Nuclear Disarmament

Canada has figured prominently, if unwillingly, in five decades of Indian nuclear weapons development. Now that Washington has proposed changing the rules of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) – rules that currently preclude nuclear cooperation with India – Canada has an opportunity to channel its historical involvement to support for multilateral rules that constrain India ‘s nuclear ambitions and promote non-proliferation objectives.

Canada supplied India its first heavy water nuclear reactor, the CIRUS, during the 1950s, exclusively for “peaceful purposes.” The CIRUS, over the protestations of Canada, nevertheless became the source of the weapons grade plutonium used to build India ‘s first nuclear warhead, which was detonated in 1974. Since then the CIRUS and the larger Indian-built Dhruva reactor, based on the CIRUS design, have supplied most of the weapons grade plutonium for India’s current arsenal of about 50 warheads and plutonium for another 50.

Through the NSG, established largely in response to India’s diversion of civilian technology and materials to military purposes, states agreed to refuse nuclear cooperation (e.g. trade) with non-nuclear weapon states party to Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or states outside the NPT that are not under full-scope safeguards – that is, states that maintain nuclear programs and facilities that are not subject to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections and are thus presumed to be used for military purposes.

But later this month the NSG will informally begin to explore an India-only exemption to the full-scope safeguards rule in order to accommodate the US-India nuclear cooperation deal reached in 2005.[i]

The proposed exemption is controversial partly because Pakistan and Israel, also states outside the NPT with nuclear weapons programs, will demand the same deal, and partly because it will embolden states within the NPT and suspected of harboring nuclear weapons ambitions, notably Iran, to defy the obvious double standard inherent in the accommodation to India’s nuclear arsenal while demanding Iran terminate uranium enrichment even for peaceful purposes. But even more controversial is the likelihood, indeed the certainty, that the proposed Indian exemption would, in the name of civilian cooperation, facilitate the accelerated expansion of India ‘s nuclear arsenal.

A 2006 report of the International Panel on Fissile Materials[ii], based at Princeton University , makes that very point. Currently India’s civilian and military programs are both constrained by their reliance on its own limited domestic uranium, so if India were to gain access to the foreign sources of uranium that the deal would open up for its civilian programs, it could then funnel all its domestic supplies into an expanded military program.

The CIRUS reactor, set to run until 2010, could then generate enough plutonium for another 10 warheads. The Dhruva reactor could deliver weapons-grade plutonium sufficient to build another five or six warheads per year. The new breeder reactor that India plans to bring on stream in 2010, could produce weapons grade plutonium from the spent-fuel of India ‘s other unsafeguarded CANDU-style reactors.

All told, under the changed rules, India could accumulate enough plutonium for an arsenal of more than 300 nuclear warheads within a decade – an arsenal to rival or exceed those of the UK, France, or China. The US-India deal will lead to more of India ‘s civilian facilities being brought under IAEA safeguards, but the CIRUS and several of the plutonium producing reactors built on the Canadian model are to be kept out of the IAEA inspections regime, which means that their spent fuel could ultimately be made available for producing fissile material for weapons purposes.

The opportunity for Canada to be a key player owes to its membership in the NSG, the fact that the NSG decision-making is by consensus – essentially giving each member a veto – and Canada ‘s recognized stake in ending the use of Canadian-origin technology for building nuclear weapons.

But there are risks to exercising that de facto veto without any acknowledgement of the unique situation of the three states outside the NPT. The nuclear status quo with regard to India, Israel, and Pakistan is not a compelling one. Refusing them civilian nuclear cooperation has obviously not prevented them from acquiring nuclear weapons, and keeping them out of the formal nuclear non-proliferation regime means they are subject to few legal constraints. The challenge is to create a place for these three de facto nuclear weapons states (North Korea is not a parallel case) inside the nuclear non-proliferation system and to require them in return to accept the same obligation to disarm as applies to those states bound by Article VI of the NPT, and to accept certain obligations and commitments consistent with the overall objectives of non-proliferation (which all three claim to support).

Two important places to start are the entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and a freeze on the production of fissile material for weapons purposes, pending the negotiation of a treaty to make the ban permanent (generally referred to as the fissile material cut-off treaty – FMCT).

The CTBT has been agreed to but won’t come into force until it is ratified by all the nuclear weapons states and all states with nuclear reactors – a list that obviously includes India, Israel, and Pakistan (of the three, only Israel has signed and none has ratified it). The US-India deal stipulates that US bilateral cooperation will end if India tests another nuclear device, and at a minimum this commitment should be extended and multilaterialized to make CTBT ratification a precondition for civilian nuclear cooperation and to ensure any NSG exemption would be voided in the event of a weapons test.

Even though India already has enough fissile material to meet any requirements of its declared “minimum deterrence” doctrine, and even though it has declared its support for negotiations toward an FMCT, India appears determined to increase and accelerate fissile material production for weapons purposes while the Treaty negotiations drag on (assuming they ever get started), and for India the NSG exemption is essential to meeting that goal.

Canada has already signaled its opposition. In December 2005 Canada told US officials that while it welcomed efforts to deal constructively with states, like India, outside the NPT, it said “the deal would have been more positive if the United States had obtained an Indian commitment to freeze production of fissile material for nuclear weapons.”[iii] It is a mild statement that nevertheless embodies a principle that the NSG should make its own – that is, civilian nuclear cooperation with India or any de facto nuclear weapon state outside the NPT should also be conditional on them imposing a verifiable freeze on the production of fissile material for weapons purposes until their adherence to an FMCT that converts the freeze into a permanent ban.

Canada is in a position to insist on these conditions, and with forthright leadership others will follow.

[i]Regehr, Ernie. 2005. US-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement: A further threat to nuclear non-proliferation. Project Ploughshares Briefing 05/3.

http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/Briefings/Briefingslist.html.

[ii] Mian, Zia, AH Nayyar, R Rajaraman & MV Ramana. 2006. Fissile Materials in South Asia : The Implications of the U.S.-India Nuclear Deal. International Panel on Fissile Materials, September. www.fissilematerials.org.

[iii] Squassoni, Sharon. 2006. U.S.Nuclear Cooperation With India : Issues for Congress. CRS Report for Congress, Congressional Research Service, updated 12 January. http://fpc.state.gov/fpc/c16427.htm.

What’s new after more than a decade of stalemate in the Geneva-based disarmament negotiating forum is that nothing has actually changed – except that now diplomats are tantalizingly close to a breakthrough regarding the CD’s program of work. In fact, they might just manage to get it approved before the end of April.

While they have been flirting with success, they couldn’t quite bring themselves to make the final advance by the end of the formal meetings of the CD’s first session of 2007 (on Friday March 30) – that advance being an agreement to finally begin substantive work (agreement on the matters of substance themselves being quite another matter). Many hesitations remained, but in the absence of any fundamental refusals to cooperate they did manage to agree to a special session in April in the hopes (even the expectation) of approving a way forward on four key issues on the CD’s agenda.[i]

The core of the work that is finally to begin is the start of negotiations on a treaty to ban the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons (FMCT). Twice already the international community, through the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conferences, has unanimously agreed that an FMCT is a top global priority.

In 1995 NPT signatories, which obviously includes all the NPT-acknowledged nuclear weapon states (NWS), agreed to negotiations, as well as their “early conclusion,” on “a non-discriminatory and universally applicable convention banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear devices.”[ii] Then in 2000, again with the concurrence of the NWS, states again resolved that the CD should “agree on a programme of work which includes the immediate commencement of negotiations on such a treaty with a view to their conclusion within five years.”[iii]

The United States, Russia, Britain and France have all announced a moratorium on the production of fissile materials for weapons purposes and China has given informal assurances that “it has not been producing these materials for weapons since approximately 1991.”[iv]

The three non-signatories to the NPT, India, Israel, and Pakistan, all of which are members of the CD, were clearly not part of the NPT consensus, but all three have given grudging support for FMCT negotiations[v] – which does not mean that they will join the moratorium on fissile material production (indeed it could mean accelerated production while negotiations drag on), nor does it guarantee that they will not later in April resist the formula before the CD. North Korea , also a CD member, is clearly not in a position to block consensus. Iran is also reluctant and has raised procedural questions. It could raise objections based on its earlier concerns about the absence of a specific reference to verification, but that would not be compelling objection given that the inclusion of the phrase “without any preconditions” in the CD formula means that verification would not be excluded, as the US has proposed.

Verification has been made a contentious issue by US opposition to it. In response, Canada has submitted a working paper in support of effective verification and arguing that an FMCT verification regime should be built on, though not necessarily confined to, the IAEA-based NPT safeguards regime.[vi]

If negotiations on an FMCT are finally agreed in the April special session, it will be in the context of agreed discussions, optimistically characterized as “substantive discussions,” on three linked issues:[vii]

-nuclear disarmament and the prevention of nuclear war,

-the prevention of an arms race in outer space ( PAROS ), and

-appropriate international arrangements to assure non-nuclear-weapon States against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons against them (negative security assurances or NSAs).

The start of actual negotiations on an FMCT would be a genuine breakthrough. It certainly wouldn’t end the disagreements and suspicions among the States party to the NPT, but it would help to brighten the mood on the eve of the first preparatory committee session (to run from April 30 through May11 Vienna) for the 2010 NPT Review Conference.

More important, work on the FMCT could help to put some pressure on India to join the official NWS in a moratorium on fissile material production for weapons purposes. It would in particular strengthen the case for linking any move toward the resumption of civilian nuclear trade with India to such a moratorium. If India were given leave to import uranium for its non-military nuclear facilities without such a moratorium it would allow India to devote all its domestic uranium to military production and thus expand its weapons arsenal at an accelerated pace (more on this shortly).

[i] See the Reaching Critical Will website for excellent and ongoing documentation of the CD debates (http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/cd/speeches07/reports.html).

[ii]Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. 1995. NPT Review Conference Package of Decisions. http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/legal/npt/1995dec.html#2.

[iii] Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. 2000. Final Document. 24 May.

http://f40.iaea.org/worldatom/Press/Events/Npt/NPT_Conferences/npt2000_final_doc.pdf.

[iv]Hui Zhan and Frank von Hippel, ” Building confidence in a fissile materials production moratorium using commercial satellite imagery,” Disarmament Forum, No. 3, 2000 (UNIDIR), p. 72

[v] Shai Feldman, “Israel and the Cut-Off Treaty,” Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies, University of Tel Aviv University, Strategic Assessment, Vol. 1, No. 4, January 1999; Rajesh Kumar Mishra, “India and the draft US FMCT text,” IDSA Strategic Comments, Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis, June 15, 2006.

[vi] Amb. Paul Meyer, “Introduction of Canadian FMCT working paper,” CD Plenary, March 20, 2007.

[vii] Presidential Draft Decision, Conference on Disarmament (document CD/2007/L.1), March 23, 2007.

The NWS have themselves defined what is required of them to advance the internationally agreed objectives of global nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation. That is not to say that they have unfailingly complied with their own requirements, but they have in fact left little doubt about their obligations. Three essential agreements that set out NWS commitments and obligations are the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) itself, the 1995 NPT Review Conference agreement on Principles and Objectives for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, and the 2001 NPT Review Conference agreement on “practical steps for the systematic and progressive efforts to implement article VI of the NPT.”

NWS are under legal obligation, by virtue of Article VI of the NPT, to disarm. They have in fact, through Review Conference agreements, made unequivocal disarmament commitments – up to and including the elimination of their nuclear arsenals. They have affirmed the central importance of ratification and entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which cannot happen before all NWS, as well as other Annex 2 states (i.e. states with civilian nuclear technologies), have ratified it, and have committed to a moratorium on testing until that time.

The NWS have committed to negotiating a fissile material production cut-off treaty (FMCT) and to observing voluntary, unilateral moratoria on the production of fissile materials for weapons purposes pending the entry into force of such a Treaty.

The NWS have undertaken not to threaten or use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon state signatories to the NPT. They have agreed to reduce the operational status of their weapons and to diminish their role in their respective security policies. They have pledged to honour nuclear weapon-free zones (NWFZ). The NWS have agreed to place nuclear materials and facilities which are surplus to their security needs under permanent International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. They are under legal obligation (again by virtue of the NPT) not to assist non-nuclear weapon states in the acquisition of nuclear weapons. They have agreed to regular reporting on their nuclear arsenals and on their progress in meeting their acknowledged disarmament objectives.

India describes itself as, and aspires to be recognized as, a NWS. Such formal recognition should not and will not be forthcoming, but there is certainly a movement toward treating India as if it were a NWS – essentially a de facto nuclear weapon state (DNWS).

Such a recognition would have seriously negative non-proliferation implications (an issue for another time), but the focus this time is the additional important question of the extent to which India as a DNWS is prepared to meet NWS disarmament commitments and obligations. There is certainly no non-proliferation advantage to treating India as if it were a NWS only to have it then proceed to mimic the intransigence of the current NWS. The nonproliferation regime is not in need of more states following the model of the current NWS – that is, being occasionally generous with the rhetorical commitments; but always intensely guarded in the implementation.

Thus, before the nuclear supplier group (NSG) acts on any Indian exceptions to nonproliferation regulations, the international community would do well to seek from India, at a minimum, a clear indication of how it intends to meet the commitments and obligations of the NWS and, indeed, how it intends to engage the NWS and DNWS in developing practical measures to implement the disarmament agenda and to move toward India’s stated goal of universal, nondiscriminatory disarmament.

So how is India doing with regard to its disarmament commitments?

1. Disarmament

India ‘s rhetorical commitment to total nuclear disarmament is unambiguous. Support for disarmament within a specified time frame separates India positively from the postures of the NWS. At the same time, India’s prominent insistence that disarmament must be “nondiscriminatory” and pursued “on the basis of equality” links India’s commitment directly to the behavior of NWS – a fairly reliable assurance that its rhetoric is not about to be put to the test. Unlike the NWS, India is not a signatory to the NPT and thus is not under a Treaty obligation to disarm, although its declared commitment to disarmament reflects its recognition of the global norm against any long-term retention of nuclear weapons.

2. CTBT

India’s unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing was made a bilateral political commitment in the July 18/05 joint statement with the United States, with US legislation (related to the joint statement) making it clear that the agreement would end in the event of further testing. India continues to reject the CTBT, but implies that in “a positive environment” it would sign on, suggesting that ratification of the CTBT should be a minimal condition for support for the deal in the NSG.

3. FMCT

India supports negotiations toward an FMCT but refuses to join a moratorium on the production of fissile materials for weapons purposes. US legislation includes a (non-binding) policy statement to pursue a moratorium on Indian production of fissile materials for weapons purposes, but links it to a similar moratorium in Pakistan and India. Given the NWS moratorium and India’s insistence on being treated on an equal basis, it would be reasonable to insist that an Indian exemption to NSG guidelines be contingent on India joining that moratorium.

4. NSA’s

India currently stands by a qualified, unilateral NSA declaration, and supports legally-binding NSAs. Its NSA declaration is qualified because it reserves the right to respond to chemical or biological threats/attacks with a nuclear threat/attack, thus its commitment falls short of the 1995 and 2000 commitments made by the NWS.

5. Reduced operational status

Indian nuclear forces appear to be on a substantially reduced readiness status, meaning India is currently in essential compliance with the NWS commitment.

6. Diminished role for nuclear weapons

It would be hard to argue that India is on trajectory of diminishing importance of nuclear weapons in its national security calculus.

7. NWFZs

India is supportive of NWFZs and has expressed its willingness to sign protocols giving such zones security assurances against threats from NWS, however, inasmuch as such a formal signature would implicitly recognize India as a NWS, any security assurances given by India to NWFZs will have to come through unilateral declarations.

8. Safeguarding surplus fissile materials

India does not regard itself to be in position to declare any fissile materials for weapons purposes to be surplus to its military needs.

9. Trade and Assistance

India appears to be in full compliance with the obligations of NWS in Article I of the NPT, and also adheres to MTCR and NSG guidelines and has reported on its compliance with Resolution 1540 (a 2004 Security Council resolution requiring states to strengthen or enact legislation to and regulatory mechanisms for controlling weapons of mass destruction and related materials to ensure that they do not fall into the hands of non-state actors). In the 2005 joint statement with the US, India goes further and agrees with the US not to transfer enrichment and reprocessing technologies to states that do not already have them.

10. Reporting

India is highly wary of transparency in matters related to its nuclear arsenal. Transparency in civilian programs is a declared objective of the US-India deal, but India links transparency in military nuclear programs to agreement on transparency measures with “all States.”

In summary, India can be said to be meeting, or willing to meet, NWS standards in terms of declared commitments with regard to reduced operational status of weapons systems, nuclear-weapon-free zones, and trade and assistance regulations. On disarmament broadly India has accepted the obligation to disarm, though is not party to any legally-binding agreement to that end. On the CTBT, FMCT, NSAs, a diminished role for nuclear weapons, safeguarding surplus materials, and reporting, India’s declared commitments fall short of the formal commitments and obligations (as distinct from behavior) of NWS.

This summary is elaborated in a paper prepared for a forthcoming consultation on the implications of the US-India nuclear cooperation deal hosted by the Simons Centre of UBC’s Liu Institute.

UN Security Council consensus on Iran is a major achievement, except that it may turn out to be the wrong consensus at the wrong time.

Iran’s failure to comply with the Council’s unanimous demand that it suspend all uranium enrichment, again confirmed in the latest report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has become the focus of a rapidly escalating international confrontation, even though an end to Iranian enrichment activity is not anyone’s formal objective. The Security Council’s most recent resolution says clearly and simply that the aim is to “guarantee that Iran ‘s nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes.”

Both the IAEA and the Security Council introduced the call for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment as an interim confidence-building measure, not an end in itself. The challenge is to recognize when that call undermines the real objective: complete and unfettered inspections in Iran that enable the IAEA to provide the guarantee of peaceful purposes that the Security Council and all who support nuclear non-proliferation seek.

The Security Council does not dispute Iran ‘s claim that it has a right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to conduct uranium enrichment. At the same time, Iran has not challenged the fundamental principle of transparency or its legal obligation to be in full compliance with NPT-mandated IAEA safeguards. Iran is currently in violation of both the principle and the obligation, but Iran’s chief negotiator, Ali Larijani, appears to recognize that avoiding IAEA requirements will not be tolerated indefinitely: “What should be important is to have Iran’s activities within the framework of the IAEA and under the supervision of the inspectors of the Agency” (Aljazeera.net 2007). In other words, Iran ‘s long-term obligation under the NPT is not to forgo enrichment, but to allow the IAEA the access it needs to confirm that any enrichment is for peaceful purposes.

Why then is Iran ‘s suspension of a legal activity‚Äîuranium enrichment for civilian purposes‚Äîmade a precondition for remedying its illegal activity‚Äîflouting IAEA safeguards? Iran ‘s refusal to make the goodwill gesture of suspending enrichment until the achievement of satisfactory IAEA access is, at the very least, shortsighted, but it is in no one’s interests to elevate a gesture not made, even one mandated by the Security Council, into a global confrontation and tripwire to a military showdown.

Increasingly, elements of the non-proliferation community doubt the wisdom and question the motives behind the single-minded focus on a suspension of uranium enrichment. It is time to refocus on the real objective‚Äîthat is, to ensure that Iran does not use its growing capacity in nuclear technology for weapons purposes. “What matters,” says Gareth Evans (2007) of the International Crisis Group (ICG), “is not whether Iran has full enrichment capability, but whether it has nuclear weapons.”

The ICG (2006) has called for a change in diplomatic strategy by which the international community would explicitly acknowledge that it is Iran ‘s prerogative under the NPT to enrich uranium to fuel civilian nuclear energy plants, provided it meets stringent inspection requirements. In what the ICG calls a “delayed limited enrichment plan,” the international community would call on Iran to confine itself to its current, limited, experimental level of enrichment and only gradually phase in industrial-level enrichment as the international community develops confidence that it is in compliance with a full and effective inspections regime.

Earlier the German Defence Minister, Franz Josef Jung, expressed a similar view, namely, that Iran should be allowed to enrich uranium if it remained for now at the experimental level and if it was under the reliable scrutiny of the IAEA: “One cannot forbid Iran from doing what other countries in the world are doing in accordance with international law. The key point is whether a step toward nuclear weapons is taken. This cannot happen” (Porter 2006).

A related approach, offered by Harvard nuclear expert Matthew Bunn (2006), would place the Iranian enrichment facility in a stand-by mode that would halt actual enrichment but would preserve the machinery in an operational mode to facilitate an efficient restart of operations.

The point is that there is room to explore options on the uranium enrichment question‚Äîoptions that would not compromise the core objective of bringing Iran into unambiguous, verified compliance with its obligations under the NPT and IAEA safeguards. There is also wide agreement that verified compliance would require, as both the IAEA and Security Council have rightly insisted, Iran ‘s adoption and ratification of the IAEA Additional Protocol and the more intrusive inspections it facilitates.

It would, of course, be best if Iran neither pursued nor acquired any of the sensitive fuel cycle technologies that are potentially adaptable to weapons purposes. But restrictions on such technologies are unlikely to be successful if the strategy is tosingle out Iran. The IAEA has been exploring plans whereby enrichment and reprocessing for civilian purposes would be brought under international control to produce fuel for an IAEA fuel bank, from which the operators of civilian power plants anywhere in the world in need of such fuel would be supplied. Last fall, in fact, Iran offered to have an international consortium put in charge of its enrichment program.[i]

Until that happens, however, the Iran-specific restriction on uranium enrichment remains a confidence-building measure‚Äîa sign of cooperation rather than an essential element of compliance. Iran’s refusal to agree to this gesture should not be defined as a fundamental challenge to Security Council authority and thus grounds for military action. But on the universal principle of full disclosure and on Iran ‘s obligation to permit full and unfettered inspection of all its nuclear activity and facilities there can obviously be no compromise.

Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay (2007) expressed Canada’s deep disappointment “that Iran has refused to meet the international obligations required of it,” emphasizing that “Canada still believes that the package of incentives offered to Iran in June 2006” by the six states managing negotiations with Iran (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) “offers an excellent basis for a negotiated solution.” While the details of the 2006 package have not been released, published reports indicate that it was genuinely generous to Iran (Kerr 2006).

The proposed deal,[ii] which included offers of joint energy projects, economic cooperation, and technology transfers to Iran, required three basic and significant measures from Iran : full cooperation with the IAEA and its investigations on outstanding issues, resumed implementation of the Additional Protocol, and suspension of all enrichment-related activities (Kerr 2006). Arms Control Today further reports that Iran had indicated willingness to cooperate on the first two, but rejected the third, and, notably, that there were indications at the time that China and Russia, and possibly Germany, may have supported a compromise to allow Iran to maintain a minimal enrichment operation.

It took the Security Council a long time and a lot of compromises and arm twisting to reach consensus on the demand that Iran suspend uranium enrichment, but it is a consensus that now could beblocking a potential solution to the crisis. If suspension of enrichment were taken off the table and replaced by a requirement that enrichment be confined to research levels, the international community would be in a position to call Iran’s bluff‚Äîto see whether Iran, with the challenge to its right to enrichment technology removed, would indeed honour its obligation of full disclosure and unfettered IAEA access.

In the meantime, Iran is reportedly making progress in its effort to move from the current experimental level of enrichment to industrial-level activity (Sanger & Broad 2007). The latter does not automatically mean weapons-grade enrichment. If, in the future, expanded enrichment is carried out under full IAEA safeguards, it will be possible to confirm that such enrichment is confined to civilian purposes‚Äîif the IAEA has access and all outstanding questions and issues have been cleared up. At the moment, however, the focus on a suspension of all enrichment activity provides Iran a cover under which it both accelerates enrichment activity and drags its feet on cooperation with the IAEA and implementation of Additional Protocol inspection arrangements – and. as a consequence. frustrates the international community’s right to unambiguous confirmation that Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons.

References

Aljazeera.net. 2007. Iran nuclear report due. 21 February 21.http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/420AE469-30CB-4F06-8C7E-F549318B58D6.htm.

BBC News. 2006. Iran ‚Äòpositive’ on nuclear offer. 6 June. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5048956.stm.

Bunn, Matthew. 2006. Placing Iran’s Enrichment Activities in Standby. Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University , June.http://bcsia.ksg.harvard.edu/BCSIA_content/documents/

bunn_2006_iran_standby.pdf .

Evans, Gareth. 2007. It’s not too late to stop Iran. International Herald Tribune, 15 February. http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=4662.

Hoagland, Jim. 2007. Fighting Iran—with patience. TheWashington Post, 25 February.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/23/AR2007022301701.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns.

International Crisis Group. 2006. Iran: Is There a Way Out of the Nuclear Impasse? Middle East Report N° 51, 23 February.

http://www.crisisgroup.org/library/documents/middle_east___north_africa/

iraq_iran_gulf/51_iran_is_there_a_way_out_of_the_nuclear_impasse.pdf .

Kerr , Paul. 2006. U.S., allies await Iran’s response to nuclear offer. Arms Control Today, July/August.http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2006_07-08/IranResponse.asp.

MacKay, Peter. 2007. Statement by Minister MacKay on Iran’s non-compliance with UN Security Council Resolution 1737. Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada , News Release No. 29, 22 February. http://w01.international.gc.ca/minpub/Publication.aspx?isRedirect=True&publication_id=384878&language=E&docnumber=29.

Porter, Garth. 2006. German official urges compromise on Iran enrichment. Inter Press Service, 4 July. http://www.antiwar.com/orig/porter.php?articleid=9238.

Sanger, David E. & William J. Broad. 2007. Report finds Iran in breach of U.N. order. TheNew York Times, 22 February. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/22/world/middleeast/22cnd-iran.html?ex=1329800400&en=6197fad3f448b6a0&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&

emc=rss.

[i] “Last autumn, Iran’s Ali Laijani told European Union negotiator Javier Solana that Iran could accept the Russian-E.U. proposal for an international consortium to enrich and reprocess nuclear fuel for Iran‚Äîif the enrichment and reprocessing were done on Iranian soil” (Hoagland 2007, p. B07).

[ii] “Western diplomatic sources” described the following incentives: “permission for Iran to buy spare parts for civilian aircraft made by US manufacturers, and the provision of light water nuclear reactors and enriched fuel. Other incentives are said to include the lifting of restrictions on the use of US technology in agriculture and support for Iranian membership of the World Trade Organisation” (BBC News 2006).

In the run up to the current NPT PrepCom, ¹ the United States issued a number of background policy documents, ² at the core of which is a narrow, literal reading of the Treaty’s disarmament agreement (Article VI – see the text). ³ It is a reading sharply and obviously out of sync with the mainstream disarmament community and it waves another red flag in an arena that should now be all about sober discernment and the search for common ground.

Washington promotes a fundamentalist approach to Article VI inasmuch as it isolates the text from disarmament diplomacy’s evolving understanding of it and from the global consensus that has gradually formed around what the Treaty’s disarmament mandate means today.

Excuse the appeal to theological categories, even though they are not really out of place in an endeavor that is doctrinally arcane and undeniably concerned with life and death issues, but the idea of “progressive revelation” recognizes that foundational texts, in this case Article VI, written in another time and another context, need to be progressively re-interpreted and elaborated by virtue of a community’s subsequent experience and accumulating wisdom.

There are two primary sources of such further elaboration and interpretation of Article VI of the NPT – the World Court and the NPT Review Conferences.

In 1996 the World Court said that under international law the Article VI requirement for “negotiation in good faith” includes “an obligation to…bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.” In other words, the Treaty requires more than the “pursuit” of disarmament, as the text says, it requires disarmament to be accomplished.

The Review Conferences have also yielded additional interpretations and commitments that elaborate the NPT’s disarmament mandate and bring it contemporary relevance. They set out a broad range of measures needed to accomplish nuclear disarmament. ⁴ In the 2000 final document the NWS themselves clarified the nature of their disarmament obligations under Article VI with this unanimous commitment: “An unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapon States to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament to which all States parties are committed under Article VI.”

This accumulated experience and wisdom has led to an updated and now prevailing understanding of the current obligations that the Treaty places on states. That understanding, reiterated in the opening session of the current PrepCom by Canada’s Ambassador Paul Meyer, ⁵ sees the Treaty as based on three inter-related pillars: “the norm against nuclear proliferation; the legal obligation to pursue good faith negotiations to nuclear disarmament; and the framework for cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.” These are three parallel “core commitments” that are “equal, inseparable and mutually reinforcing,” because, as the Canadian statement put it, “the Treaty is only as strong as its weakest link.” ⁶

Now listen to Washington’s view of the bargain, provided by Christopher A. Ford, the US Special Representative for Nuclear Nonproliferation. “Both the plain meaning of the text of Article VI and its negotiating history,” he says, “make clear that the disarmament provisions of the NPT are not substantively equivalent to the Treaty’s nonproliferation obligations….For better or worse, Article VI actually does not contain concrete disarmament requirements….” ⁷

He argues that “the primary motivation of the NPT was to reduce the risk of nuclear war,” and that this was to be accomplished “by obligations designed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to additional states.” Thus, the negotiators agreed that “rather than requiring anything concrete with respect to disarmament, the Treaty would merely express the clear intention of the nuclear weapon states to move toward it in the framework of a treaty on general and complete disarmament,” adding that the phrase “pursue negotiations” confirms that nothing is required of these negotiations other than that they be “pursued.”

Insisting that only the original NPT Text is relevant, Mr. Ford used the pre-PrepCom background statements issued by the US State Department to try to persuade others to quit talking about Review Conference conclusions. He described references to the results of Review Conferences as destructive procedural devices that “spark controversy and difficulty and risk reviving acrimony…of past meetings” and “reopening longstanding disputes.” But of course the unanimous support of NPT States Parties for the decisions of 1995 and the final document of 2000 are not examples of longstanding disputes but of longstanding agreements. Disputes do arise when states try to retreat from those agreements.

Mercifully, Mr. Ford did not bring his fundamentalist reading of Article VII directly into his opening statement to the current PrepCom. In fact, he emphasized American support for the ultimate objective of nuclear disarmament, but of course without acknowledging any obligation to accomplish it.

As long as this gap between the fundamentalist and progressive reading of the nonproliferation regime’s foundational text remains it will continue to bedevil the disarmament process.

1. The meeting of the NPT Review Conference Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) in Vienna, April 30 through May 11.

2. “Procedure and Substance in the NPT Review Cycle: The Example of Nuclear Disarmament,” Dr. Christopher A. Ford, United States Special Representative for Nuclear Nonproliferation, Remarks to the Conference on “Preparing for 2010: Getting the Process Right,” Annecy, France, March 17, 2007
(http://www.state.gov/t/isn/rls/rm/81940.htm).

3. Article VI of the Treaty reads: “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.”
4. See previous post: Pushing a stalled nuclear disarmament agenda (April 27).

5. Canada, Opening statement, 2007 NPT PrepCom, Vienna, 30 April, 2007 (http://www.un.org/NPT2010/statements/Canada_E_30_04_am.pdf).

6. Articles I, II, and III establish the norm against the proliferation or spread of nuclear weapons beyond the five nuclear weapon states (NWS) and set out safeguards requirements to verify non-proliferation. Articles IV and V set out provisions for the peaceful use of nuclear energy, consistent with the obligations under the first three Articles (Article V is essentially non-operative inasmuch as it refers to “peaceful nuclear explosions” — the current consensus being that there are no such things;if it explodes it’s a weapon). Article VI sets out the disarmament obligations of the NWS.

7. A Work Plan for the 2010 Review Cycle: Coping with Challenges Facing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, by Dr. Christopher A. Ford, United States Special Representative for Nuclear Nonproliferation (Opening Remarks to the 2007 Preparatory Committee Meeting of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferationof Nuclear Weapons, April 30, 2007, Vienna, Austria).

When the six party talks[i] finally produced an agreement to reaffirm the common goal of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula , along with setting out specific measures to be taken toward that end, there were two primary reactions to the deal. Some welcomed it, saying it was far too long in coming and was a deal that could have been won already in 2002. Others disparaged it, saying it rewarded North Korea ‘s bad behavior.

It is certainly true that with the cooperation of the United States the current deal could have been reached much earlier. The basic elements of the deal go back, not only to 2002, but to 1994 and are really a slightly altered version of the 1994 Framework Agreement reached by the Clinton Administration. And what the deal actually rewards is not bad behavior but an end to bad behavior. This time the deal is linked specifically to behavior and refers to the principle of “action for action” – that is, neither side takes action on the basis of a declaration by the other, but each party acts on the basis of concrete action by the other.

That means in the next 60 days there will need to be verified evidence of action. North Korea, or the DPRK (Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea), must shut down production in the one declared facility it has that is capable of producing fissile materials and must allow it to be placed under the seal and verification of the International Atomic Energy Agency.[ii] That is really the main and essential requirement of Pyonyang. It is a clear and unambiguous action and it is intended to produce another pretty clear action, an initial shipment of 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil.

The February 13, 2007 agreement is partly new and mostly old because it is intended to implement the September 19, 2005 agreement, which in turn more or less updated the 1994 deal.[iii] As the BBC put it: “Prominent members of the US President George W. Bush’s administration make no secret of their contempt for [the Clinton deal, but] now, after years of confrontation, they have signed up to something that looks suspiciously similar – a nuclear freeze in return for economic and diplomatic incentives.”[iv]

A primary difference between 1994 and 2007 is that in 1994 it was a bilateral agreement between the United States and the DPRK, while in 2007 it is a six-party agreement, giving key neighbors, China, South Korea, and Japan, a stake in assuring success this time round.

Success is far from guaranteed. DPRK is required to produce “a list of all its nuclear programs” (Feb. 13/07) and that will prove a challenge. In 2002 the United States accused the DPRK of a clandestine uranium enrichment program. The DPRK at first seemed to admit such a program, but then denied it and has steadfastly denied it since. Washington has never presented public evidence to back up its accusations, which in turn have become increasingly vague over time. The DPRK is unlikely to list what it says does not exist, to which Washington and other skeptics are likely to reply that “the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

Things could go on in that vain at some length. In the end, to build confidence that an enrichment program truly does not exist will require extensive with cooperation with IAEA inspectors. Public discussion of the matter now suggests that the North Koreans did try to acquire enrichment equipment, contrary to the provisions of the 1994 deal, but there is no evidence of the extent to which they were successful and Pyongyang continues to deny the program.

The Globe and Mail carried an op-ed by John O’Sullivan[v] of Washington’s Hudson Institute that typified the claim that the downfall of earlier deals was simple matter of North Korea ‘s cheating and that the new deal rewards bad behavior. In 2002, however, it was the Bush Administration that cut off the energy assistance element of the 1994 agreement amidst Washington ‘s aggressive accusations of another advanced but hidden weapons program (uranium enrichment). Kim Jong-il responded predictably, expelling the international inspectors and pulling out of the NPT.

O’Sullivan also reflected the views of other critics when he wrote that the 1994 Clinton Framework Agreement with North Korea is the reason Kim Jong-il now has “more nuclear weapons.” In fact, the Clinton deal shut down North Korea ‘s plutonium operation, and throughout the deal’s eight-year run not an ounce of weapons material was produced there. That all ended in 2002 with the Bush Administration’s dispute with Pyongyang. It was under the Bush Administration that Pyongyang resumed production of fissile material and successfully (at least partly so) weaponized it.

A number of elements of the agreement involve bilateral issues – between the DPRK and the United States and the DPRK and Japan. Others require unspecified levels of economic, energy, and humanitarian assistance to the DPRK.

The regime that Washington had labeled part of an Axis of Evil is now to enter into bilateral talks and normalized relations with the US: “The DPRK and the US will start bilateral talks aimed at resolving pending bilateral issues and moving toward full diplomatic relations. The US will begin the process of removing the designation of the DPRK as a state-sponsor of terrorism and advance the process of terminating the application of the Trading with the Enemy Act with respect to the DPRK.”

This welcome turnaround by Washington is seen by some as a deliberate decision to go easy on the DPRK and focus the heavy hand on Iran. On the other hand, the new approach to North Korea could also become a model for dealing with Iran – or would that be too much to expect.

[i] The six are, DPRK, ROK, China, Russia, Japan, and the United States .

[ii] The facility in question is the Yongbyon nuclear reactor and accompanying reprocessing facility. The six-party Joint Statement of February 13, 2007 says this facility will be “shut down and seal[ed] for the purpose of eventual abandonment.” The joint statement is available at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2007/february/80479.htm.

[iii] See Ploughshares Briefing 06/6, Ernie Regehr, “Responding to the North Korean bomb” (October 2006).

[iv] Charles Scanlon, “The end of a long confrontation,” BBC News, Feb 13, 2007 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6357853.stm).

[v]”No question, this is a bad deal,” Feb. 21/07.

I began reading Barack Obama’s current best-selling book mainly because of its cover – notably the wonderful phrase of its title: “the audacity of hope.” Obama says he first heard the phrase in a sermon in his home church in Chicago , and now he uses it to advance his own political agenda and ambitions – and that is perfectly fine with me. He talks a lot about “the American spirit” and the need to transcend political discord and focus on a new and compelling common vision. The hope for this kind of renewed sense of common purpose, he says, is embedded in “the audacity to believe despite all the evidence to the contrary.”

I haven’t finished reading the book – but I will. I want to hear more from an American politician who seems to reject cynicism and instead nurtures a sense of what is or could be possible.

As I was getting caught up in Obama’s mood of “can do” optimism, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced that, on the advice of an impressive gathering of world-renowned analysts and scientists, the Bulletin’s famous doomsday clock was to be moved two minutes closer to midnight. It was 7 minutes, and now is five – and the midnight hour is what you don’t want to reach.[i]

These eminent contemporary prophets go beyond the nuclear peril to also include dramatic changes in the planet’s environmental and climatic conditions. Here is what they say about the nuclear peril: “Not since the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has the world faced such perilous choices. North Korea’s recent test of a nuclear weapon, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, a renewed U.S. emphasis on the military utility of nuclear weapons, the failure to adequately secure nuclear materials, and the continued presence of some 26,000 nuclear weapons in the United States and Russia are symptomatic of a larger failure to solve the problems posed by the most destructive technology on Earth.”

One could elaborate at length, but the message is clear. And then the scientists turn to climate change.

The effects of climate change, they say, may be less dramatic in the short term, but there is no denying that in the coming decades we will face environmental change that will lead to “drastic harm to the habitats upon which human societies depend for survival.” The concerns of the Atomic Scientists were, of course, subsequently validated by the report of the International Panel on Climate Change.

Obama seems to have it right – hope, that is our collective hope about our collective future, does seem rather audacious in the face of these doomsday scenarios.

And, of course, there are many facing much more immediate doomsday realities. They don’t read the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and don’t have the luxury of debating changes to a symbolic doomsday clock. In the lives of the world’s marginalized, the hour of midnight has already struck and the bells of alarm ring out to a world that remains steadfastly deaf.

Darfur is the current public word for cries for help that go unheeded. But it is unfortunately a phenomenon that also has other place names. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was in a small room in Nairobi with a Kenyan friend and colleague and three Somali Imams, including Sh. Sariff Ahmed, who had just arrived from Somalia. For a decade and a half, as is by now well-known, Somalia has been without a central government, seemingly a land of perennial despair. The Imams had come to Nairobi to report to diplomats and NGOs and anyone who would listen on conditions in the wake of the latest rounds of Somali fighting – at the end of last year there was the takeover of the capital, Mogadishu, by a national movement of local Islamic Courts, and then a few weeks ago the same Islamic Courts group was driven from the capital with the aid of the armed forces of Ethiopia.[ii]

These three religious men vividly recounted some of the ongoing suffering and perils of Somalis, but what caught me off guard was how quickly they moved to talking about what could and should be done for Somalis to finally turn the corner to greater stability.

They did talk about external assistance, emphasizing the need for international peacekeeping forces (to replace the withdrawing Ethiopians), and especially the importance of getting foreign interests to stop making things worse. They talked in particular about ongoing arms shipments to the various groups and factions enmeshed in conflict – the ubiquitous war lords, of course, as well as what they described as Islamist extremists.

But they also talked about the new opportunities: a new transitional government might gradually come into place; the clan rivalry that helped to fuel much of the decades long fighting was giving way to an impatience with the pervasive chaos; schools were opening to meet the thirst for education. Above all, their demeanor and conversation reflected energy and expectation about the future.

I can think of no better definition of audacity than their assertion of hope in the face of their reality. Their’s was the kind of realism that distinguishes hope from fantasy.

A few weeks ago, there was another display of welcome realism when Henry Kissinger and several other similar luminaries, all of them now apparently lapsed Cold Warriors, issued a statement to insist that the United States must become a leader in the pursuit of a nuclear weapon free world.[iii]

It’s not that Mr. Kissinger has gone soft, I assumer he’s still a cold, hard realist, but I guess he’s finally getting a handle on what reality actually is – notably, the fact that you can’t dissuade, by argument or by bombs, others from pursuing nuclear weapons as long as you regard them as the foundation of your own security.

Obama makes a point of linking hope to compromise and accommodation – serious compromise, even of dearly held values. In a nice passage in the Epilogue of The Audacity of Hope, he recounts how a mentor and veteran civil rights worker had cautioned him about entering either law or politics.

“As a rule,” Obama was told, “both law and politics require compromise not just on issues, but on more fundamental things – your values and ideals.” Obama explains: “he wasn’t saying that to dissuade me. It was just a fact. It was because of his unwillingness to compromise that he had always declined [to enter politics]. ‚ÄòIt’s not that compromise is inherently wrong,’ he said to me. ‚ÄòI just don’t find it satisfying.'”

I must say I was hugely relieved and pleased, however, when Obama admits that “I am perhaps more tolerant of compromise on the issues than my friend was.” Sticking to your position through thick or thin may be more satisfying, but it’s not a formula to fuel hope for peace and social harmony. The other day I heard an interview with Drew Gilpin Faust, the president-elect of Harvard, and she used the phrase “the polarization of unchallengeable certainties.”[iv] Perhaps only a president of Harvard can get away with using a phrase like that in public, but she was making an effective case about public discourse that fails to genuinely engage differing views and perspectives with a view to finding common ground. Competition between “unchallengeable certainties” is not a good foundation for politics; rigid certainty does more to foreclose hope than to nurture it.

The Somalis I met in Nairobi know very well what happens when “unchallengeable certainties” clash. In fact, one of the fundamental conditions of peace, a fundamental requirement of a Community or of a State being at peace with itself, is the unsatisfying art of compromise. A successful State is one with a set of institutions that can successfully mediate – one that can manage compromise – among a broad range of conflicting interests, ambitions, and values. States need mediating institutions – formal ones like Parliaments and Courts, but also informal ones like NGOs, communities of worship, professional organizations, arts groups; institutions that help people focus less on their own very particular ambitions and interests and more on common objectives and shared values. States without those institutions are soon failed states, foundering in the grip of competing extremes.

I trust it is not simply a measure of the depth of one’s despair to cling to the likes of Mr. Kissinger or the travails of Mogadishu for signs of hope. Actually, I think we can take them as reminders that hope emerges in the strangest of places – from the lapsed Cold Warriors of Washington, to Somali Imams, to the writings of unproven politicians.

In collectively contemplating the full message of a doomsday clock edging closer to midnight, audacious hope can and should shape our response – hope that is built on sober assessments of reality, on unswerving commitments to action, and on persistence in the search for common ground.

[i] The January/February 2007 issue explains the decision to move the clock and carries an impressive collection of articles and reflections on the implications.

[ii] See the Jan. 5/07 posting here: “Somalia: Is Iraq or Uganda the Model?” (somaliat).

[iii] See the Jan. 30/07 posting here: “When Kissinger promotes nuclear weapons abolition” (whenkiss).

[iv] The News Hour, WNED, Feb. 12/07 (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/education/jan-june07/harvard_02-12.html).

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has surprised observers by failing to mark the anniversary of the Islamic revolution with a further escalation of nuclear tension. He was widely expected, over the past weekend, to claim breakthroughs in Iran ‘s nuclear, especially uranium enrichment, program. Instead his tone was conciliatory. He promised to remain within the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and declared Iran ready for a new set of talks.[i]

Somewhat more predictably, Ahmadinejad did not agree to remove the central obstacle to such talks, that is Iran’s continuing experimentation in uranium enrichment – a technology for making civilian reactor fuel, but also applicable to making nuclear weapons if the enrichment is taken to high enough levels.

But if a crack in the consensus within the non-proliferation community on how to deal with Iran were to develop, it would probably be over the question of whether a suspension of enrichment activity should continue to be a prerequisite to fulsome engagement with Iran. While the Security Council is now of a single mind on the issue, no small achievement, the expert and advocacy non-proliferation community, while largely supporting that view, is not unanimous.

In the past, Tehran has put forward compromise suggestions that would allow it to enrich a small amount of uranium for research purposes, while agreeing to forgo industrial-level enrichment and to rely on foreign sources, notably Russia , for reactor fuel.[ii]

German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung last year also expressed the view that Iran should be allowed to enrich uranium if it remained at the experimental level and if it was under the reliable scrutiny of the IAEA. “One cannot forbid Iran from doing what other countries in the world are doing in accordance with international law. The key point is whether a step toward nuclear weapons is taken. This cannot happen,” Jung said. According to the Inter Press Service, he insisted that close IAEA oversight could confirm whether Tehran ‘s nuclear program was actually peaceful. “IAEA inspections can provide those assurances through monitoring,” he was quoted as saying. “That is not a problem.”[iii]

By confining itself to research on uranium enrichment, it would be following a much more restrictive path than other states, notably Japan , that are in full compliance with IAEA inspection requirements. Japan is fully engaged in industrial level uranium enrichment, but of course the big difference is that Japan has been open and transparent, whereas Iran has been clandestine and deceitful. But even that distinction suggests that the real objective regarding Iran ought to be transparency and compliance with IAEA safeguards, not a ban on non-weapons enrichment.

Even if Ahmadinejad’s conciliatory demeanor were to hold, he and his country are a long way from winning back the trust of the international community – an essential requirement for any scheme to normalize relations with Iran. One measure of the depth of the mistrust is the unprecedented level of consensus at the UN Security Council. Despite Russia’s strong nuclear links to Iran and the intense suspicion of both Russia and China regarding American motives and actions, the permanent five members of the Security Council (the P5) have come together in a unanimous demand that Iran end all enrichment activity or face escalating sanctions and other unspecified consequences.

That in turn has set up the conditions for a “hurting stalemate”[iv] – that is, a stalemate that is contrary to the interests of all the parties, even if the resort to American/Israeli military force is kept out, as it surely must be, of the equation.

Under this hurting stalemate non-proliferation advocates, notably the three European Union states (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom) heading negotiations with Iran, must watch while Iran continues to refuse full cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency and edges slowly closer to a nuclear weapons capability, although not necessarily toward a clear intention to acquire such a weapon. Iran , on the other hand faces escalating sanctions and continuing exclusion from beneficial international economic institutions and from cooperation in civilian nuclear power generation that could, by its own account at least, be a welcome diversification of its energy source.

Timothy Garton Ash, a respected analyst frequently turned to by the Globe and Mail, looks for a compelling mixture of carrots and sticks to end this hurting stalemate and to persuade Iran to meet its IAEA obligations and verifiably forgo pursuit of nuclear weapons. He rightly, and thankfully, insists that the threat of military attack be excluded from the array of available sticks,[v] but then more or less concludes there are few prospects that other measures will succeed.

He does, however, hint that it may be time to think again about a compromise on the matter of research-level enrichment. He says “the White House should open direct, bilateral talks with Iran, without conditions,” and that ultimately the US should seek full diplomatic and economic relations with Tehran, “provided Iran desists from developing nuclear weapons and supporting terrorists.”

Does entering talks “without conditions” mean that negotiations should begin even though Iran continues experimental enrichment activity? And is limited experimental uranium enrichment compatible with a verifiable assurance that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons?

Most observers are reluctant to answer in the affirmative on either question, but it may yet turn out that a “yes” on both counts will be the most effective way to call Iran ‘s bluff.

[i] Doug Saunders, ” Iran warms to nuclear talks,” The Globe and Mail, February 12, 2007.

[ii] US, Russia reject Iran Compromise,” BBC News, March 7, 2006 [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4784262.stm].

[iii] Garth Porter, “German Official Urges Compromise on Iran Enrichment,” Inter Press Service, July 4, 2006 (http://www.antiwar.com/orig/porter.php?articleid=9238).

[iv] Bruno Dupre, “Iran Nuclear Crisis: The Right Approach,” The Carnegie Endowmen for International Peace, February 2007 [http://www.carnegieendowment.org/npp/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=19002].

[v] Timothy Garton Ash, “Don’t bomb Iran – don’t let Iran get the bomb,” The Globe and Mail, February 9, 2007.

In Geneva the United Nations Conference on Disarmament (CD) has begun what some will call yet another year of living pointlessly. For 10 years now, the world’s only multilateral forum dedicated to negotiating disarmament agreements has failed to agree even on what they should talk about, much less actually negotiating.

That doesn’t mean there are any doubts about the urgency of the CD’s nuclear agenda. Indeed, the urgency is growing given that in less than three months the signatory states of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) will meet in a Preparatory Committee to begin planning for its 2010 Review Conference, and given that this new review cycle must be regarded as a make or break time for the NPT.

The last Review Conference, in 2005, ended in complete failure and cast a pall over the entire disarmament enterprise. The failure to make any headway in implementing the NPT’s objectives – that is, to bring all states under its discipline and thus require the elimination of all current nuclear arsenals and prevent the spread of weapons – leaves many states increasingly doubtful that the international community is serious about nuclear disarmament and wondering whether they too should prepare to join the expanding nuclear club.

To turn these doubts around means facing some rather serious challenges:

• In the North Asia region the nuclear weapon and ballistic missile tests of the DPRK threaten to destabilize the region and to undermine the agreed international objective of nuclear-free Korean peninsula.
• In the Middle East, Iran’s failure to satisfy the international community that its civilian nuclear programs are not a cover for developing a nucler weapons capability, combined with Israel’s refusal to place all of its nuclear facilities under IAEA inspections, threatens a cascade of nuclear proliferation and obviously frustrates the international community’s agreed pursuit of the Middle East as a zone free of all weapons of mass destruction.
• In South Asia, the unilateral initiative by the United States to accept India as a nuclear weapon state threatens an ongoing nuclear arms race with Pakistan and with China, with severe implications beyond the region, and entrenches a nuclear double standard that threatens all other non-proliferation efforts.
• The ongoing nuclear modernization programs of the nuclear weapon states, along with stalled efforts to pursue arsenal reductions, exacerbates that double standard and generates further global skepticism about the relevance and effectiveness of the NPT as an instrument for the pursuit of nuclear abolition.
• The dangers of the unintended or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons are heightened by practices in the United States and Russia that keep nuclear weapons on high alert and available for firing within minutes of an alarm (or false alarm) and by the dangers that insufficiently secured weapons or weapons materials will fall into the hands of non-state groups committed to acts of terror.

The challenges are daunting, but there are signs, or at least slivers, of hope still present. A group of lapsed Cold Warriors, including former US Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and other former custodians of US nuclear expansion and deterrence strategies, has declared the world to be “on the precipice of a new and dangerous nuclear war” and thus issued a call to “leaders of the countries in possession of nuclear weapons to turn the goal of a world without nuclear weapons into a joint enterprise.”

Their statement calls for a recommitment to the NPT’s objective of nuclear disarmament and challenges the United States in particular to work toward “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.”[i]

A recent article by former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev descries the arrogance of military power and calls for reliance on “dialogue and cooperation rather than force.”[ii]

Another source of continuing hope, or at least a basis for staving off utter despair, is the fact that the core cause for hope is that the core agenda is not in dispute. The stalemate in the CD is not based on any uncertainty about the work that needs to be done – the quarrel is really over priorities. The core disarmament agenda is widely agreed. It was articulated and affirmed by consensus at the 2000 NPT Review Conference, labeled there as the “13 practical steps.”

And within those steps, even the items for priority action are generally agreed:

• Ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty – a Treaty that was negotiated within the CD (its last piece of substantive work) but now awaits ratification by the United States and other key states – would be one of the most effective means of limiting the spread of nuclear weapons capability and of curtailing the growth of arsenals in the DPRK, India, Israel, and Pakistan.
• Within the CD itself, the most likely route to it resuming its primary function of negotiating disarmament measures would be through a program of work that simultaneously involves negotiations on a treaty to halt the production of fissile materials for weapons purposes (the FMCT), formal discussions on preventing an arms race in outer space, and discussion of nuclear disarmament imperatives more broadly, including the formalization of security assurances given by nuclear weapon states to non-nuclear weapon states.[iii]

An early signal toward action on these two fronts would have a salutary effect on the disarmament environment and on the tone of the forthcoming NPT Preparatory Committee meeting.

Additional measures to build confidence in a revived nuclear disarmament agenda include:

• The control and elimination of non-strategic nuclear weapons, facilitated by the immediate removal of such weapons from the soil of non-nuclear-weapon states of NATO; and
• Further measures to reduce nuclear dangers by taking all weapons of high alert and redoubling efforts to bring all nuclear weapons and materials under effective security protection to prevent them from getting into the hands of non-state groups.

And for those with a surfeit of ambition, it could be turned toward:

• The commencement of discussions, in the context of requiring Iran to meet its obligations toward the IAEA, of ways and means of pursuing a nuclear weapon-free zone in the Middle East (in the context of a zone free of all weapons of mass destruction); and
• The continued exploration of placing the weapon sensitive elements of the civilian nuclear fuel cycle – uranium enrichment and the reprocessing of spent fuel – under international controls.

A Canadian agenda for action should grow out of this list of policy imperatives:

• A clear reaffirmation by the Harper Government of Canada’s long-standing commitment to the elimination of nuclear weapons, a commitment that is more urgent than ever and eminently achievable;
• A challenge to the United States and China in particular – the two states at the centre of the CD stalemate – to accept Ambassador Paul Meyer’s formula for moving forward with negotiations on an FMCT and discussions of PAROS, nuclear disarmament, and negative security assurances;
• Yet another call to the United States, India and Pakistan in particular to show global leadership by beginning steps toward their respective ratification of the CTBT; and
• A renewed call to remove all nuclear weapons from the territories of non-nuclear weapon states of NATO and to challenge NATO to end its doctrine of nuclear reliance.

[i] The statement, “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons,” was written by Mr. Kissinger along with former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, former Defense Secretary William Perry, and former Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn, and was endorsed by a number of former officials and diplomats. It was published in the Washington Post, January 4, 2007.

[ii] Mikhail Gorbachev, “History is not preordained: A new cold war can be averted,” The Guardian, January 18, 2007.

[iii] The formula put forward by the Canadian Ambassador for Disarmament, Paul Meyer, “The Conference on Disarmament: Getting Back to Business,” Arms Control Today, December 2006.

The UN Security Council continues to insist that Iran suspend all uranium enrichment activity even though such activity does not violate any provisions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), nor is enrichment in itself contrary to safeguards requirements under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It is not illegal for Iran to enrich uranium for civilian purposes.

But it is illegal to try to do it in secret – that is, outside of IAEA safeguards arrangements – which is what Iran in fact did for an extended period. The clandestine operation of any civilian nuclear facility, including civilian enrichment, without safeguards is illegal, so when Iran was caught doing just that it obviously raised suspicions that Iran ‘s real interest is in developing the capacity to produce weapons-grade enriched uranium. Hence, the Security Council made the eminently reasonable decision to require Iran to suspend all enrichment activity until such time as the IAEA has sufficient access to Iranian nuclear facilities to develop full confidence that all clandestine activities have ended and that enrichment is and will remain for civilian purposes only.

Iran has been notorious about dragging its feet on compliance with IAEA requirements, complaining that it is being asked to terminate just the kind of peaceful nuclear activity that is specifically allowed and even promoted under the NPT. In the standoff Iran continues to pursue enrichment and little progress is being made in clearing up outstanding questions related to the earlier secret operations.

In other words, the Security Council strategy – which seeks to isolate Iran by refusing all talks until enrichment is suspended – isn’t working, and calls for a new approach are growing.

Gareth Evans of the International Crisis Group recently told a Harvard University conference that the world will finally have to accept Iran’s civilian enrichment program and take a principled position that is consistent with the Treaty – namely, insist on a safeguards arrangement that can verify that Iran never weaponizes its enrichment capability, and promise “all hell – including in an extreme case military action – if that line is crossed.”[i]

A similar approach has been argued here.[ii] If suspension of enrichment was taken off the table and replaced by a requirement that enrichment be confined to research levels until such time as all outstanding IAEA questions are resolved, the international community would be in a position to call Iran’s bluff‚Äîto see whether Iran, with the challenge to its right to enrichment technology removed, would indeed honour its obligation of full disclosure and unfettered IAEA access. Then, future industrial enrichment would be carried out under full IAEA safeguards. At the moment, however, the focus on a suspension of all enrichment activity provides Iran a cover under which it both accelerates enrichment activity and refuses full cooperation with the IAEA – and. as a consequence, frustrates the international community’s right to unambiguous confirmation that Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons.

The current Security Council strategy is driven by the US, but it is increasingly questioned at home. Three contenders to be the Democratic Party’s nominee for president – Hilary Clinton, Bill Richardson, and Barak Obama – have recently called for a new round of intensified diplomacy, including direct talks without preconditions.[iii]

With the IAEA’s Director, Mohamed ElBaradei, calling for the defusing of tension to prepare the way for a political solution, the US/Security Council approach is losing credibility. There is no doubt that American pressure for strengthened economic sanctions against Iran is having an impact, but it is the move toward talks to resolve the crisis, rather than talks as a reward for Iran agreeing to all demands in advance, that is now opening up new possibilities. Last week Iran and the IAEA agreed to “develop an action plan for resolving outstanding issues.”[iv]

One new pledge to talk does not qualify as a major breakthrough, but combined with the growing criticism of the current no negotiations stance from Washington , we may be seeing a new opportunity. It is an opportunity that needs to be developed into a three-pronged approach: a new commitment to talking and sustained diplomacy; recognition that countries like Iran cannot be prevented from developing civilian nuclear technology; and the strengthening of the IAEA, backed by tough international resolve, to give it the technical tools and the political backing it needs to apply the kinds of comprehensive safeguards needed to assure that there is no diversion of civilian technology to weapons purposes.

[i] Gareth Evans, “Hypocrisy, Democracy, War and Peace,” speech to Harvard University Wetherhead Center for International Affairs, June 16, 2007 (http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=4906).

[ii]“Iran: Is it time for a new consensus on uranium enrichment?” March 4/07 (iranisit).

[iii] The Associated Press reports on the Clinton and Richardson comments: “Clinton, Richardson urge Bush administration to continue talking to Iran,” Associated Press, June 27/07 (http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/06/27/america/NA-POL-US-Democrats-Foreign-Policy.php); Barak Obama writes in the current issue of Foreign Affairs that “our first measure must be sustained, direct, and aggressive diplomacy – the kind that the Bush administration has been unable and unwilling to use,” Barak Obama, “Renewing American Leadership,” Foreign Affairs July/August 2007 (http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070701faessay86401/barack-obama/renewing-american-leadership.html).

[iv] ” Iran , IAEA to Discuss Better Nuclear Cooperation,: Global Security Newswire, June 26, 2007 (http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2007/6/26/ADE5FA01-715B-4BA6-AE9B-1453E164C409.html).