Iran: Nuclear Hypocrisy by the West PDF Print E-mail
Andy Rowell, 1 August 2005

When Iran’s new hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad takes office this week, he will have many pressing problems to address. Potentially the most explosive is Iran’s development of nuclear power. For years Iran has been building up its nuclear expertise. The country claims it is building a civil nuclear programme, and has no ambitions to develop a nuclear bomb. However, the main nuclear powers – such as the US, UK and France, as well as Israel and the UN - believe the country’s civil programme is harbouring a hidden desire to develop nuclear weapons.

The two camps have been arguing for months. With Ahmadinejad’s Presidency, it looks set for a final showdown that could ultimately destabilise the region. At worse Iran could face a military strike by Israel or a US invasion from the North through Azerbaijan.

At the heart of the dispute is the intricate link between nuclear power and nuclear weapons. Civil nuclear programmes feed into military programmes. Once a country can enrich uranium for nuclear energy, it’s not too far away far from developing weapons grade uranium. Every country that has developed a nuclear weapons programme has done so from a civil nuclear programme.

Alternatively plutonium can be separated from the waste produced by civil reactors to fuel nuclear weapons. The world’s first civil nuclear power plant in the UK, Calder Hall was later found to be primarily a system for producing plutonium for Britain's nuclear weapons programme.

Within days of winning the Presidential race, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had declared his intentions to pursue Iran’s civil nuclear programme. “Nuclear energy is the scientific achievement of the Iranian nation,” he said during a press conference. “The energy belongs to the Iranian nation. Definitely, the progress of a nation cannot be obstructed. Scientific, medical, and technical development of our nation is necessary” . Iranian officials now say the country wants to build some 20 nuclear power plants.

The New President warned the West not to act like old colonial powers. The West “still think like landlords of a century ago,” he told Iranian television. “Landlords expected their peasants just to listen to their words. But the period of one-sided decision-making is over. Our nation does not accept imposed relations.”

But “imposed relations” are just what the US and its allies are trying to do. The US, with its hands tied in Iraq, is letting what is known as the European Big Three– Britain, France and Germany – lead on trying to stop Iran developing a nuclear weapons programme. But the US is still pulling the strings.

The latest proposal from the EU3, as they are known, was meant to be finalised by the end of July. The draft deal was said to include the EU3 assisting Tehran with its civilian power programme only if Iran stops its attempts to produce its own nuclear fuel which could be used to make bombs.

However the deadline passed with no deal. So both sides are now said to have “upped the ante”. Whilst the EU3 want to wait another week to see if President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will signal a change in Iran’s nuclear policy, Iran has threatened to resume nuclear fuel activities today.

Whether Iran’s civil nuclear programme is being used to build bombs is under fierce debate. Some commentators argue there is every reason to be worried about Iran’s clandestine ambitions. Inspectors from the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have produced a catalogue of concerns ranging from secretive sites and disappearing evidence. “I believe they've tried to conceal their programme and their activities” argues one such IAEA inspector Chris Charlier. “May be there are other things they're doing that we couldn’t find. And that's why we're getting suspicious .” In June the UN issued a report declaring that Iran had been evasive with the truth over its plans on three crucial areas.

However many in both Iran and the West believe that the US and European stance is hypocritical. At the same time as they are stopping Iran developing nuclear power, Britain and the US are not reducing their own military nuclear weapons, that they should be doing through the UN Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The Iranians have even, rather cheekily, offered to send George Bush truckloads of pistachio nuts if he dismantles America's huge nuclear arsenal. Iran calls Washington's arsenal a major threat to global peace.

The NPT, which has 187 signatories, was created to work towards nuclear disarmament and to stop new countries gaining nuclear weapons technology. When it came into force in 1970, there were five declared nuclear states - the US, The Soviet Union (now Russia), China, Britain and France. These states are bound not to transfer nuclear weapons or materials to non-nuclear states. Non-nuclear states are not meant to develop nuclear weapons but are, in return, allowed to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

However the Treaty, although still working, is widely seen to be breaking.   Firstly it has holes in it. There are three states - India, Israel and Pakistan – that are known to possess nuclear weapons but have never joined the treaty. North Korea, which does have nuclear weapons, has also withdrawn from the treaty, leaving the other states powerless to control it.  

Secondly and more importantly, the Treaty is being remoulded by Bush. The principle of the NPT that a country can develop a peaceful civil programme as long as it gives a commitment of not developing a weapons programme is under threat because of Bush’s concerns over Iran.

Essentially Bush is becoming the global policeman of the nuclear industry. If a nation is seen as friendly to the US, such as South Korea and Egypt, they can develop a civil nuclear programme. But if they are seen as one of the “rogue states” such as Iran, they are denied. The US President ignores the nuclear warheads of Israel, Pakistan and India as these counties are allies in the “War on Terror”, but continues to denounce North Korea, as they are not . “We cannot allow rogue states that violate their commitments and defy the international community to undermine the NPT’s fundamental role in strengthening international security,” says Bush.

At the recent G8 Summit in Scotland, Bush and the other G8 leaders pledged to “redouble efforts to uphold and strengthen the NPT .”  They said they “remain united in our determination to see the proliferation implications of Iran’s advanced nuclear programme resolved. It is essential that Iran provide the international community with objective guarantees that its nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes in order to build international confidence” .

But this confidence is also being undermined by the hypocrisy of the US and Britain. Article Six of the NPT denotes that those who sign up to the Treaty reduce their stockpiles. Russia currently has some 8,500 nuclear warheads, with America some 7,000, China 420, France 350 and Britain 200 . These stockpiles are not being radically reduced. “Although there were substantial cutbacks on nuclear weapons after the end of the Cold War, all five states are involved in nuclear modernisation and none has seriously embraced its commitments under the treaty” argues Paul Rogers, the Professor of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford  .”

Instead of reducing stockpiles, the White House has asked Congress for funds to research a bunker-busting nuclear bomb, which would be counter to commitments it has given to the NPT.   The US has opposed a proposal by the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for a five-year, global moratorium on the construction of new facilities for enriching uranium and reprocessing plutonium. Ironically Iran opposes the move too.

The British are no better. Also in defiance of the UN’s proposal for a five-year moratorium, Britain is involved in a plan to build a $1.2bn (0.6bn) uranium enrichment facility in New Mexico. Critics say the plant will also pollute the environment, use scarce water resources and create tonnes of toxic waste.

Last month it was revealed that the British defence secretary, John Reid had initiated the first steps towards replacing Britain’s current nuclear deterrent, the Trident submarine. So Britain is proposing developing a whole new generation of nuclear weapons, at the same time it is meant to be getting rid of them. The UK was said to be in talks with the US on planning and building a successor to Trident, that would likely cost  £20 billion.

This month is the 60th Anniversary of the first nuclear bomb that was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. It is a reminder of the true horror of nuclear weapons. If a peaceful solution to the nuclear threat is to be found then the US and UK will have to start radically reducing their nuclear arsenals.

 “The UK, and US, can't get away with their 'do as I say not as I do' attitude for much longer,” argues Pete Roche, a consultant to environmental group, Greenpeace in the UK. “They need to take real steps to meet their commitments to reduce and eliminate their nuclear weapons, and to end plutonium separation and uranium enrichment as soon as possible. They can’t expect countries like Iran to do things they are not prepared to do themselves”.

< Prev   Next >