US Successfully Lobbies Against Israel Resolution At Atom Watchdog Meet

By Steve Hynd

The US has succeeded in derailing a non-binding resolution at the IAEA's assembly in Vienna which would have called upon Israel to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty and admit inspectors to its nuclear plants, saying that the resolution's defeat was essential to the Middle east peace process and to an eventually nuclear-free Middle East. Israel had warned that passing the resolution at the IAEA - even though it was non-binding - would have been taken as a "fatal blow" to the peace process.

The resolution was defeated 51 - 46 with 23 nations abstaining and another 30 countries simply not turning up to vote. Russia and China both backed the resolution, which was sponsored by Arab states.

"It is Israel that singles itself out by standing aloof from the consensus of all the other states in the region which have acceded to the NPT," a Sudanese diplomat told the assembly, speaking for the Arab group. "It stands alone in refusing to place its nuclear facilities under the agency safeguards."

However, the US took a very different tack:

"The winner here is the peace process, the winner here is the opportunity to move forward with a zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East," Glyn Davies, the U.S. envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said after a tense debate that highlighted deep divisions between largely Western countries and developing nations.

Israel had made it clear that if the resolution was passed, it would refuse to further discuss a proposed 2012 conference on a Mideast free of nuclear arms.

That Israel seems able to entirely dictate the agenda, with the US bending over to accomodate its demands that it hang onto both its nuclear arsenal and the almost non-existant veil of "ambiguity" draped over it, does not seem to me to bode well for Middle-Eastern peace or for regional disarmament. In fact, Israel seems to be taking a position of "our way, no highway option" which the Obama administration is only too keen to accomodate as long as it lets the administration spin matters as still moving forward. Like Afghanistan, however, "progress" is more style than substance.

Meanwhile, continuing to shill for Israel's contempt of the rule of law on it's really-real nukes while simultaneously pressing for "all options on the table" when talking about Iran's still non-existant nukes makes the US look a total hypocrite in international forums.