I didn’t expect to be blogging on this. I watched in disbelief as the public was manipulated into the Iraq war in 2002 and blogged intensively on the standoff with Iran over its nuclear programme in 2006/7 until the 16 US intelligence agencies unanimously signed off on the remarkable 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear programme, which concluded with a high degree of certainty that Iran had abandoned any nuclear weapons programme it may have been pursuing in 2003 (Iraq having been overrun) and concluded with a moderate degree of confidence that Iran had not restarted the programme since–a unanimous conclusion of all the US intelligence agencies. At this point I stopped worrying that we would be manipulated, by the usual suspects, into chasing more nuclear phantoms through another pointless and even more destructive war. But as Stephen Walt says, “They’re baaaaack….”
This issue is relevant to this blog because we periodically end up getting ourselves into wars because public sentiment gets manipulated to this end. Our sentimental ethics, combined our with unawareness, a false conviction of our rationality, makes us very dangerous. Please bear this following fact in mind throughout this discussion. Any issue involving nuclear technology will very quickly make people highly irrational.
It seems that the whole issue is heating up again. About four weeks ago, Stephen Walt made this excellent suggestion for Obama on his Foreign Policy blog.
Bottom line: Obama and his team need to pick a fight with someone and win, so that both rivals and fence-sitters recognize that foot-dragging, malicious distortion, etc., are not without costs and risks. But one word of advice: a war with Iran is not the sort of fight I have in mind.
Of course, what we are seeing now is Obama picking an issue, the politically easiest issue, to look tough on. Walt warned against this because (a) he knew it would be almost irresistible and (b) disastrous.
Briefly the issue is this. Iran, the USA, the five permanent members of the security council, Germany and many other states (but not Israel, India and Pakistan) are signatories to The Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. This treaty forms the cornerstone of today’s non-proliferation regime and is a bargain between the nuclear weapons powers and everybody else where the nuclear weapons powers promise to make steps towards getting rid of their nuclear weapons and everyone else promises not to develop nuclear weapons. To this end everyone who signs the treaty is guaranteed assistance in developing their civilian nuclear industries, including the preparation of nuclear fuel for their reactors.
To spell that out, every signatory of the NPT is entitled to assistance from the IAEA in enriching uranium. Part of the deal is that every gram of uranium be monitored and accounted for. With IAEA monitoring mechanisms in place it is not possible to divert the fuel being used for the civilian programme into a military programme. Verifying that the fuel isn’t being diverted is a primary responsibility of the IAEA.
The bottom line is this. Having made a vast investment, the Shah being originally egged on to do so, is determined to develop a full nuclear industry. It needs alternative fuels sourse anyway because–like the UK, the USA and many other oil-rich countries–its oil and gas reserves will soon peak and go into decline. Iran also has a fast expanding population so the time when Iran will become a net importer of oil is fast approaching. (Whether the vast sums they have been investing in the nuclear industry is the most rational choice is another matter.)
There is no question that Iran mastering civilian nuclear technology is strategic useful to Iran, as it greatly narrows the gap to a military nuclear programme, but this is entirely contained in the logic of the NPT. It is often referred to as the Japan option but it is probably just as true of Germany and Brazil and many other industrial NPT signatories.
The only reason that Iran might actually develop a nuclear weapon is if they believe they are at risk of attack from nuclear weapons powers like Israel and the USA, Britain and France. In other words the current confrontational behaviour is the best way of ensuring that Iran goes on and weaponises, just as North Korea did. it is also a great way to break the NPT and the whole non-proliferation regime. (To repeat: all the evidence points to Iran abiding by the regime; the nuclear weapons signatories and UNSC permanent members have been abusing it and undermining it.)
The other factor in all this is the way President Ahmadinejad’s 2005 comments, themselves a quote of Khomeinei (at a time when Khomeinei was gratefully accepting arms from Israel in his war with Saddam Hussein), that, like the Soviet Union and the Shah’s regime, the ‘regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time’. (See the full analysis of the text of Ahmadinejad’s 2005 speech by Arash Norouzi.) This is all well known, but it is almost impossible to get the mainstream media to budge on this because the narrative has been set, and so the ‘wiped off the face of the map’ distortion continues to be repeated.
Pay attention here. You will see no better example of how totally irrational modernity is in ethics–as irrational as we are rational in science and engineering. No western news reporter is going to deviate from the set narrative because it is the standard narrative. To deviate from it would be to take on a bias towards the ‘peace lobby’. It is an entirely sentimental argument, we no longer having any faith in facts or logic.
As I said, it makes no sense at all for Iran to do anything other than continue to develop its civilian nuclear programme within the legal framework set up for it. That other countries don’t want Iran to do this is beside the point. All the permanent members of the security council have a treaty obligation to assist Iran and no independently-verifiable evidence has come to light that Iran has been doing anything other than complying with its NPT obligations. Yet it is interesting that quite liberal newspapers are just as prone to publishing partial and alarmist articles such as Report Says Iran Has Data to Make Bomb (currently on the front page of the New York Times) and Iran agrees nuclear inspection – but not yet (currently on the front page of The Guardian).
I have been listening to Scott Horton’s interviews for Antiwar Radio for some years and I haven’t heard him anything like as worked up as in two recent interviews. I recommend the recent interview with Scott Ritter (and Ritter’s recent article in the Guardian) and the interview with Gareth Porter. They are riveting interviews and Porter and Ritter are both worried that Obama is getting boxed in. Ritter (a Marine veteran) gives a clear warning that this adventure is (a) totally unnecessary and (b) will get deeply messy very quickly if comes to a military resolution. Porter echoes some serious concerns that Israel is getting ready to take the initiative (see also the latest Mosaic Intelligence Report: Israel vs Iran: The writing is on the wall).
One thing that cannot be avoided: the whole debate, as being carried out by the US, UK and France, is predicated on bad faith distortion and misdirection, and sometimes downright lies (see also Gordon Prather).
Iran
This issue is relevant to this blog because we periodically end up getting ourselves into wars because public sentiment gets manipulated to this end. Our sentimental ethics, combined our with unawareness, a false conviction of our rationality, makes us very dangerous. Please bear this following fact in mind throughout this discussion. Any issue involving nuclear technology will very quickly make people highly irrational.
It seems that the whole issue is heating up again. About four weeks ago, Stephen Walt made this excellent suggestion for Obama on his Foreign Policy blog.
Of course, what we are seeing now is Obama picking an issue, the politically easiest issue, to look tough on. Walt warned against this because (a) he knew it would be almost irresistible and (b) disastrous.
Briefly the issue is this. Iran, the USA, the five permanent members of the security council, Germany and many other states (but not Israel, India and Pakistan) are signatories to The Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. This treaty forms the cornerstone of today’s non-proliferation regime and is a bargain between the nuclear weapons powers and everybody else where the nuclear weapons powers promise to make steps towards getting rid of their nuclear weapons and everyone else promises not to develop nuclear weapons. To this end everyone who signs the treaty is guaranteed assistance in developing their civilian nuclear industries, including the preparation of nuclear fuel for their reactors.
To spell that out, every signatory of the NPT is entitled to assistance from the IAEA in enriching uranium. Part of the deal is that every gram of uranium be monitored and accounted for. With IAEA monitoring mechanisms in place it is not possible to divert the fuel being used for the civilian programme into a military programme. Verifying that the fuel isn’t being diverted is a primary responsibility of the IAEA.
The bottom line is this. Having made a vast investment, the Shah being originally egged on to do so, is determined to develop a full nuclear industry. It needs alternative fuels sourse anyway because–like the UK, the USA and many other oil-rich countries–its oil and gas reserves will soon peak and go into decline. Iran also has a fast expanding population so the time when Iran will become a net importer of oil is fast approaching. (Whether the vast sums they have been investing in the nuclear industry is the most rational choice is another matter.)
There is no question that Iran mastering civilian nuclear technology is strategic useful to Iran, as it greatly narrows the gap to a military nuclear programme, but this is entirely contained in the logic of the NPT. It is often referred to as the Japan option but it is probably just as true of Germany and Brazil and many other industrial NPT signatories.
The only reason that Iran might actually develop a nuclear weapon is if they believe they are at risk of attack from nuclear weapons powers like Israel and the USA, Britain and France. In other words the current confrontational behaviour is the best way of ensuring that Iran goes on and weaponises, just as North Korea did. it is also a great way to break the NPT and the whole non-proliferation regime. (To repeat: all the evidence points to Iran abiding by the regime; the nuclear weapons signatories and UNSC permanent members have been abusing it and undermining it.)
The other factor in all this is the way President Ahmadinejad’s 2005 comments, themselves a quote of Khomeinei (at a time when Khomeinei was gratefully accepting arms from Israel in his war with Saddam Hussein), that, like the Soviet Union and the Shah’s regime, the ‘regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time’. (See the full analysis of the text of Ahmadinejad’s 2005 speech by Arash Norouzi.) This is all well known, but it is almost impossible to get the mainstream media to budge on this because the narrative has been set, and so the ‘wiped off the face of the map’ distortion continues to be repeated.
Pay attention here. You will see no better example of how totally irrational modernity is in ethics–as irrational as we are rational in science and engineering. No western news reporter is going to deviate from the set narrative because it is the standard narrative. To deviate from it would be to take on a bias towards the ‘peace lobby’. It is an entirely sentimental argument, we no longer having any faith in facts or logic.
As I said, it makes no sense at all for Iran to do anything other than continue to develop its civilian nuclear programme within the legal framework set up for it. That other countries don’t want Iran to do this is beside the point. All the permanent members of the security council have a treaty obligation to assist Iran and no independently-verifiable evidence has come to light that Iran has been doing anything other than complying with its NPT obligations. Yet it is interesting that quite liberal newspapers are just as prone to publishing partial and alarmist articles such as Report Says Iran Has Data to Make Bomb (currently on the front page of the New York Times) and Iran agrees nuclear inspection – but not yet (currently on the front page of The Guardian).
I have been listening to Scott Horton’s interviews for Antiwar Radio for some years and I haven’t heard him anything like as worked up as in two recent interviews. I recommend the recent interview with Scott Ritter (and Ritter’s recent article in the Guardian) and the interview with Gareth Porter. They are riveting interviews and Porter and Ritter are both worried that Obama is getting boxed in. Ritter (a Marine veteran) gives a clear warning that this adventure is (a) totally unnecessary and (b) will get deeply messy very quickly if comes to a military resolution. Porter echoes some serious concerns that Israel is getting ready to take the initiative (see also the latest Mosaic Intelligence Report: Israel vs Iran: The writing is on the wall).
One thing that cannot be avoided: the whole debate, as being carried out by the US, UK and France, is predicated on bad faith distortion and misdirection, and sometimes downright lies (see also Gordon Prather).