Author Archive

It is likely that in the first half of 2008 Canada will have to disclose its response to the US-India request that India be exempted from the Nuclear Supplier Group’s (NSG) current rule against nuclear cooperation with any country that operates nuclear facilities not subject to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

A group of 45 countries, the NSG seems to be leaning toward some form of accommodation with India. The real question is what, if any, non-proliferation conditions the NSG is willing to attach to its exemption. A second question is whether the same exemption with the same conditions should apply to Israel and Pakistan, the two other states outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) with unsafeguarded (military) nuclear facilities – and thus also currently ineligible for nuclear trade and other forms of nuclear cooperation.

Opposition to the deal from the left within India charges that the deal already has too many conditions attached and because of that is an affront to Indian independence and even sovereignty. The United States has linked its proposed nuclear cooperation with India to the latter’s continued moratorium on nuclear testing, but it does not want the NSG to apply the same condition. Indeed, in a slightly bizarre twist, the US has promised India that in the event its access to nuclear fuel from the US is cut-off for any reason (testing being the most obvious), the US would help India acquire fuel from alternative sources.

But from the point of view of states within the NPT, the conditions are necessary to ensure that the deal produces the net non-proliferation and disarmament benefit that its proponents promise. If India were allowed to continue testing nuclear weapons and producing material for bombs, while gaining access to foreign nuclear fuel for its electrical programs, it would be in a position to steer all its domestic uranium toward its military program. The result would be that India could continue research and development and testing of new nuclear warheads and it would be able to accelerate the build up of stockpiles of fissile materials for current and future weapons production.

Thus a ban on further tests and on the further production of fissile materials for weapons purposes are most often the two conditions that are put forward. Without challenging India’s current arsenal and fissile materials stockpiles equivalent to about 100 nuclear warheads, the NSG could decide on an arrangement whereby nuclear fuel and technology would be provided for India’s safeguarded (civilian) facilities, even though it operates other facilities that are not safeguarded (military), on the condition that India ratifies the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and commits to a verifiable freeze on the production of fissile material for weapons purposes.[i]

There is little chance that India would accept such an arrangement, but such an offer would clearly acknowledge India’s current status as a de facto nuclear weapon state without denying it the opportunity to expand its civilian nuclear power generation facilities. The same formula would possibly become available to Pakistan and Israel, provided, in the case of Pakistan, it would clearly take responsibility for its facilitation of the A.Q. Khan nuclear black market activity.

All three should also be called upon to accept the basic obligation to disarm that applies to nuclear weapon states via Article VI of the NPT.

The India press follows the attitudes of NSG member states as to their likely approach to the request for an unconditional India-only exemption to current NSG rules. It characterizes the EU as undecided and states like Austria, Ireland, New Zealand, and the Scandinavians as generally unsupportive or skeptical. Some reports add Brazil and Argentina to the uncertain list.[ii]

Canada, on the other hand, is not included in any list of states that are wary of the deal, and in at least one it is numbered among the enthusiasts. When China was still in the skeptical column, the Asia Times reported that “the Chinese criticism of the India-US nuclear pact is in contrast to the solid support for the deal from Russia, France, Britain and Canada.”[iii]

Canadian officials continue to insist that a Canadian decision has not been taken, that the issue of conditions is still being discussed, and that the position that Canada takes at the NSG will require a Cabinet decision. Furthermore, officials point out that even if the NSG would decide in favour of civilian nuclear cooperation with India, Canada would not necessarily end its own national policy prohibiting nuclear trade with India, and would do so only with a Cabinet decision.

But in the meantime, the writing seems to be on the wall, and in at least once case in a Foreign Affairs document. The 2006-2007 Foreign Affairs Departmental Performance Report, says in a section entitled, “Greater engagement with like-minded partners in the G8 as well as emerging economies such as Brazil, Russia, India and China” that “If the Nuclear Suppliers Group agrees to exempt India from its guidelines, Canada will pursue nuclear cooperation with India, which would provide substantial commercial opportunities for Canadians.”[iv]

Not much equivocation there. If the statement assumes that the NSG will support the exemption as is, that means there is also an assumption that Canada will not oppose it (since the NSG decides by consensus, technically only one dissenting voice could scuttle the exemption). Furthermore, the statement that Canada will trade in the event of a change in NSG rules assumes that the decision has already been made and that a supportive Cabinet decision will follow.

By all accounts, the statement in the DFAIT Performance Report was not vetted through its arms control and non-proliferation section. In fact, officials seemed surprised by the reference, nevertheless, both Canada and Australia’s new Labour government have given indications that they will not block an emerging consensus in the NSG in support of the an exemption for India. But reports in the Indian press indicate that Australia has made it clear that, regardless of any NSG exemption, “no Labour Government will supply uranium unless India signs the Non-proliferation Treaty.”[v] Canada, on the other hand, seems to be leaning to the position that it will not oppose the NSG India exemption, and, if it carries, Canada will move toward uranium exports.

As noted, both decisions, joining the NSG consensus and pursuing nuclear trade with India, will require Cabinet decisions, and the challenge now is to ensure that these decisions add conditions – that they in fact require non-proliferation benefits in the form of ratification of the CTBT, the cut-off of fissile material production, and a commitment to NPT disarmament obligations.

---

[i] This is the position taken in these pages (canadain and lookingf ), Briefings by Project Ploughshares (http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/Briefings/brf071.pdf), and by the Canadian Pugwash Group (http://www.pugwashgroup.ca/events/documents/2007/2007.10.20-India-US_CPG_Statement.pdf).

[ii] “EU undecided on n-deal, trade pact with India next year,” NDTV, November 30, 2007 (http://www.newkerala.com/oct.php?action=fullnews&id=23051).

“Why the Left blinked on the N-deal,” Sify News, November 19, 2007 (http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14563147).

[iii] “Beijing blusters over India’s nuclear deal,” Asia Times, November 5, 2007 (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GK05Df01.html).

[iv] Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Departmental Performance Report 2006-2007, p. 50 (http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/dpr-rmr/2006-2007/inst/ext/ext00-eng.asp).

[v] “India needs uranium import,” The Economic Times, November 29, 2007 (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Editorials/India_needs_uranium_import/articleshow/2580311.cms).

A year ago states decided, through a UN General Assembly resolution, to pursue”a comprehensive, legally binding instrument establishing common international standards for the import, export and transfer of conventional arms.”[i] At the same time they asked the Secretary-General to survey states for their views on the feasibility of such an Arms Trade Treaty.

The Secretary-General has now reported. The response rate was unusually high, more than 90 countries (153 voted for the resolution), and more than 90 percent of those argued that the feasibility of a treaty is evidenced by the variety of initiatives and voluntary arrangements that already exist at sectoral, multilateral, regional and sub-regional levels. Transparency was identified as essential to making control measures effective and states are looking to the forthcoming study by a Group of Governmental Experts (which will report in the autumn of 2008) to explore, among other issues, reporting procedures, related measures to verify compliance, and assistance to states in building national capacity to manage transfer controls.

It is clear that an Arms Trade Treaty will include mandatory disclosure of exports and imports to an international registry of transfers – similar to the current UN Register of Conventional Arms,[ii]except that the expected register will not be voluntary and will include all conventional arms, including small arms. In effect, under a Treaty each state party will become accountable to all others, with opportunities for all parties to the treaty to challenge each other on particular transfers deemed not to be in compliance.

Canada’s annual report on the Export of Military Goods, introduced in 1991, goes some way toward meeting likely transparency requirements – although, current reporting is certainly not a model of timeliness, the last report having been released in late 2003 reporting on 2002 exports.[iii]The report, when it is available, is extensive compared to the national reports of many countries (notwithstanding its major gap in excluding exports to the US – which is another story for another time). However, a major objective of the Treaty will be to prevent arms sales when there is a risk that they will be used in the violation of human rights, but any reliable assessment of such a risk requires considerable detail on the particular commodities sold and on the likely user – information that is not available under current reporting.

For example, the report on 2002 lists the sale of a surveillance camera system to Colombia (for $600,000) but offers no details of the context in which it is to be used and by whom. Thus there is no basis for assessing the level of risk that it will contribute to human rights violations. Aircraft have a variety of roles and functions, and since Canada is a supplier of aircraft and of components for foreign aircraft manufactures, assessments of their likely impact on human rights requires clear information on the kind of aircraft involved and their users and likely uses. The sale of $30 million in helicopters and aircraft parts to Saudi Arabia, along with $20 million in armoured vehicles, is reported without details about the end-user – but even without that, these sales, part of a series of multiyear contracts, ought to be setting off alarm bells on multiple levels.

Canada’s response to the Secretary-General’s survey[iv]affirms the centrality of transparency: “We believe that an Arms Trade Treaty will provide a transparent framework of universally applicable standards for States to follow” (para 2). Furthermore, “Canada supports inclusion of a requirement that States share information relating to the transfers that they approve or reject. A mechanism will be needed to ensure that this information is made available to all States” (para 18).

The government’s recognition of the centrality of transparency to accountability and restraint is welcome. That in turn will require the addition of considerable detail to Canadian reporting and, especially, a measure of timeliness. Reporting four years after the fact, the current pattern, may be of interest to historians but is of little use to arms controllers. Under an Arms Trade Treaty timely reporting will be the central means by which national decision-making on military exports can be shaped and constrained by agreed standards, peer scrutiny, and legal challenges – all measures to help make international human security the essential test of responsible military exports.

---

[i] United Nations General Assembly.2006b. Towards an arms trade treaty: establishing common international standards for the import, export and transfer of conventional arms.UN General Assembly Resolution A/Res/61/89, December 18.Available athttp://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N06/499/77/PDF/N0649977.pdf?OpenElement.

See the Nov 1/06 posting here (newactio).

[ii] http://disarmament.un.org/cab/register.html

[iii] Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada. 2003. Export of Military Goods from Canada: Annual Report 2002, December. http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/eicb/military/miliexport02-en.asp.

[iv] Canada’s views on ATT, Submitted Autumn ’07:

http://disarmament.un.org/UNODA_Web_Docs/CAB/ATT/Canada.pdf

Rumors of an American war on Iran continue unabated,[i] even while any case for such a war grows progressively weaker, and as a result US Vice President Dick Cheney has been making what is for him a familiar move.

Mr. Cheney is reportedly putting pressure on intelligence analysts to modify their reporting on Iran’s nuclear program to better serve the attack scenarios of Administration hawks. The refusal by some in the intelligence community to sign on to a national intelligence assessment claiming an imminent Iranian nuclear weapons capacity has held up a key intelligence report, and it may also have contributed to the removal of John Negroponte as director of national intelligence.[ii]

Obviously the international community, including Iran’s neighbors, still harbors a deep concern about Iran’s nuclear intentions, but the urgency of that concern is clearly mitigated by the conclusion of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Iran is now providing sufficient reporting, as well as allowing sufficient access by IAEA inspectors, to enable the IAEA “to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran.”[iii]

That assurance doesn’t address the possibility of undeclared or clandestine programs, but here too the IAEA is making progress on a work plan[iv] that was put in place in August to resolve all the outstanding verification issues by April 2008, with a progress report due from the IAEA Director General to the IAEA Board next week.

The Bush Administration has thus been increasingly de-linking its war plans from Iran’s nuclear program, focusing instead on Iran’s alleged support for groups fighting the Americans in Iraq, a move that is making others in the Security Council more reluctant to pursue aggressive sanctions for fear of conflating the two issues (nuclear and Iraq).[v]

That reluctance is reinforced by the inescapable ambiguity of the one major Iranian nuclear controversy that remains, And it is an ambiguity that will remain even after a satisfactory completion of the Iran/IAEA work plan – namely, the uncertain legality of Iran’s ongoing enrichment of uranium.

Iran’s uranium enrichment program is no longer clandestine, it is open to inspection and verification, and it is legal under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and its related verification requirements, but it does violate UN Security Council Resolution 1737 of December 23, 2006,[vi] which requires, among other things, the suspension of “all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development.”

Suspension is not itself the ultimate objective of the Security Council and Iran rightly argues that it has a right to pursue any nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. The suspension demand is put forward as a confidence-showing measure – that is, through the suspension Iran would demonstrate its goodwill and willingness to help the IAEA establish that there are no ongoing clandestine nuclear programs in Iran and that all declared programs are for peaceful purposes.

While the Security Council agreed on the demand that Iran suspend uranium enrichment, the international community broadly and the six states[vii] giving leadership on the Iran issues in particular are not of a single mind on what the ultimate objective should be. President George Bush is unequivocal: “Listen, the first thing that has to happen diplomatically for anything to be effective is that we all agree on the goal. And we’ve agreed on the goal, and that is the Iranians should not have a nuclear weapon, the capacity to make a nuclear weapon, or the knowledge as to how to make a nuclear weapon.”[viii]

But the American attempt to deny Iran the knowledge or even the capacity to build a nuclear weapon, rather than to ensure its full compliance with the inspections regime to confirm that Iran is not actually building a nuclear weapon, makes it easy for Iran to claim that its rights under the NPT are being violated. President Bush in the meantime repeatedly conflates the “knowledge” needed to build a nuclear weapon with the possession of one: “If you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”[ix]

In fact, there is no reasonable prospect over the long term of preventing Iran from gaining such knowledge, and there are indications that Washington’s European and Security Council partners in dealing with Iran may now be moving on to focus on the real issue – preventing Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon through a meticulously applied inspections program, rather than trying to restrict the knowledge.

That change was implied earlier this fall when the Security Council refused to authorize more sanctions in the face of Iran’s continuing uranium enrichment. Instead, the European focus was on monitoring progress in Iranian cooperation with the IAEA on clearing up questions related to its past clandestine work.[x] If the IAEA report due next week is positive and shows Iran to be genuinely cooperating on the core issue of full transparency, the uranium enrichment issue will continue to decline in importance as long as the IAEA is given access to inspect the process and confirm that it is producing only low enriched uranium for civilian reactors, and not high enriched uranium suitable for weapons production.

---

[i] See “War With Iran?” in this space (warwithi). Time Magazine’s October 26, 2007 issue declared, “Iran War Drumbeat Grows Louder” (http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1676826,00.html).

[ii] Gareth Porter, “Cheney Tried to Stifle Dissent in Iran NIE,” Interpress Service, November 9, 2007 (http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39978).

[iii] Statement by IAYA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei to the 62 ^nd Regular Session of the UN General Assembly, October 29, 2007 (http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Statements/2007/ebsp2007n018.html).

[iv] The work plan is available at the IAEA website (http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/2007/infcirc711.pdf), and Sharon Squassoni of the Carnegie Endowment has provided a graphic depiction of the timeline for resolving outstanding issues that grew out of Iran’s clandestine nuclear activities (http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=19553&prog=zgp&proj=znpp).

[v] Robin Wright, “Divisions in Europe May Thwart U.S. Objectives on Iran,” Washington Post, October 18, 2007 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/17/AR2007101702211.html).

[vi] http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N06/681/42/PDF/N0668142.pdf?OpenElement.

[vii] The Permanent Five of the Security Council plus Germany.

[viii] President George W. Bush, “Iran’s Nuclear Activities,”The White House, Washington, DC, April 28, 2006 (http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/rm/2006/65479.htm).

[ix] Paul Koring, Bush steps up rhetoric on Iran: Warns of possible ‘World War III’, The Globe and Mail, October 18, 2007 (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20071018.BUSH18/TPStory/TPInternational/America/).

[x] Sophie Walker, “World powers push ahead with Iran sanctions,” Reuters, November 2, 2007 (http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2007-11-02T203718Z_01_L30131658_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-IRAN-NUCLEAR-COL.XML).

The CBC has just produced a fine series of radio reports on Canadian military exports[i] highlighting key issues such as the Government’s failure since 2002 to issue its promised annual report on arms exports, the upward trend in sales, and high volumes of armored vehicles shipped to Saudi Arabia and the United States. In the absence of official figures the CBC relied on Canada Border Services Agency reports to compile its own account of the arms trade, and while the numbers are revealing, they do not nearly reflect the actual levels and scope of Canadian military exports.

The CBC website materials acknowledge that its “analysis doesn’t capture total exports,” or that “these statistics may tell only part of the story” – so here is more of the story. The full story can’t be known as long as the Government fails to meet its annual reporting obligations – although even then gaps remain.

The figures compiled by the CBC focus on a narrow range of military commodities, notably tanks and armored vehicles (Canada makes the latter), munitions and some guns and components, but these constitute only a fraction of total sales. Canada produces a broad range of aerospace, electronic, communications and other military commodities for export. The CBC reports that total Canadian military exports for the seven years from 2000 to 2006 tripled to reach $3.6 billion, but the surge of that scale applies only to one category of exports and the reported total accounts for only about a quarter of all exports. The same goes for the report that $2 billion in arms sales went to the US over the same period.

The Project Ploughshares Military Industry Database maintained by senior program associate Ken Epps[ii] estimates an average of about $2 billion in exports annually – meaning the actual total for the 2000 to 2006 period is closer to $14 billion. Exports to non-US customers are conservatively estimated to have averaged around $500 to $700 million per year with another $1 billion or more going to the US.

Military exports fluctuate widely. The pace of the international arms trade is linked to the level of global military spending, and the level of Canadian military exports is in turn linked to these trends. Worldwide military spending has risen by about a third over the past decade, with most of the increase accounted for by the United States, which now accounts for 46 percent of the world total. World spending reached $1.2 trillion (current US$) in 2006, representing about 2.5 percent of world GDP or $184 per capita. The 15 top countries account for 83 percent of world military spending (Canada ranks 13 ^th on that list).[iii]Figures compiled by the International Institute for Strategic Studies for 2005 are similar, with the total at $1.2 trillion (current US$) and with Canada ranked 14 ^th from the top.[iv]

Of this annual one-trillion-dollar-plus outlay, at least 20 percent, or roughly $200 billion, is used for arms procurement[v] – that is, to acquire the weapons and related military equipment that make up national military arsenals. The vast majority of this procurement is for the arsenals of advanced industrial states and comes from their own domestic production. Between one-fifth and one-quarter of world military procurement is from foreign sources. The US Congressional Research Service (CRS), which also produces an annual report on global arms transfers, sets the value of international arms deliveries in 2006 (the last year for which its figures are available) at $27 billion.[vi]

While military spending has increased by a third since 1996, the bulk of those increases have occurred since 2001, and because they are largely a reflection of increased US spending rather than a broad global trend, there has not been a corresponding increase in global arms transfers. In fact, the global arms trade has been in steady decline since the mid-1980s, but that is now changing and the CRS shows a slight increase in 2006. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute shows modest increases in each of the last four years.

Not surprisingly, the primary military exporters are the countries with the largest military establishments and domestic military industries to help supply their own forces. In 2006 the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom and Germany were collectively the source for about 90 percent of all arms transfers. Another seven suppliers provided most of the rest, and the CRS shows Canada as second from the top of that second tier group, just after China, with an overall ranking of 6 ^th.[vii]

Canada’s high ranking as a military exporter is disproportionate to the size of its own military spending primarily because of the integration of the Canadian industry into the continental military production economy through the Canada-US Defence Production Sharing Arrangements.

Canadian export figures, tabulated by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) from Canadian industry reporting, are considerably higher than those reported by SIPRI and the CRS (the methods of collecting data and of valuing transfers are different among all the sources and thus they are not readily comparable). For 2002, the last year for which official figures are available, the Government of Canada’s annual report[viii] on Canadian military exports to non-US customers showed exports of C$678 million. The CBC correctly notes that is double the sales in 1997 – but there is great fluctuation in sales and increases and decreases depend on the dates selected. In the period 1987 to 2002 total Canadian sales declined, and in the period 1994 to 2002 they stayed about level.

The government acknowledges that shipments to the US “are estimated to account for over half of Canada’s exports of military goods” yet there are no official figures on sales to the US. Independent tracking by Ken Epps of Project Ploughshares of Canadian prime contracts with the Pentagon arranged through the Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC)[ix] indicates that in 2006 Canadian prime contracts with the US Department of Defence exceeded $800 million. Traditionally, when the Government still compiled US export numbers, Canadian subcontracts in military sales to US corporations were at least at the level of the prime contracts. If that pattern still holds, a combination of prime contracts with the US Department of Defense and subcontracts with US corporate prime contractors would now be about $1.7 billion per year – indicating total annual military exports to US and non-US customers of well above $2 billion.

But even that figure is on the low side. The gap in official figures occurs because they do not include certain goods, like some aircraft engines and helicopters that are officially designated as civilian even though they are sold to and used by military forces. For example, Ken Epps reports that Canada recently delivered more than $200 million worth of Canadian built Bell 412 utility helicopters to the Pakistan military.

The CBC reports point to a major Canadian enterprise that few Canadians are aware of and that is kept obscure by the Government’s failure four years running to produce its annual report on Canadian military exports. As a result of the CBC news series, we’ve once again been promised that the official export reports are coming, soon.

---

[i] “Arming the World” – http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/arming-the-world/.

[ii] See the website: http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/Control/ExportPubs.htm.

[iii] Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. SIPRI Yearbook 2007: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 267-271.

[iv] International Institute for Strategic Studies. The Military Balance 2007. Essex: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, pp. 406-411.

[v] The 20 percent figure is necessarily a very rough, and probably low, estimate. In the United States the 2005 procurement was 20 percent of the Department of Defense budget, and about 17 percent of total defence-related spending (which includes defence-related spending of the Department of Energy and others) (IISS, p. 18). SIPRI (2006, p. 388) reports that the world’s top 100 military contractors had $268 billion in military sales in 2004, compared with world military spending of $1,035 billion (SIPRI 2006, p. 307), or about 25 percent. In low-income countries procurement costs are relatively higher because of lower personnel costs.

[vi] Richard F. Grimmett, Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1999-2006. Report for Congress, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, September 26, 2007. http://www.opencrs.com/rpts/RL34187_20070926.pdf.

[vii] Grimmett, p. 89.

[viii] Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada. 2003. Export of Military Goods from Canada: Annual Report 2002, December. http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/eicb/military/miliexport02-en.asp.

[ix]The CCC acts as a broker and guarantor between Canadian companies and the US government, and all prime contracts of $25,000 or more have to go through the CCC.

Warnings of the disaster that would come of an American attack on Iran are plentiful, increasingly urgent, and persuasive[i] – but it is not at all clear that they are working on the one vote that matters. The NewsHour on PBS television ran a short feature on the growing irrelevance of George Bush, but on security matters he’s still very much in charge, and when it comes to Iran he still likes to say that all options remain on the table.

Iraq and Afghanistan notwithstanding, Pentagon planners and presidential advisors seem to have an inexplicable capacity to infuse their attack scenarios with an irrepressible optimism. In their computerized simulations, otherwise intractable problems, like Iran’s nuclear programs, are swept aside like so much hi tech chaff once the missiles start flying. The Christian Science Monitor recently observed that “perhaps the most egregious error policy planners make is their assumption that once wars are started, their outcome is predictable.”[ii]

It is true that some outcomes are predictable enough. No one could have doubted that the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq would lead to the overthrow of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. Nor could anyone doubt that if the United States attacked Iran it could manage to destroy, at least for a time, its nuclear programs, set its economic infrastructure back a generation, or overthrow its government. Regime destruction can be accomplished with dispatch – but after that all bets are off.

Paul Rogers of the University of Bradford has offered a careful and cautious account[iii] of the consequences of a concentrated air attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities and defence infrastructure. He rules out a ground offensive and a regime overthrow by the United states as unfeasible given American commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He says “an air attack would involve the systematic destruction of research, development, support and training centres for nuclear and missile programmes and the killing of as many technically competent people as possible.” In addition, the attack would “involve comprehensive destruction of Iranian air defence capabilities and attacks designed to pre-empt Iranian retaliation. This would require destruction of Iranian Revolutionary Guard facilities close to Iraq and of regular or irregular naval forces that could disrupt Gulf oil transit routes.”

Civilian and military casualties would be difficult to monitor, but would be in the many thousands, given that much of the technical infrastructure in support of Iran’s nuclear and missile programs is located in urban areas.

After the attack, he says, “Iran would have many methods of responding in the months and years that followed.” He includes disruption of Gulf oil supplies and support for insurgents and anti-Israel forces in the region. Rather than end Iranian nuclear programs, an attack would ignite Iranian nuclear weapons ambitions. Iran would emerge united and determined to build a bomb and withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That would presumably occasion further attacks and propel long-term and widening confrontation in the region.

After that come the unpredictable consequences, including the environmental impact of exploding nuclear facilities – at this point with limited quantities of nuclear materials present – and various political fallout possibilities. President Bush and his army of upbeat advisors and analysts obviously did not anticipate that their 2003 attack on Iraq would be a major boon to Iran. But, says the former Ambassador and current Senior Diplomatic Fellow at the Center for Arms Control, Peter W. Galbraith, “of all the unintended consequences of the Iraq war, Iran’s strategic victory is the most far-reaching.”[iv] Similar unintended consequences would also ensue from an attack on Iran.

Mr. Bush seems rather more aware of folly when the issue is the military action of others. It is almost touching to hear his kindly reprimand of Turkey for having the temerity to threaten attacks on northern Iraq in an effort to deny rebel Turkish Kurds sanctuary there. “There is a lot of dialogue going on,” he explained to reporters at the White House, “and that is positive.”[v]

To measure his own actions he uses a different calculus. There may, after all, be a lot of dialogue going on with Iran as well, but in this case he finds nothing positive in it. Talking to Iran, whether it is the Russians or the International Atomic Energy Agency, only emboldens it in its wicked ways.

Left to his own devices, and bolstered by the authors of triumphalist attack scenarios, President Bush is eminently capable of crowning his disastrous presidency with another military misadventure – this time in Iran. In other words, he shouldn’t be left to his own devices.

The Parliament of Canada would perform a worthy service in support of international stability through a unanimous and two-fold call: for the United States to unequivocally reject military action against Iran and for Iran to unambiguously resolve all outstanding issues with the IAEA and provide it ongoing and unencumbered access to all Iranian nuclear facilities and programs.

As an emergency statement onIranby a group of concerned Canadians puts it, “an aerial assault on Iran would be an environmental and human catastrophe that our already damaged world cannot afford.”[vi]

---

[i] Dan Plesch and Martin Butcher, “Considering a war with Iran: A discussion paper on WMD in the Middle East,” The School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, September 2007 (http://www.rawstory.com/images/other/IranStudy082807a.pdf).

Barnett Rubin, “Thesis on Policy toward Iran,” Informed Comment: Global Affairs, September 5, 2007 (http://icga.blogspot.com/2007/09/theses-on-policy-toward-iran.html).

Seymour M. Hersh, “The Iran Plans: Would President Bush go to war to stop Tehran from getting the bomb?” The New Yorker, April 17, 2007 (http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/04/17/060417fa_fact).

[ii] Walter Rodgers, “The folly of war with Iran,” The Christian Science Monitor,” October 16, 2007 ()

[iii] Paul Rogers, Iran: Consequences of a War, Briefing Paper, Oxford Research Group, February 2006 (http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/publications/briefing_papers/pdf/IranConsequences.pdf), 16 pp.

[iv]Peter W. Galbraith, “The Victor?,” The New York Review of Books, October 11, 2007 Volume 54, Number 15 (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20651).

[v]By Paula Wolfson, “Bush Urges Turkey to Refrain From Cross-Border Operations in Iraq,” Voice of America, October 17, 2007 (http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-10-17-voa49.cfm).

[vi] From an “emergency statement” of concerned Canadians. The statement remains open for signature through Jillian Skeet of Vancouver who can be reached at jillianskeet@telus.net.

Without a negotiated settlement – that is, without a broad political consensus to support a new national order – inserting international military forces into any ongoing armed conflict risks prolonging and intensifying that conflict and puts the international community on one side of a civil war.

And experience and logic tell us that political consensus is not forged on the battlefield: that presumably is what our own political leaders, as well as Afghan and NATO leaders, mean when they frankly agree that peace in Afghanistan will not be won by the military effort alone.

The Prime Minister made no mention of diplomacy when he listed the options that the Afghanistan Panel should consider, but diplomacy must be at the core of the Afghanistan effort. The pursuit of national accord requires its own dedicated peace and reconciliation process, and as the security situation continues to deteriorate, especially in the south, there is growing recognition that contemporary Afghanistan has yet to go through that transformative process.

Lessons learned from other contexts also tell us something about the essential components of such a peace and reconciliation effort. It is not a matter only of offering dissidents amnesty. It is not a matter of elites and militia leaders making deals to divvy up districts to control.

It is about engaging all sectors of society and communities of interest to build national institutions and practices that Afghans trust. That means:

• a peace and reconciliation process based on inclusivity (involving all local stakeholders, but also regional actors);
• it means a locally owned process that is broadly based (that includes women and civil society, as well as political and military groupings);
• it requires international backing that lends legitimacy and authority to the process, and
• it benefits from external facilitation (the government of Afghanistan obviously needs to be a key participant, but it cannot itself facilitate the reconciliation process).

So what of the role of Canada in this? What should the new panel of Afghanistan say about diplomacy?

At a minimum Canada can become a tireless advocate for a comprehensive peace process to build the political consensus that is now absent. Current Canadian leadership has too often treated the very idea of negotiation as if it were a denigration of the military effort. But peace and reconciliation efforts are not tactics to assist a faltering military effort; the military effort must be oriented to support an essential political peace process.

That means engaging our ISAF partners, the government of Afghanistan, and the key regional actors, to encourage those talks that are already underway, but especially to encourage the broadening of such efforts into a comprehensive reconciliation process. Canada can also provide technical and financial resources to facilitate initiatives and to ensure that Afghan women and civil society have the resources to participate effectively.

We have to be appropriately modest about what we can do, but a fundamental and urgent requirement is that we infuse the extraordinary commitment that we have made to this country with a palpable energy toward supporting Afghans in the pursuit of a new political order that earns the confidence of Afghans in all parts of the country.

What moves conflicted societies from the “failed states” column to the functioning state column is not of course the end of conflict, but the presence of national political and social institutions capable of mediating conflict without the resort to violence. That is a large part of what the collective struggle in Afghanistan must finally be about.

Some 80 percent of Americans think that nuclear weapons make the world a more dangerous place. Only 10 percent think the world is safer because of nuclear weapons. But when the same Americans were asked how they felt about their own country’s nuclear weapons, 47 percent said they made them feel safer and 32 percent said they made them feel less safe.

That is just one of the revealing findings of an extraordinary survey of six states (five NATO states: Britain, France, Italy, Germany, and United States; plus Israel) conducted by Angus Reid Strategies on behalf of The Simons Foundation of Vancouver.[i]

Israel is where this nuclear ambivalence is most pronounced. There 87 percent say nuclear weapons make the world a more dangerous place, but at the same time 73 percent say they would feel safer knowing that Israel has nuclear weapons.[ii]

It is tempting to call these contradictory views, but of course it is logically possible to believe that nuclear weapons make the world more dangerous and that the world would be better off without them, but then still believe that as long as any state has them, one’s own state should too. That at least seems to be the logic followed by people in states with nuclear weapons, which in turn may go some way to explaining why it is so difficult to advance nuclear disarmament even though that is what the world overwhelmingly wants.

In Britain and France respondents also said that nukes make the world more dangerous (73 percent and 77 percent respectively), but in their own case they felt safer knowing their country had them (in Britain 46 percent felt safer compared to 37 percent who felt less safe; in France 48 percent felt safer while only 24 percent felt less safe).

In states that do not possess nuclear weapons of their own (German and Italy[iii]), respondents also felt overwhelmingly that nuclear weapons make the world more dangerous (92 percent and 90 percent respectively), but they also said they felt safer knowing that their own country does not possess nuclear weapons (60 percent and 45 percent respectively). In each case a smaller minority felt that the absence of nuclear weapons rendered them less safe (21 percent and 34 percent respectively).

In countries without nuclear weapons, people find all nuclear weapons threatening; in countries with nuclear weapons, people find all nuclear weapons threatening but their own.

But that only confirms the basic truth that the overwhelming majority of people, in states with nuclear weapons as well as in states without them, think the world is made more dangerous by nuclear weapons and that such weapons should be eliminated. When the survey respondents were asked whether they would favour “eliminating all nuclear weapons in the world through an enforceable agreement,” huge majorities in all the countries surveyed answered in the affirmative – Britain, 85 percent; France, 87; Italy, 95; Germany 95; United States, 84; and Israel, 78 percent.

It is interesting that this strong support for a treaty or agreement to eliminate nuclear weapons is maintained by respondents who at the same time have a rather dim view of the effectiveness of the current and central nuclear disarmament treaty, namely the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which, by virtue of Article VI, requires all states to disarm (though without setting a timetable). Americans are least persuaded of the effectiveness of the NPT (only 16 percent thought it to be effective). In Germany, which registered the highest confidence in the effectiveness of the NPT (38 percent), more respondents still regard the NPT as ineffective (42 percent). In Israel 63 percent regard the NPT as ineffective while only 18 percent regard it as effective.

Even so, support for a new international agreement is strong across the board and reflected in the responses to a question regarding appropriate national policy goals. Here respondents showed strong combined preference for policies aimed at reducing and eliminating arsenals (Britain, 91 percent; France, 84; Italy, 93; Germany, 96; United States, 82; and Israel, 74 percent). In each case there was greater support for elimination than simply reductions, except in France and Israel where there is stronger support for reductions than elimination.

Dr. Jennifer Allen Simons, President of The Simons Foundation, said the survey results come at a critical point of mounting nuclear tensions and growing interest in nuclear technology. She notes that even though respondents in nuclear weapon states regarded nuclear weapons as a source of protection from aggression, the overwhelming weight of opinion in all the countries surveyed, including in the nuclear weapon states, supports nuclear disarmament.

It is a revealing survey that highlights both the challenges and possibilities for nuclear disarmament and touches on a range of additional issues, including nuclear testing, diversion to non-state groups, moral attitudes, and views on nuclear use.

---

[i] The full report is available at The Simons Foundation website (www.thesimonsfoundation.ca) or the Angus Reid Strategies website (www.angusreidstrategies.com/global).

[ii] While Israel is widely understood to have several dozen nuclear weapons, it maintains a policy of “strategic ambiguity” by which it refuses to publicly confirm that it has a nuclear arsenal.

[iii] German and Italy actually have US/NATO weapons on their soil, but are not themselves states in “possession” of nuclear weapons, nor do their governments have control over those weapons – the Simons/Angus Reid survey also surveyed public attitudes toward this practice.

Over a weekend of turkey and pumpkin pie there was also time to reflect on the sixth anniversary of the October 7, 2001 attack on Afghanistan – an attack that launched a war that not only continues, but by most accounts, apart from those of the Foreign Minister,[i] shows declining promise of victory.

The architects of war, those in the Bush Administration who were determined to convert a broadly supported diplomatic and law-enforcement effort to control terrorism into a literal and largely unilateral war, anticipated the early destruction of the Taliban, the regime that harbored the mentors if not the masterminds of the 9/11 terrorists, namely, Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, which would also fall to the invaders.

But six years ago there were also those who said that a “war” on terrorism would fail.

A group of Canadian Ecumenical leaders wrote to the Prime Minister on October 12:

“We believe that a sustained and effective campaign against terrorism is fundamental to the safety and well-being of all people, and that Canada can and must make a vital contribution to that campaign. We fear, however, that the military attacks on Afghanistan which began on October 7 could seriously undermine the international community’s efforts, both to bring those responsible for the September 11 attacks to justice and to reduce the incidence of terrorism in the future.”[ii]

Paul Rogers, a particularly prescient analyst at the Peace Studies program of Bradford University in the United Kingdom, recalls the warning that he published on September 29, 2001:

“The extent of the devastation and human suffering inflicted in the [9/11] attacks means that support for the United States among its allies is far-reaching, and extends to a remarkable range of states. In this light, the immediate response should be to develop, extend and cement this coalition; base all action on the rule of law; and put every effort into bringing the perpetrators to justice.”[iii]

These themes were also elaborated in the Ploughshares Monitor before the October 7 attack.[iv] In particular, we argued that to struggle against terrorism is not so much a matter of defeating terrorists as it is addressing the conditions in which terrorism tends to thrive:

“If the world is about to embark on a major campaign against terrorism, it is especially important to strongly assert that it is possible to hear and address the grievances that are linked to terrorist activity without thereby in any way condoning it. Acknowledging that terrorism has root causes does not excuse it any more than acknowledging that higher than average crime rates tend to be linked to adverse social and economic conditions excuses individual crimes. Any serious crime reduction effort cannot be confined to more intensified police work; it must also address the economic and social conditions that tend to produce increased rates of crime. Similarly, any serious campaign against terrorism needs to address the social, economic and political conditions that nurture the emergence of terrorism.”

In anticipation of the October 7 attack, we also warned against a literal war on terror:

“While the television networks are drawn increasingly to footage of aircraft carriers, long-range bombers, and other heavy military equipment, implying major military assaults on non-cooperating states, many military analysts, including the United States Defense Secretary, point out that such states have no obvious military targets which, if destroyed, would aid the pursuit and apprehension of the accused. Punitive military strikes against civilian populations and infrastructure would themselves be heinous violations of international law and decency and would, to understate the matter, be counter-productive. They would inevitably spawn new generations of terrorists and aggravate, in Afghanistan for example, the humanitarian crisis which is already well advanced among one of the most vulnerable civilian populations in the world and from which all international humanitarian workers have now had to flee.

“And if military force is counter-productive or of limited utility in bringing the fugitives to justice in the current case, its role in the wider campaign against terrorism is even more marginal. Terrorism is not amenable to military defeat. The defeat of terrorism requires a broad range of domestic security measures, effective national and international law enforcement capacity, and urgent attention to the political and social conditions that nurture it.”

We also argued for a recovery of perspective in the struggle against terrorism.

“A campaign against terrorism is required, but not at all costs. Indeed, Afghanistan offers a prime example of the extraordinary damage that can be incurred through intense single-minded campaigns that in their zeal ignore the possible negative consequences. In the 1980s the United States committed itself to support the war against the Soviet Union, against the spread of communism, without apparent regard for any outcome other than the defeat of the Soviets. It was a spectacularly successful campaign, but at what cost? The supply of almost limitless quantities of small arms and light weapons through Pakistan continues to fuel the unending civil war in Afghanistan, and social chaos and escalating violence in Pakistan. Uncritical support for the mujahadeen rebels spawned the Taliban and made common cause with the same Osama bin Laden who is now one of the pursued fugitives.

“We can be sure that a single-minded campaign against terrorism will have similarly damaging consequences if it is not guided by due process and actions that honour the laws, values and freedoms that terrorism threatens. If our societies yield to growing pressures to permit increased invasion of privacy, reduced access to information, curtailed immigration, reduced access to safe havens for refugees, changes in national priorities to increase military spending at the expense of social programs, along with any number of other measures to erode fundamental rights and freedoms, the campaign against terror will have failed in its commitment to the victims of the September 11 attacks to honour their sacrifice with a new resolve to make the world they left behind a safer place.”

Six years later, the “war on terror” continues with largely unenlightened vengeance in Afghanistan and now also on Iraq. Today the drums of war are also beating for an attack on Iran – an attack which would add exponentially to the disaster and tragedy of the war thus far.

[i] Over the weekend the Globe and Mail reported that “Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier contradicted all publicly available assessments of security in southern Afghanistan yesterday with a bold claim that insurgent attacks have decreased in Kandahar, leaving the province more secure for humanitarian work.” Graeme Smith, “Upbeat Bernier contradicts UN reports,” The Globe and Mail, October 8, 2007.

[ii] Letter to the Prime Minister, October 12, 200, from a group of Canadian Ecumenical leaders with regard to the attack on Afghanistan begun on October 7 (http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/Statements/MPletter.Eng%209-11.pdf).

[iii] Paul Rogers, “Afghanistan: six years of war,” Open Democracy, October 4, 2007 (http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/conflicts/global_security/afghanistan_six_years).

[iv] Ernie RegehrResponding to terrorThe Ploughshares Monitor,September 2001, volume 22, no. 3 (http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/monitor/mons01b.html).

Some months back, in a not for attribution briefing on Afghanistan, a Canadian military official observed that the Taliban are skilled at luring foreign forces into tactical military victories that actually become strategic victories for the Taliban. A new report from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on the situation in Afghanistan[i] essentially confirms that admission – with significant implications for current and growing calls to pursue a negotiated end to the fighting.

The Secretary-General reports that the “multiple military successes” of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the Afghan National Army in the most dangerous and insecure parts of Afghanistan continue to be accompanied by declining security and declining support for the Karzai government. Despite a significantly expanded ISAF, he says, “access to rural areas of south and south-eastern Afghanistan for official and civil society actors has continued to decline.”

It used to be called winning the battle while losing the war.

Military successes can lead to strategic setbacks for a variety of reasons, and in Afghanistan two important factors are battlefield victories accompanied by large numbers of civilian deaths and battles that are won on behalf of a government that many in the south in particular find corrupt and hostile to their collective interests. The UN mission in Afghanistan recorded over 1,000 civilian deaths from January 1 to August 31 at the hands of both pro- and anti-governmental forces, and independent monitoring indicates that the majority of these are attributable to pro-government forces.[ii] In addition, the Secretary-General says there exists in the Karzai government “a culture of patronage and direct involvement in illegal activities, including the drug trade, especially within the police force.”

To achieve strategic success – that is, a stable security environment and a government that earns the confidence of most Afghans – the Secretary-General says the counter-insurgency effort will have to include “political outreach to disaffected groups.” In other words, the disaffected community now confronted on the battlefield needs to be engaged through a serious negotiation/reconciliation process. His call was echoed with growing urgency by Afghan President Hamid Karzai over the weekend.[iii]

As these calls for negotiations increase they also generate cautionary voices, on two counts in particular. First, say some experts, though negotiation may almost always be appropriate in principle, such talks need to be pursued in situations in which the belligerents have real incentives to consider accommodation and compromise – in other words, the conflict must be ripe.[iv]Second, one incentive for belligerents to come to the table is provided by military pressure – in other words, a call for negotiations is therefore said to be incompatible with parallel calls for military withdrawal and thus an easing of military pressure.[v]

The question is, do these two conditions apply to the current situation in Afghanistan?

Ripeness for negotiation generally flows from military stalemate – a situation in which neither side is moving toward victory and both sides are suffering. There is a reason experts call this a “hurting stalemate.” In Afghanistan, because the insurgency is still on the rise, is still gaining strength, some analysts argue that Afghanistan has not yet reached that hurting stalemate. The international forces admit that this war is not militarily winnable and so have ample incentive to pursue alternatives, given the apparently growing strength of the insurgents, Taliban-led forces are unlikely to regard themselves as on the run and under pressure to seek a negotiated compromise. And Mullah Omar’s quick rebuff of President Karzai’s offer would appear to confirm that further “ripening” is still needed.

In fact, however, even if the insurgents consider their fortunes to be rising in the south, that does not lift them out of an overall stalemate. The Taliban cannot avoid the hard reality that their base is confined to the south and that they cannot credibly regard themselves on the ascendancy in the country as a whole. They have to understand that they face a long struggle in the south, and, even if successful, they cannot expect to push beyond the Pashtun-dominated south and southeast – and they also have to assume that a larger role for the Pashtun/Taliban in the country as a whole will only be achievable through negotiations.

The second point, the argument that negotiations should not be accompanied by an easing of military pressure, is relevant only if the tactical military victories of the government and its foreign backers actually produce strategic setbacks for the insurgents. But if ISAF’s military victories succeed mainly in building up resentment against the government and its international backers, it is doubtful that continuing military action will work toward more effective negotiations. Current military pressure is as likely to work against the negotiating interests of ISAF and the Government of Afghanistan if that military pressure generates more alienation than trust.

It is no wonder then that the Secretary-General points to the need for a shift in military focus away from assaults on insurgents. “Afghan civilian and military leaders,” he says, “need to play a greater role in planning security operations and ensuring that military gains are consolidated with the provision of basic security by State institutions.”

In other words, instead of trying to kill more insurgents, and a lot of civilians in the process, the focus needs to be on the delivery of genuine security and consolidating gains through reconstruction and improved government services in those areas already held by the government, and then, from that base, to engage populations and combatants in insurgent-held areas in pursuit of a negotiated consensus in support of a new Afghan political alignment.

[i] The situation in Afghanistan and its implications for international peace and security, Report of the Secretary-General to the General Assembly and Security Council, September 21, 2007 (A/62/345 – S/2007/555).

[ii] See July 18/07 posting and,”Afghan investigation finds 62 Taliban, 45 civilians killed in southern battle,” International Herald Tribune, June 30, 2007. http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?id=6428190

[iii] Dene Moore, “Afghan human rights official says talks with Taliban best option for peace,” The Canadian Press, Canoe Network News, September 30, 2007 (http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2007/09/30/pf-4538753.html).

[iv] Fen Osler Hampson, “Don’t rush to the negotiating table,” The Globe and Mail, September 18, 2007.

[v] Peter Jones, “Should we negotiate with the Taliban?, The Ottawa Citizen, September 23, 2007.

While American news media and University Presidents were trying to decide whether Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would be best characterized as the devil incarnate, a petty dictator, or just plain mad, he managed to deliver himself of at least one truth during his New York visit – “the nuclear bomb is of no use,” he said. Whether Iran will honor that truth is of course another matter.

When Ahmadinejad was asked on 60 minutes for a firm answer to the question of Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear bomb, his first response was to equivocate: “Well, you have to appreciate we don’t need a nuclear bomb What needs do we have for a bomb?” Then when pressed for a firm answer, he said: “It is a firm ‘No.’ I’m going to be much firmer now, in political relations right now, the nuclear bomb is of no use; if it was useful it would have prevented the downfall of the Soviet Union; if it was useful it would resolved the problem the Americans have in Iraq. The time of the bomb is passed.”[i]

Nuclear diehards, in places like Washington, Beijing, and Delhi, among others, may beg to differ, but world opinion and witnesses from Henry Kissinger[ii] to the Dalai Lama know that Ahmadinejad is right on that particular score – indeed, Ronald Reagan made the same point, describing nuclear weapons as “totally irrational, totally inhumane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization.”[iii]

Ahmadinejad may have something else in common with Reagan – that is, a public disavowal of nuclear weapons is not necessarily what guides his country’s action. By now a reasonable interpretation of Iran’s nuclear programs is that it is intent on using the pursuit of civilian nuclear power to acquire a nuclear weapons capability or option, as distinct from an actual weapon. And there is little doubt that Iran will eventually attain that capability. But there is a genuine difference between “capability” and “possession” – Japan being the best example of a country with the capability together with a firm policy not to convert that capability into a weapon. It is at this line of distinction that the international community and the non-proliferation regime do and must make their stand.

One can understand the desire to prevent any regime linked to the kind of world view offered by Ahmadinejad in New York, even if the tone was somewhat muted, from getting near any kind of advanced nuclear technology. But non-proliferation is a rules based endeavor and it is to our collective benefit if Iran develops its nuclear fuel cycle technologies[iv] within the non-proliferation regime and under the watchful eye of IAEA safeguards (essentially the current situation, once the IAEA’s outstanding issues are all dealt with) rather than have it withdraw from the NPT and resume its clandestine activities.

The Bush Administration has been trying to draw the line before capability, and that would be a far superior approach were it not pursued as an Iran-specific strategy – or an enemies-only approach. Nuclear non-proliferation would be genuinely aided by universal restrictions on uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing, but that will be possible only if the rules apply equally to all and reactor fuel production is brought under multilateral control that guarantees all states in good standing within the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) equal access.

Furthermore, limiting Iran’s pursuit of nuclear fuel cycle technology, and the implicit weapons capability that goes along with it, will by definition have to be regional. Indeed, that has been the focus of multilateral nonproliferation efforts, especially since 1995 when NPT states defined the collective objective of establishing the Middle East as a nuclear weapon free zone in the context of a zone free of all weapons of mass destruction.

A nuclear armed Iran can and must be averted, but it will require the even-handed application of multilaterally agreed non-proliferation principles and won’t be achieved through narrowly-targeted, Iran-specific prohibitions.

---

[i]“Ahmadinejad: Iran Not Walking Toward War; Iranian Leader Tells Scott Pelley His Country Does Not Need Nuclear Weapons,” 60 Minutes, CBS News, September 23, 2007 (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/20/60minutes/main3282230.shtml).

[ii]George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger and Sam Nunn, “A World Free Of Nuclear Weapons,” TheWall Street Journal, January 4, 2007 (http://psaonline.org/downloads/nuclear.pdf).

[iii] Quoted by Kissinger, et al above.

[iv] Technologies with immediate civilian but also potential weapons applications.