopters from the US, which provided the resources and manpower training to run them, the US embassy said.” (“US gives 30 copters to Pakistan,” Agence France-Presse. Islamabad, October 23, 2007,http://www.newagebd.com/2007/oct/23/inat.html.)

[viii] “US gives 30 copters to Pakistan,” Agence France-Presse. Islamabad, October 23, 2007,http://www.newagebd.com/2007/oct/23/inat.html.

[ix] From a Bell Helicopter press release, January 23, 2006,

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/cgi-bin/client/modele.pl?prod=66040&session=dae.32119770.1199017253.9Xi4x38AAAEAADsRbe0AAAAU&modele=jdc_1.)

[x] Report on Exports of Military Goods from Canada 2003-2005, Export Controls Division, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, p. 2 (http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/trade/eicb/military/military-reports-en.asp).

[xi] Report on Exports of Military Goods from Canada 2003-2005, Export Controls Division, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, p. 2 (http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/trade/eicb/military/military-reports-en.asp).

According to the just-released Foreign Affairs report on Canadian military exports (2003 through 2005),[i] Canada shipped $214 million worth of Canadian-built armored vehicles to Saudi Arabia in 2004. Indeed, Saudi Arabia was a consistent and prominent customer of Canadian-built armored vehicles for the better part of a decade, until 2005 when deliveries dropped sharply.

In the social order of our partner in arms the ordeal of the rape victim fits a pattern. The US State Department, for example, describes Saudi Arabia as engaging in Tier 3 human trafficking, the category reserved for the most serious violators under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. But as Human Rights Watch points out, the US “administration has consistently waived sanctions against Saudi Arabia that are supposed to be triggered by that designation, arguing that a full waiver needs to be given to allow military sales to Saudi Arabia ‚Äòto advance the goals of the Global War on Terror and U.S. commercial interests.'”[ii] The Canadian-built armored vehicles go to Saudi Arabia via the US foreign military sales program.

Amnesty International elaborated, in its 2006 report, on the human rights abuses of the Saudi regime:

“The government continued with reform initiatives but these had little impact in improving human rights. There were new violations linked to the “war on terror” and further clashes between security forces and members of armed groups. Scores of people suspected of belonging to or supporting such armed groups were reported to have been arrested but the authorities did not divulge their identities or other information about them, and it was unclear whether any were charged and brought to trial. Peaceful critics of the government were subjected to prolonged detention without charge or trial. There were allegations of torture, and floggings continued to be imposed by the courts. Violence against women was prevalent and migrant workers suffered discrimination and abuse. At least 39 people were executed.[iii]

Canadian export regulations – or regulations proposed for an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), the feasibility of which is to be investigated by a UN Group of Governmental Experts in 2008[iv]- do not prohibit military exports to serious human rights violator countries, unless there is a risk that the particular equipment being shipped will be used against civilians.[v] The NGO-developed draft ATT articulates the same broadly accepted principle of arms transfer restraint, saying military commodities should not go to states in which it is reasonable to expect they will be used in serious human rights abuses.[vi]

Any reliable assessment of the likelihood of a particular piece of military equipment being directly used by the recipient state in human rights abuses obviously requires some knowledge to the recipient’s record or habit in that regard. The Canadian armored vehicles have been going to the Saudi National Guard and GlobalSecurity.Org fills in some background:

“Saudi Arabia really has two different armies. The Saudi Arabia National Guard (SANG) is not like the US National Guard. It is a tribal force forged out of those tribal elements loyal to the Saud Family. The SANG’s mission is to protect the royal family from internal rebellion and the other Saudi Army, should the need arise. It is also a counterbalance within the royal family to Sudairi control over the regular armed forces. The Ministry of Defense and Aviation (MODA) contains the “official” Saudi Army (Royal Saudi Land Forces). Its mission is to protect the country from external threats, and to serve as a balance against SANG, should the royal family decide to eliminate some clan hostile to the King’s rule.”

“After the war [Desert Storm] ended, it was reported that an enlargement of the national guard to eleven or twelve active brigades was contemplated. In addition, the Commando APCs were to be replaced by more than 1,000 eight-wheeled light armored vehicles (LAVs) manufactured by General Motors in Canada [now General Dynamics]. The LAVs were to be mounted with a variety of armaments, such as 25mm guns, kinetic energy guns, and TOW missile launchers.”[vii]

The 2004 report by the US State Department, the peak year of these Canadian armored vehicle shipments to the Saudis, specifically points to the human rights abuses of the Security Forces of Saudi Arabia, including the National Guard:

“Members of the security forces committed human rights abuses. The Government continued to commit abuses against members of the Shi’a Muslim minority. Government security forces reportedly arrested Shi’a based on scant suspicion, held them in custody for lengthy periods, and then released them without explanation. The Government’s human rights record remained poor overall with continuing serious problems, despite some progress. Citizens did not have the right to change their government. Security forces continued to abuse detainees and prisoners, arbitrarily arrest, and hold persons in incommunicado detention.”[viii]

As already noted, Canadian policy is against military sales to locations where there is a risk that the particular commodity will be used against civilians. Independent human rights organizations and the US State department all confirm that the Saudi recipient of the Canadian LAVs is routinely engaged in human rights abuses. So why have successive governments allowed Canadian armored vehicles to be shipped to Saudi Arabia? Presumably Ottawa argues that the armored vehicles are not specifically part of Saudi Arabia’s abuse apparatus. But both Canadian policy and emerging arms transfer principles put the onus on Foreign Affairs to make a detailed and credible public case for why large volumes of armored vehicle shipments to the Saudi National Guard are not a human rights threat in a country where rape victims must receive the pardon of the supreme ruler.

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[i] See the CBC report with Ken Epps of Project Ploughshares (“Arms exports reached record levels in 2003: report,” December 21, 2007, http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/12/21/arms-exports.html?ref=rss). The report is available online: Report on Exports of Military Goods from Canada 2003-2005, Export Controls Division, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada (http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/trade/eicb/military/military-reports-en.asp).

[ii] ” Is There a Human Rights Double Standard? US Policy Toward Saudi Arabia, Iran, Uzbekistan, and Pakistan,” Testimony by Tom Malinowski, Human Rights Watch Washington advocacy director to the US House of Representatives Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight(June 14, 2007). http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/06/14/usint16481.htm

[iii]Amnesty International Report 2007 on Saudi Arabia, http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/middle-east-and-north-africa/west-gulf/saudi-arabia.

[iv] Ernie Regehr, “Canada and the Arms Trade Treaty,” Behind The Headlines (Volume 64, No. 6), Canadian Institute of International Affairs and The Centre for International Governance Innovation (http://www.igloo.org/ciia/Publications/behindth).

[v] The current Canadian guideline says “Canada closely controls the export of military goods and technology to countries whose governments have a persistent record of serious violations of the human rights of their citizens, unless it can be demonstrated that there is no reasonable risk that the goods might be used against the civilian population.” Report on Exports of Military Goods from Canada 2003-2005, Export Controls Division, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada (http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/trade/eicb/military/military-reports-en.asp).

[vi] A draft Treaty, prepared in consultation with international law experts at Cambridge University, UK, makes the similar point this way:”A Contracting Party shall not authorise international transfers of arms in circumstances in which it has knowledge or ought reasonably to have knowledge that transfers of arms of the kind under consideration are likely to be used in the commission of serious violations of human rights.” The full draft is available athttp://www.armstradetreaty.com/att/att.framework.pdf

[vii]GlobalSecurity.org, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/gulf/sang.htm.

[viii]US State Department Country Reports on Human Rights (2004)

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41731.htm.

Nobel Laureate Al Gore suggested to delegates to the UN climate change conference in Bali this week that they ought to emulate the play-making finesse of Bobby Hull or Wayne Gretzky – recalling Hull’s famous line: “I don’t pass the puck to where they are – I pass the puck to where they’re going to be.” Well, said Gore, “Over the next two years the United States is going to be somewhere it is not now. You must anticipate that.”

It is an obviously hopeful thought and is relevant to any number of US policy envelopes – not least nuclear disarmament. But is it as realistic as it is desirable? Can we count on the Democrats to take America, and therefore all of us, at least a bit closer to that better disarmament place the world deserves?

On the assumption that Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have the best chances of winning the Democratic Party nomination, and that with either of the them the Democrats stand a solid chance of regaining the White House, it’s worth taking a (very) brief look at their respective positions on four key issues – overall nuclear weapons reductions, management of the current inventory (RRW), a nuclear test ban (CTBT), and a ban on further production of fissile materials for weapons purposes (FissBan). A survey last summer by the Council for a Livable World is one good source for each of the candidates’ respective positions.[i]

Reductions

Democrats generally have aligned themselves[ii]with the by now well-known appeal by Henry Kissinger, and three others, for US leadership in taking the world “to a solid consensus for reversing reliance on nuclear weapons globally as a vital contribution to preventing their proliferation into potentially dangerous hands, and ultimately ending them as a threat to the world.”[iii]

Clinton advocates substantial reductions in the arsenals of all Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) and calls for an increase in nuclear warning time to reduce dangers of accidental or unauthorized launch.

Obama similarly calls for reductions. Speaking to DePaul University in Chicago, he rejected unilateral disarmament and pledged to “retain a strong nuclear deterrent,” but promised to stay with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty “on the long road towards eliminating nuclear weapons.”[iv] He calls for a reduced role for nuclear weapons and for a scaling back from “outdated postures” of the Cold War.

RRW and Threat Reduction

The Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program of the Bush Administration has become controversial inasmuch it has shifted the focus from one of assuring the reliability of current warheads to the design and building of new warheads. That in turn generates new interest in testing in the US (hence the opposition in some quarters to the CTBT), which in turn threatens to embolden other nuclear weapon states to rebuild, refine, and test their own warhead inventories.[v]

Clinton has been critical of the RRW and says there is a need for a “considered assessment of what we need these weapons for or what the impact of building them would be on our effort to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.” She places high emphasis on the threat of nuclear terrorism, calling it “one of the greatest national security threats the United States faces today.” She has made this one of her top priorities in the Senate with actions that include support for redirecting funds from missile defence to Cooperative Threat Reduction and the introduction of a Bill (the Nuclear Terrorism Prevention Act) that would commit the US to working internationally to “establish and implement a stringent standard for nuclear safety at all facilities worldwide that hold weapons or weapons-usable fissile material.”

Obama’s position on RRW is similar: “Before we consider developing new nuclear weapons we must consider what the role of these weapons should be.” He says the RRW program undermines US leadership in de-emphasizing the role of nuclear weapons. To maintain deterrence, he says, the US doesn’t need a new generation of warheads. He also emphasizes the need to secure all nuclear materials and bombs to prevent terrorist access to them. “As president, I will lead a global effort to secure all nuclear weapons and material at vulnerable sites within four years.” The Lugar-Obama initiative is designed to “help the United States and our allies detect and stop the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction throughout the world.”

CTBT

The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is a priority for both candidates.

Clinton pledges to pursue bi-partisan support for the CTBT and regards its ratification as an early priority. She also promises to maintain the testing moratorium in the meantime and charges that the Bush Administration’s policy on RRW and its refusal to ratify the CTBT have undermined US security. Obama also promises to make CTBT ratification a priority. In the meantime he says the US should pay its full share of the costs of the CTBT Organization, which is not now the case.

FissBan

The long-time objective of ending production of nuclear materials for weapons purposes is currently stymied, as it has been for a decade, in the Geneva Conference on Disarmament. Both Clinton and Obama call for negotiations toward a verifiable ban (the latter being a significant switch from the Bush policy which says that verification would not be possible).

It is of course far from certain that the Democrats will recapture the White House at the end of 2008. Furthermore, the gap between campaign rhetoric and administration action is as wide in the US as anywhere. But, even so, there is still plenty of reason to believe that almost any one of the Democratic contenders would improve on the attitude and energy that the US now brings to the nuclear disarmament table.

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[i] Council for a Livable World, 2008 Presidential Candidates’ Responses to Seven Key National Security Questions, August 16, 2007 (http://www.clw.org/assets/pdfs/2008_presidential_candidates_questionnaire_responses.pdf).

[ii] Zachary Hosford, “News Analysis: The 2008 Presidential Primaries and Arms Control,” Arms Control Today, December 2007 (http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2007_12/NewsAnalysis.asp).

[iii] By George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger and Sam Nunn.”A World Free of Nuclear Weapons,” Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, January 4, 2007; Page A15. Available at (http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=2252&issue_id=54).

[iv] Jeff Zeleny, “Obama Highlights His War Opposition,” The New York Times, October 2, 2007 (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/us/politics/02cnd-obama.html?adxnnl=1&ref=politics&adxnnlx=1197663073-rNS8Vbu34qn7a69asqr6JA).

[v] Robert W. Nelson, “If it Ain’t Broke: The Already Reliable U.S. Nuclear Arsenal,” Arms Control Today, April 2006 (http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2006_04/reliablefeature.asp).

The US National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear programs (NIE)[i] should decisively rob Washington hawks of any credible rationale for attacking Iran. What the NIE did not do, however, is explain or expose the surfeit of nuclear ambiguities that remain in Iran and that could be widely replicated in the event of the global surge in nuclear power development, dubbed the nuclear renaissance, that some are predicting.

More remarkable than the conclusion that Iran ended its nuclear weapons program four years ago is the NIE’s judgment that “Iran has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity eventually to produce nuclear weapons if it decides to do so.” That’s not an insight that depends on a global spy network; in fact, the most interesting thing about it is what the NIE left out – namely, that the same conclusion must be reached about a large and growing number of other states.

That is a genuinely worrisome reality because none of those potential nuclear states will be prevented from pursuing nuclear weapons by international efforts to deny them the requisite knowledge, which is what President Bush still keeps describing as the objective with regard to Iran.[ii] In fact, the only way to keep a broad swath of industrializing states from exercising a nuclear weapons option is to build an international security environment that persuades each of them to consistently make the political calculation that their national interests are best advanced by foregoing nuclear weapons.

Creating that kind of nuclear unfriendly environment requires at least two key elements. First, it needs a strict set of non-proliferation rules supported by a reliable system for monitoring national compliance and which imposes an unacceptably high price on any state that violates non-proliferation rules. Second, it requires a global political climate that is both responsive to the security needs of particular states and regions and rejects nuclear weapons as instruments of either prestige or strategic influence – evidence of the latter would be some serious action by the current nuclear weapon states to finally meet their disarmament obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Anyone who has observed nuclear disarmament diplomacy in general, and the UN Conference on Disarmament in particular, knows how far we currently are from fulfilling the second requirement. But the NIE report highlights the first requirement, for clear and enforceable non-proliferation rules, with another rather obvious point about Iran that has a much broader application. If Iran were to decide to produce weapons-usable highly enriched uranium, says the report, it “probably would use covert facilities, rather than its declared nuclear sites.” In other words, as Iran’s extensive clandestine activities prior to 2003 also demonstrate, a reliable inspections regime capable of unearthing secret operations will be essential to meeting the coming challenges.

Building such a regime is the immediate responsibility of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Its last report on Iran[iii] notes some genuine progress in clearing up questions about Iran’s pre 2003 clandestine activity, but it still renders the unequivocal judgment that, given Iran’s gingerly cooperation, “the Agency is not in a position to provide credible assurances about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran.” The IAEA is in a position to confirm that all of Iran’s declared activity, including uranium enrichment, is accounted for and not being diverted for weapons purposes, but preventing clandestine programs, in Iran or any of other country with relevant technical capabilities is another matter.

That means that the real Iran problem is not its declared and inspected uranium enrichment program, rather it is that, “since early 2006, the [IAEA] has not received the type of information that Iran had previously been providing, pursuant to the Additional Protocol and as a transparency measure. As a result, the Agency’s knowledge about Iran’s current nuclear programme is diminishing.” This is therefore not the time for the international community, including the UN Security Council, to ease the pressure on Iran,[iv] but the ongoing pressure needs to be focused directly on overall transparency, not on monitored enrichment.

The international community cannot yet be confident that Iran is and will be a reliable custodian of nuclear technology, so the number one task now is to give the IAEA the political, legal, and technical resources needed to render confident judgments about Iran and all other nascent nuclear states.

As the NIE notes, one key resource is the Additional Protocol, special provisions that states are encouraged to add to their IAEA safeguards agreements to facilitate more intrusive inspections. It should be compulsory, as Canada and other states have been arguing for some time,[v] and the Security Council should make it an immediate requirement for Iran.[vi]

Not only is confidence in the lawfulness of Iran’s programs at stake, but so too is confidence that the predicted nuclear renaissance will not overwhelm international monitoring capacity.

The focus on transparency and inspections, however, should not be taken to imply indifference to Iran’s enrichment of uranium. Currently Iran is in early and still experimental stages of producing reactor grade fuel, but the technology it is refining is also capable of producing weapons grade material. The international community, therefore, has an obvious and urgent interest in restricting national enrichment programs and other weapons sensitive elements of the nuclear fuel cycle. But such restrictions will not be achieved through an Iran only policy. Selective non-proliferation strategies are inappropriate in principle and do not work in practice.

The objective must be, and is already under thorough study at the IAEA and elsewhere, an international regime that takes the weapons sensitive elements of the nuclear fuel cycle out of the hands of individual states and puts them under international control. That is ultimately the only way to ensure that any civilian nuclear renaissance does not proliferate the technology for building nuclear weapons.

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[i] “Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities,” National Intelligence Estimate, National Intelligence Council, November 2007 (http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20071203_release.pdf).

[ii]In response to the NIE report on Iran, Mr. Bush told a press conference: “Look, Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous, and Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.” Whitehous transcript, December 4, 2007 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/12/20071204-4.html).

[iii]“Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions 1737 (2006) and 1747 (2007) in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” IAEA, Report by the Director General, November 15, 2007,GOV/2007/58 (http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2007/gov2007-58.pdf).

[iv]IAEA INFCIRC/711, August 27, 2007 which describes the agreement between Iran and the IAEA for a program of work to address and resolve the all outstanding issues between them and thus outlines “the Modalities of Resolution of the Outstanding Issues” (http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/2007/infcirc711.pdf).

[v]For example, Canada urged the 2005 NPT Review Conference tomake “theAdditional Protocol, together with a comprehensive safeguards agreement, the verification standard pursuant to Article III.1” for fulfilling “the obligations of that section of the Treaty.” Canadian statement to the 2004 NPT PrepCom on “Implementation of the Provisions of the Treaty Relating to the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Safeguards and Nuclear Weapon Free Zones Issues” (http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/arms/2004nptcluster2-en.asp).

[vi] UN Security Council Resolution 1737 (2006) “calls upon Iran to ratify promptly the Additional Protocal,” but does not demand it in the same way that it demands that Iran suspend proliferation sensitive nuclear activities, including uranium enrichment. (http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N06/681/42/PDF/N0668142.pdf?OpenElement)