By BJ Bjornson
Obama has went out and made some rational sounding statements regarding Iran, noting that they may have the right to nuclear energy, (under the NPT, it is very clear that they do have that right), and that their energy concerns and aspirations are valid.
Predictably, this has driven the wingnutosphere into a frenzy. Among my favourites are Pam Geller saying there's an enemy of free men in the White House and Dan Riehl telling Israel to warm up the bombers.
For myself, I'm looking at the statement in full, which after Obama says the Iranians might have some right to nuclear power, continues to say:
provided it proves by the end of the year that its aspirations are peaceful.
This sounds disturbingly similar in my mind to the Bush administration's demand that Saddam prove he didn't have any WMD's. How do you prove peaceful intentions? I mean, it is quite possible to put into place sufficient safeguards to ensure none of the nuclear material is diverted away from civilian use, which I would say is more than prudent. But intentions? How exactly do you measure such things in a quantitative fashion so that the Iranians could, in six months, prove their peacefulness, apparently for all time? This leaves Obama an out so wide you could drive an aircraft carrier through it sideways.
No, this is mostly just a conciliatory-sounding gesture most likely aimed at boosting the moderate factions in the upcoming Iranian presidential election. Nothing wrong with that of course, and it gives us another opportunity to bask in that special brand of right-wing moronosphere frenzy over how Obama's sounding a little nicer while deviating only small iotas from Bush's foreign policy is dooming the country and selling out to the enemy. And they wonder why people have a hard time taking them seriously?
The Iranians certainly could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that their technology is being limited to peaceful purposes. In fact they have largely done so. It would, of course, be entirely possible to continue the largely theoretical aspects of weaponization in secret with a view towards rapidly developing a weapon in the future. It is not hard to do. The diplomatic leverage that such a virtual weapon has been discussed here before. Obama's statement looks more to me as an invitation to open diplomatic discussions than any sort of overt threat. It would very much be in Iran's interest to set the world's mind at ease regarding this program and would really take the wind out of the sails of Israel's war hawks. So why not be more open about it? Trying to have your cake and eat it too by keeping the world in any doubt about your intentions certainly didn't do Saddam any good did it.
ReplyDeleteThe comments echo remarks Obama made in Prague last month in which he said his administration would "support Iran's right to peaceful nuclear energy with rigorous inspections" if Iran proves it is no longer a nuclear threat.
ReplyDeleteTranslation: If Iran implements the Additional Protocol.
Trying to have your cake and eat it too by keeping the world in any doubt about your intentions certainly didn't do Saddam any good did it.
ReplyDeleteAs I said, the �doubt� here is an entirely subjective measure. The Iranians have repeatedly made all sorts of statements saying they have no intentions to build nuclear weapons, their leadership has issued fatwas against them and declared them un-Islamic, they�ve even made repeated proposals to have the Middle East declared a �nuclear-weapon-free zone�, (and guess who refuses to sign on to that one). All you have to say is that you don�t believe them and their intentions are still in doubt, aren�t they?
The lesson Saddam taught everyone was that no matter how open he became, how much access he granted, even how many of his weapons he destroyed because they could theoretically violate treaty obligations, it was never, ever, going to be enough to satisfy the people who were certain he was the Hitler of the moment, and therefore must still be hiding something. Remember, Saddam only kept up that whole strategic ambiguity thing until he realized the war drums were beating against him, after which he granted unlimited access to the weapons inspectors to try and remove the doubt about his capabilities. �Reasonable doubt� doesn�t enter into it when you subscribe to the �one-percent doctrine�, and you can�t prove a negative.
Regardless what Iran says or does, they will always be hiding something so far as the hawks are concerned. Reasonably, all we can hope to do is ensure that Iran�s civilian program is kept under open and close scrutiny, (or as JPD said above, implement and ratify the Additional Protocol), and that such is enough to keep the hawks in check rather than going around blowing stuff up.
I'm with you on this. I weigh in here: http://www.realclearworld.com/blog/2009/06/silly_iran_arguments.html.
ReplyDeleteThank you for making my point. In not adopting the additional protocol the Iranians are producing a certain degree of ambiguity which I do not think serves their long term interests. I certainly have not said that I believe that the Iranians are actively pursuing a nuclear weapons program but merely that they could be carrying on the necessary theoretical work to do so. The IAEA do not not the means to monitor such an effort. Such a limited program would be of no strategic importance in any event unless the NNPT program were to collapse completely. It is sufficient for the IAEA to have complete access to all material production facilities and inventories to provide the degree of assurance required which the additional protocol would achieve. The lesson Saddam Hussein taught everyone is that playing cat and mouse with UN weapons inspectors gave those people looking for war an exploitable casus belli. His delaying tactics convinced a lot of people who would hardly be called "war hawks" that he was hiding something. And when that something couldn't be found his delaying tactics provided "proof" that he used his time to move and hide it. There were quite a few people at the time who were urging that the UN be given time to complete their inspections. They were right. On the other hand there are a lot of people today who will assert that they knew for a fact that Saddam did not have any such weapons. The technical term for such people is "bullshitters". No one knew for sure and Saddam helped create that doubt.
ReplyDeleteActually Peter, I think you just proved my point. You might remember that Iran did sign and implement the Additional Protocol, though their parliament didn't ratify it, giving the IAEA unrestricted access for over two years in an attempt to be open and transparent with their nuclear program and dampen the fears of those who said they had concerns.
ReplyDeleteThe result? The Bush administration saying it still wasn't enough and pushing the matter to UN Security Council to impose sanctions. Iran responded by freezing their cooperation with the Additional Protocol, falling back to the regular NPT requirements.
As I said, whatever the Iranians do, it will never be enough for some people Pretending the kind of "doubt" those assholes had regarding Saddam's capabilities counts as sufficient pretext for going to war is the real bullshit.
Which point I had made when I said "they had largely done so." Assurance however comes from continuous IAEA monitoring and not a two year look see. I agree that some people will never be satisfied and will always assume that some secret program exists but I believe Iran's interests are best served by marginalizing such people with a thorough inspection program. If they don't have such a program the Iranians have nothing to lose by being coy about it and much to gain. The analogy with Saddam breaks down to some degree when one considers that the IAEA are not primarily weapons inspectors. Saddam may have assumed with his manifest paranoia, that the inspectors he had to deal with were spying out other military secrets. Iran can have no such concerns. The missions are completely different.
ReplyDelete