Tag: Middle East
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Kenneth Waltz is not Crazy, but he is Dangerous: Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East
It seems surprising that the ultra-establishment journal, Foreign Affairs, would go to the extreme of publishing a lead article by the noted political scientist, Kenneth Waltz, with the title “Why Iran Should Get the Bomb” in its current issue. It is more the reasoning of the article than the eye-catching title that flies in the face of the anti-proliferation ethos that has been the consensus lynchpin of nuclear weapons states, and especially the United States. At the same time, Waltz takes pain to avoid disavowing his mainstream political identity. He echoes without pausing to reflect upon the evidence undergirding the rather wobbly escalating assumption that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons at this time. Waltz does acknowledge that Iran might be only trying to have a ‘breakout’ capability of the sort long possessed by Japan and several other countries, that is, the technological capacity if facing a national emergency to assemble a few bombs in a matter of months. Nowhere does Waltz allude to the recently publicized agreement among the 14 American intelligence agencies that there is no evidence that Iran has decided to resume its military program that had been reportedly abandoned in 2003. In other ways, as well, Waltz signals his general support for the American approach to Israeli security other than in relation to nuclear weapons, and so, it should be clear, Waltz is not a political dissenter, a policy radical, nor even a critic of Israel’s role in the region.
Waltz’s Three Options
Waltz insists that aside from the breakout option, there are two other plausible scenarios worth considering: sanctions and coercive diplomacy to induce Iran “to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons,” which he deems unlikely to overcome a genuine appetite for the bomb, or Iran defies the pressures and acquires nuclear weapons, which he regards as the most desirable of the three options. It seems reasonable to wonder ‘why.’ In essence, Waltz is arguing that experience and logic demonstrate that the relations among states become more stable, less war-prone, when a balance is maintained, and that there is no reason to think that if Iran acquired nuclear weapons it would not behave in accordance with the deterrence regime that has discouraged all uses of nuclear weapons ever since 1945, and especially during the Cold War confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. In this regard, Waltz is expressing what I regard to be a wildly exaggerated faith in the rationality and prudence of leaders who make decisions on matters of war and peace.
He does make a contextual argument that I mostly agree with, namely, that Israel alone possessing a regional nuclear monopoly is more dangerous and undesirable than Iran becoming a second nuclear weapons state in the region. In effect, a regional nuclear monopolist is worse than a regional system of balance that incorporates deterrence logic. For Israel to be deterred would contribute to peace and security in the region, and this seems likely to reduce somewhat, although at a level of risk far short of zero, the prospect of any use of nuclear weapons and other forms of aggression in the Middle East. But to say that A (Iran gets the bomb) is better than B (breakout capability but no bomb) and C (sanctions and coercive diplomacy induce Iran to forego bomb) is to forget about D, which is far better than A, B, and C in relation to sustainable stability, but also because it represents an implicit acknowledgement that the very idea of basing security upon the threat to annihilate hundreds of thousand, if not more, innocent persons is a moral abomination that has already implicated the nuclear weapons states in a security policy, which if ever tested by threat and use, would be genocidal, if not omnicidal, and certainly criminal. This anti-nuclear posture was substantially endorsed by a majority of judges in a groundbreaking Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on 8 July 1996, although these strong findings as to international law were, not surprisingly, cast aside and ignored by the nuclear weapons states, most defiantly by the United States.
The Case for Option D
What then is Option D? Option D would involve the negotiation and implementation of a nuclear weapons free zone throughout the Middle East (MENFZ), reinforced by non-aggression commitments, normalization of economic and political relations, and ideally accompanied by genuine progress toward a just and sustainable Palestine/Israel peace accord. Significantly, Waltz does not even pause to consider it as in all likelihood he regards such an approach as completely inconsistent with the hard power realities of global diplomacy, making it foolish and irrelevant to take the possibility of a MENFZ seriously. Needless to say, D is also not in the Netanyahu playbook, and quite likely no future Israeli leader will be prepared to give up the nuclear weapons arsenal that Israel has been consistently acquiring and developing over the last four decades. And it seems fair to conjecture that anyone who proposes a MENFZ would be at odds with the realist camp in international relations, and such a piece would almost certainly be rejected by the editors of Foreign Affairs, among the most ardent guardians of the realist status quo.
Waltz’s preference for A, favoring an Iranian bomb, is an extension of his long-standing belief that proliferation as actually desirable based on a view of global security that depends on sustaining power balances. In my judgment this carries confidence in the logic of deterrence (that is, the rationality of not using the bomb because of a fear of nuclear retaliation) to absurd degrees that go well beyond even the extreme rationality relied upon by the most influential war thinkers during the Cold War era. In this sense, Waltz is correct to equate the Middle East with the rest of the world, and not engage in the widespread practice of ethno-religious profiling: that is, Israel’s bomb is okay because it is a rational and ‘Western,’ while Iran’s bomb would be a world order disaster as it is irrational and governed by Islamic zealots that have declared their implacable hostility to Israel. If such distinctions are to be made, which is doubtful, it should be appreciated that Israel is the antagonist that has been threatening war and pushing for coercive diplomacy, while it is Iran that has so far peacefully tolerated a variety of severe provocations, acts of war, such as the assassination of several of its nuclear scientists, the infecting of its enrichment centrifuges with the Stuxnet virus, and verified violent covert acts designed to destabilize the Tehran regime. Had such incidents been reversed, it is more than 100% likely that Israel would have immediately gone to war against Iran, quite likely setting the entire region on fire.
Objections to Option A
My basic objection to the Waltz position is a disagreement with two of his guiding assumptions: first, with respect to the region, that other countries would not follow Iran across the nuclear threshold, an assessment he bases largely on their failure to acquire nuclear weapons in response to Israel’s acquisition of the capability. Surely Saudi Arabia and Turkey would not, for reasons of international status and perceived security, want to be non-nuclear states in a neighborhood in which both Israel and Iran had the bomb. Such an expansion of the regional nuclear club would become more prone to accident, miscalculation, and the sort of social and political pathology that makes nuclear weaponry generally unfit for human use in a conflict, whatever the region or occasion. In this respect, the more governments possess the bomb, the more likely it becomes that one of those horrible scenarios about a nuclear war will become history.
And secondly, Waltz does not single out nuclear weapons for condemnation on either ethical or prudential grounds. In fact, he seems to hold the view that we can be thankful for the bomb as otherwise the Cold War would likely have resulted in a catastrophic World War III. In my view to have sought the bomb and then used it against the helpless Japanese at the end of World War II was certainly one of the worst instances of Promethean excess in human history, angering not only the gods but exhibiting a scary species death wish. Leaders have acknowledged this moral truth from time to time, most recently by Barack Obama in his 2009 Prague speech calling for a world without nuclear weapons, but politicians, including Obama, seem unable and unwilling to take the heat that following through would certainly entail. In the end, anti-nuclearism for leaders seems mainly an exercise in rhetoric, apparently persuasive in Norway where the Nobel Prize committee annually ponders the credentials of candidates, but without any behavioral consequences relating to the weaponry itself. To be sure nuclear policies are challenged from time to time by a surge of anti-nuclear populism. In this regard, to favor the acquisition of the bomb by any government or political organization is to embrace the nuclearist fallacy relating to security and the absurd hubris of presupposing an impeccable rationality over long stretches of time, which has never been the case in human affairs.
The secrecy surrounding policy bearing on nuclear weapons, especially the occasions of their possible use, also injects an absolutist virus into the vital organs of a democratic body politic. There is no participation by the people or even their representatives in relation to this most ultimate of political decisions, vesting in a single person, and perhaps including his most intimate advisors, a demonic capability to unleash such a catastrophic capability. We now know that even beyond the devastation and radiation, the smoke released by the use of as few as 50 nuclear bombs would generate so much smoke as to block sunlight from the earth for as long as a decade, dooming much of the agriculture throughout the world, a dynamic that has been called ‘a nuclear famine.’ As disturbing as such a possibility should be to those responsible for the security of society, there is little evidence that such a realization of the secondary effects of nuclear explosions is even present in political consciousness. And certainly the citizenry is largely ignorant of such a dark eventuality bound up with the retention of nuclear weapons.
It is for these reasons that I would call Kenneth Waltz dangerous, not crazy. Indeed, it is his extreme kind of instrumental rationality that is dominant in many influential venues, and helps explain the development, possession, and apparent readiness to use nuclear weapons under certain conditions despite the risks and the immorality of the undertaking. If human society is ever to be again relatively safe, secure, and morally coherent, a first step is to renounce nuclear weapons unconditionally and proceed with urgency by way of an agreed, phased, monitored, and verified international agreement to ensure their elimination from the face of the earth. It is not only that deterrence depends on perfect rationality over time and across space, it is also that the doctrine and practices of deterrence amounts to a continuing crime against humanity of unprecedented magnitude and clarity!
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The Menace of Present and Future Drone Warfare
After the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the colossal scale of devastation disclosed, there was a momentary embrace of sanity and rationality by world leaders and cultural commentators. There was a realization that living with such weaponry was at best a precarious journey into the future, and far more likely, an appointment with unprecedented human catastrophe if not apocalypse. This dark mood of foreboding did produce some gestures toward nuclear disarmament tabled initially by the U.S. Government, but in a form that reasonably struck others at the time, especially the Soviet Union, as a bad bargain—the U.S. was proposing getting rid of the weapons for the present, but retaining the materials, the technology, and the experience needed to win handily any nuclear rearmament race. In other words, the United States offered the world a Faustian Bargain that rested on bestowing trust upon the dominant geopolitical actor on the global stage, and depended crucially on Soviet willingness to go along on such a basis, an option that never seriously tempted the Stalinist approach to world order.
It should not seem surprising then or now that given the political consciousness of those running the strongest and richest modern states, that this kind of one-sided deal was not an attractive response to nuclear weaponry. Even the governments most closely allied with the United States in World War II, the United Kingdom and France, were unwilling to forego the status and claimed security benefits of becoming second tier nuclear weapons state. And of course, America’s rivals, first, the Soviet Union and later China, never hesitated to develop their own nuclear weapons capability, interpreting security and global stature through the universal geopolitical optic of countervailing hard power, that is, maximizing military capabilities to defend and attack. Thus disarmament faded into the obscurity of wishful thinking, and in its place a costly and unstable nuclear arms race ensued during the whole of the Cold War, with an array of situations that came close to subjecting humanity to the specter of a nuclear war. That this worst of all nightmares never materialized provides little reassurance about the future, especially if public and elite complacency about the risk of nuclear warfare persists.
What is less appreciated than this failure to eliminate the weaponry in the immediate aftermath of World War II was the adoption and implementation of a Plan B. The United States pushed hard for the negotiations that led in 1968 to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which was successfully marketed to most states in the world. The NPT represented a one-sided bargain in which non-weapons states agreed to give up their weapons option in exchange for two commitments by nuclear weapons states: to share fully the non-military benefits of nuclear technology, especially relating to producing energy that was early on expected to be both clean and cheap; and to undertake in good faith efforts to achieve nuclear disarmament as the earliest possible time, and even to go further, and to work toward the negotiation of general and complete disarmament. This nonproliferation agreement over the years, although a success in Western realist circles, has experienced a number of discrediting setbacks: a few countries with nuclear weapons ambitions stayed outside the treaty and managed to acquire the weaponry without adverse consequences to themselves (India, Pakistan, Israel), while others (Iraq, Iran) have been attacked or threatened because they were suspected of seeking nuclear weapons; there has been a virtual failure of will to seek nuclear disarmament despite a unanimous World Court reaffirmation of the NPT obligations in its 1996 Advisory Opinion on The Legality of Nuclear Weapons; and there has been a discriminatory pattern of geopolitical management of the NPT, most notably ignoring Israel’s nuclear weapons program while treating Iran’s alleged pursuit of a breakout capability as justifying recourse to war.
This nonproliferation approach has been accompanying by three massive forms of deception that continues to mislead public opinion and discourage serious debate about the benefits of nuclear disarmament even at this late stage: First, the fallacious implication that the states that do not possess nuclear weapons are currently more dangerous for world peace than the states that possess, develop, and deploy these weapons of mass destruction, and have used them in the past; secondly, that periodic managerial moves among nuclear weapons states, in the name of arms control, are steps in the direction of nuclear disarmament—nothing could be further from the truth as arms control aims to save money and stabilize reliance on nuclear weaponry by way of deterrence, and is generally averse to getting rid of the weaponry; thirdly, the phony claim, endorsed by Barack Obama in his Prague speech of 2009 on the theme, that obtaining a world without nuclear weapons is to be sure an ‘ultimate’ goal to be affirmed, but that it is not a political project that can be achieved in real time by way of a phased and verified nuclear disarmament treaty. In actuality, there is no genuine obstacle to prudently phasing out these weapons over the course of a decade or so. What blocks the elimination of nuclear weapons is only the dysfunctional refusal of the nine nuclear weapons states to give up the weaponry.
It should be appreciated that this two-tier approach to nuclear weaponry is a departure from the approach taken to other weapons of mass destruction—that is, either prohibiting a weapon altogether or allowing its use in a manner consistent with the principles of customary international law bearing on the conduct of war (proportionality, discrimination, necessity, and humanity). Regimes of unconditional prohibition exist with respect to biological and chemical weapons, and are respected, at least outwardly, by the main global geopolitical actors. Why the difference? The atom bombs dropped on Japan were to a degree, despite the havoc, legitimized because used by the prevailing side in what was claimed to be military necessity and perceived as a just war. The contrast with the prohibition of chemical weapons widely used by the German losing side in World War I illustrates the lawmaking role of geopolitically dominant political actors that impose their will on the evolution of international law, especially in the security domain.
The U.S. reliance on attack drones to engage in targeted killing, especially in third countries (Yemen, Somalia, Ethiopia, Pakistan) has raised controversial international law issues of sovereign rights in interaction with lethal acts of war, especially those far removed from the zone of live combat. The increasing reliance on drones during the Obama presidency has produced unintended deaths, civilians in the vicinity of the target and attacks directed at the wrong personnel, as with the NATO helicopter attack that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers who had been deployed near the Afghan border on November 25, 2011, provoking a major international incident (although not a drone attack, it was linked by angered Palistani officials to similar mis-targeting by drones). There are also unconfirmed reports of drone follow up raids at sites of targeted killing that seem directed at those who mount rescue operations or arrange funerals for prior victims. As with the Bush torture debate the political leadership in Washington has turned for justifications to government lawyers who have responded by developing drone legal briefs that seem somewhat analogous to the notorious Yoo ‘torture memos.’ There are, however, some differences in the two contexts that work against equating the two controversies about post-9/11 war making.
For one thing, torture has a long history, having been practiced by governments for centuries, and its relatively recent prohibition is embedded in a clear norm criminalizing torture that is contained in the International Torture Convention of 1984. Torture is also enumerated as one of the Crimes Against Humanity in the statute of the International Criminal Court. Drone technology adapted to serve as a battlefield weapon is, in contrast, of extremely recent origin. Nothing in international law exists that is comparably specific with respect to drone attacks to the legal repudiation of torture. There is some resemblance between efforts by Obama law officials to stretch the conception of self-defense beyond previously understood limits to justify targeted killing and the Bush lawyers who claimed that water boarding was not torture. Expanding the prior understanding of the legal right of self-defense represents a self-serving reinterpretation of this core international legal norm by the U.S. Government. It seems opportunistic and unpersuasive and seems unlikely to be generally accepted as a reframing of the right of self-defense under international law.
Perhaps, the most important difference between the torture and drone debates has to do with future implications. Although there are some loopholes involving extraordinary rendition and secret CIA operated overseas black sites, torture has been credibly prohibited by President Obama. Beyond this, the repudiation of torture has been understood in a manner that conforms to the general international consensus rather than the narrowed conception insisted upon by the Bush-era legalists. In contrast, drones seem destined to be central to operational planning for future military undertakings of the United States, with sharply escalating appropriations to support both the purchase of increasing numbers and varieties of drone. The government is engaging in a major research program designed to make drones available for an expanding range of military missions and to serve as the foundation of a revolutionary transformation of the way America will fight future wars. Some of these revolutionary features are already evident: casualty-free military missions; subversion of territorial sovereignty; absence of transparency and accountability; further weakening of political constraints on recourse to war.
Future war scenarios involve attacks by drones swarms, interactive squadrons of drones re-targeting while in a combat zone without human participation, and covert attacks using mini-drones. A further serious concern is the almost certain access to drone technology by private sectors actors. These musings are not science fiction, but well financed undertakings at or beyond the development stage. It is in these settings of fhere, especially, where the analogy to nuclear weapons seems most pertinent, and discouraging. Given the amount invested and the anticipated profitability and utility of drones, it may already be too late to interrupt their development, deployment, and expanding sphere of use. Unlike nuclear weaponry, already some 50 countries reportedly possess drones, mainly adapted to surveillance. As with nuclear weaponry, the United States, and other leading political actors, will not agree to comprehensive prohibitions on the use of drones for lethal purposes.
If this line of reasoning is generally correct, there are two likely futures for attack drones: an unregulated dispersion of the weaponry to public and private actors with likely strategic roles undermining traditional international law limits on war making and public order; or a new non-proliferation regime for drones that permits all states to possess and use surveillance drones within sovereign space and allows some states to make discretionary use of drones globally and for attack purposes until a set on constraining regulations can be agreed upon by a list of designated states. That is, drone military technology will perpetuate the two-tier concept of world order that has taken shape in relation to nuclear weapons, and reflects the consensus that both nuclear disarmament and unrestricted proliferation of nuclear weaponry are unacceptable. In this regard, a counter-proliferation regime for drones is a lesser evil, but still an evil.
The technological momentum that has built up in relation to drones is probably too strong to be challenged politically. The military applications are too attractive, the technology is of a cutting edge fantasy quality, the political appeal of war fighting that involves minimum human risk is too great. At the same time, for much of the world this kind of unfolding future delivers a somber message of a terrifying unfolding vulnerability. At present, there seems to be no way to insulate societies from either intrusive and perpetual surveillance or the prospect of targeted killing and devastation conducted from a remote location. It may be contended that such an indictment of drones exaggerates their novelty. Has not the world lived for decades with weapons of mass destruction possessed by a small number of non-accountable governments and deliverable anywhere on the planet in a matter of minutes? This is superficially true, and frightening enough, but the catastrophic quality of nuclear weaponry and its release of atmospheric radioactivity operates as an inhibitor of uncertain reliability, while with drone their comparative inexpensiveness and non-apocalyptic character makes it much easier to drift mindlessly until an unanticipated day of reckoning occurs by which time all possibilities of control will have been long lost.
As with nuclear weaponry, climate change, and respect for the carrying capacity of the earth, we who are alive at present may be the last who have even the possibility of upholding the life prospects of future generations. It seems late, but still not too late to act responsibly, but we will not be able to make such claims very much longer. Part of the challenge is undoubtedly structural. For most purposes, global governance depends on cooperation among sovereign states, but in matters of war and peace the world order system remains resolutely vertical and under the control of geopolitical actors, perhaps as few as one, who are unwilling to restrict their military activities to the confines of territorial boundaries, but insist on their prerogative to manage coercively the planet as a whole. When it comes to drones the fate of humanity is squeezed between the impotence of state-centric logic and the grandiose schemes of the geopolitical mentality.
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A Nuclear-Free Middle East: Necessary, Desirable and Impossible
This article was originally published by Al Jazeera.
Finally, there is some discussion in the West that supports the idea of a nuclear-free zone for the Middle East. Such thinking is still treated as politically marginal, and hardly audible above the deafening beat of the war drums. To the extent proposed, it also tends to be defensively and pragmatically phrased to reinforce the prevailing anti-Iran consensus.
For instance, in a recent New York Times article by Shibley Telhami and Steven Kull a full disclosure title gives the plot away: “Preventing a Nuclear Iran”. The authors offer us a prudential argument against attacking Iran to avoid a damaging Iranian retaliation and in view of the inability of an attack to do more than delay Iran’s nuclear programme by a few years. Beyond this, an attack seems likely to create irresistible pressures in Iran to do everything possible to obtain a nuclear option with a renewed sense of urgency, as well as to disrupt Western interests wherever possible.
This Telhami/Kull position is reinforced by evidence that Israeli society is not as war-prone as claimed, and would be receptive to a more cautious and less belligerent approach. They refer readers to a recent Israeli poll finding that only 43 per cent of Israelis favour a military strike, while 64 per cent support establishing a nuclear-free zone (NFZ) in the region that included Israel.
In effect, then, establishing a NFZ that includes Israel would seem politically feasible, although not a course of action that seems within the range of options being considered by the current Israeli political leadership.
The failure of the United States to raise the possibility of a solution to the conflict other than either an Iranian surrender with respect to its enrichment rights or an impending military attack is also discouraging. The silence of Washington with respect to a peaceful regional solution to the conflict with Iran confirms what is widely believed around the world – that the US Government will not deviate from the official Israeli line on security issues in the Middle East.
The fact that the Israeli public may be more peace-oriented than its elected leaders seems to make no difference to strategic thinking in the US, and what is more, the realisation that the exercise of the military option would have a likely huge negative impact on national and global interest is also put to one side.
Prince Turki‘s proposals
Another variant of NFZ thinking is more oriented to the realities of the Middle East. It has most clearly formulated by the influential Saudi Prince, Turki Al-Faisal, former Saudi ambassador to the United States and once the head of his country’s intelligence service. He argues that NFZ is preferable to the military option for many reasons, and he believes, in contrast to President Obama, that it should be removed from the bag of tricks at the disposal of diplomats.
Prince Turki believes that sanctions have not, and will not alter Iran’s behaviour. His proposal is more elaborate than simply advocating a NFZ. He would be in favour of coercive steps against Iran if there is ever convincing evidence that it actually possesses nuclear weapons, but he also argues for the imposition of sanction on Israel if it fails to disclose openly the full extent of its nuclear weapons arsenal.
Prince Turki’s approach has several additional features: extending the scope of the undertaking to all weapons of mass destruction (WMD), that is, including biological and chemical weapons; a nuclear security umbrella for the region maintained by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council; a resolution of outstanding conflicts in the region in accordance with the Mecca Arab proposals of 2002 that calls for Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territories and the Golan Heights occupied in 1967, as well as the political and commercial normalisation of relations between Israel and the Arab world.
Prince Turki warns that if some such arrangement is not soon put in place, and Iran proceeds with its nuclear programme, other countries in the region, including Turkey, will almost certainly be drawn into an expensive and destabilising nuclear arms race.
In effect, as with Telhami/Kull, Prince Turki’s approach is designed to make sure that worst case scenarios do not happen. It is more contextually framed to encompass several larger challenges in the Middle East, rather than confining its rationale to addressing the Israel/Iran confrontation.
The Turki proposals have some problematic aspects, including the idea that governments in the region could be expected to rely on the five permanent members of the Security Council to co-operate effectively if faced with a challenge to the NFZ. From another perspective, the proposal might be questioned as a historically insensitive effort to delegate authority over future security issues in the region to former colonial powers.
NFZ or WMDFZ without Israel
There is another perplexing feature of Prince Turki’s vision of a peaceful future for the Middle East. He urges the adoption of such a collective commitment to the elimination of WMD in the region with or without Israeli support at a conference of parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty scheduled for later this year in Finland, which seems to play into the hands of Western hawks.
Israel is not even a party to the NPT, has so far not indicated its willingness to attend the conference, and if participating, would likely play an obstructive role. What is the point of a NFZ or WMDFZ without Israel? As long ago as the 1995 NPT Review Conference, the Arab countries put forward a proposal to establish in the Middle East a WMD-free zone, but it has never been subsequently invoked.
Israel, which is not a member of the NPT, has consistently taken the position over the years that only after peace prevails throughout the region, will it consider lending support to a legal regime, prohibiting the possession of nuclear weapons.
The NFZ or WMDFZ initiatives need to be seen in the setting established by the NPT regime. An initial observation involves Israel’s failure to become a party to the NPT coupled with its covert nuclear programme that resulted in the acquisition of the weaponry more than 20 years ago with the complicity of the West as documented in Seymour Hersh’s 1991 The Samson Option.
This Israeli pattern of behaviour needs to be contrasted with that of Iran, a party to the NPT that has reported to and accepted, although with some friction in recent years, international inspections on its territory by the Western oriented International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran has consistently denied any ambition to acquire nuclear weapons, but has insisted on its rights under Article IV of the treaty to exercise “… its inalienable right… to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination…”
Iran has been under constant threat of an attack by Israel. It has also been the target for several years of Israel’s extremely dirty low intensity war, as well as being the subject of a US Congressionally funded destabilisation programme of the US that is reinforced by a diplomacy that constantly reaffirms the relevance of a military option, and operates in a political climate that excludes consideration of Israel’s nuclear arsenal.
What is surprising under these circumstances is that Iran has not freed itself from NPT obligation as it is entitled to do. All parties to the NPT have a treaty right to withdraw set forth in Article X requiring only that a withdrawing state give notice to other treaty parties and provide an explanation of its reasons for withdrawing.
Geopolitical priorities
Comparing these Israeli and Iran patterns of behaviour with respect to nuclear weapons, it would seem far more reasonable to conclude that it is Israel, not Iran, that should be subjected to sanctions, and put under pressure to participate in denuclearising negotiations. After all, Israel acquired the weaponry secretly and defiantly, has not been even willing to accept the near universally applicable discipline of the NPT, and has engaged periodically in aggressive wars against its neighbours that have resulted in several long-term occupations.
It can be argued that Israel was entitled to enhance its security by remaining outside the NPT, and thus is acting within its sovereign rights. This is a coherent legalistic position, but we should also appreciate that the NPT is more a geopolitical than a legal regime, and that Iran, for instance, would be immediately subject to a punitive response if it tried to withdraw from the treaty. In other words, geopolitical priorities override legal rights in the NPT setting.
The history of the NPT has reflected its geopolitical nature. This is best illustrated by the utter refusal of the nuclear weapons states, above all the US, to fulfill its core obligation under Article VI “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to the 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.”
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in its 1996 Advisory Opinion on The Legality of Nuclear Weapons unanimously affirmed in its findings the legal imperative embodied in Article VI: “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament in all its aspects under strict international control.”
This finding that has been completely ignored by the nuclear weapons states (who had made full use of their diplomatic leverage in a failed effort to convince members of the UN General Assembly not to seek guidance from the ICJ with respect to the legal status of nuclear weapons and the obligations of the NPT). The refusal to uphold these obligations of Article VI would certainly appear to be a material breach of the treaty that under international law authorises any party to regard the treaty as void.
Again, the international discourse on nuclear weapons is so distorted that it is a rarity to encounter criticism of its discriminatory application, its double standards as between nuclear and non-nuclear states, and its geopolitical style of selective enforcement. In this regard, it should be appreciated that the threat of military attack directed at Iran resembles reliance on the so-called Bush Doctrine of preventive war that had been used to justify aggression against Iraq in 2003, and represents a blatant geopolitical override of international law.
Need to avoid war
In summary, it is of utmost importance to avoid a war in the Middle East arising from the unresolved dispute about Iran’s nuclear programme. One way to do this is to seek a NFZ or a WMDFZ for the entire region that must include the participation of Israel. What has given this approach a renewed credibility for the West at this time is that such a measure seems to be the only way to prevent a lose/lose war option from materialising in an atmosphere where mainstream pundits are increasingly predicting an attack on Iran during 2012.
A NFZ plan has some prudential appeal to change minds in Tehran and Tel Aviv before it is too late, and could also encourage Washington to take a less destructive and self-destructive course of action. Whether this prudential appeal is sufficiently strong to overcome the iron cage of militarism that constrains policy choices in Israel and the US remains doubtful.
Thinking outside the militarist box remains a forbidden activity, partly reflecting the domestic lock on the political and moral imagination of these countries by their respective military industrial media think-tank complexes.
I would conclude this commentary with three pessimistic assessments that casts a dark shadow over the regional future:
(1) an NFZ or WMDFZ for the Middle East is necessary and desirable, but it almost certainly will not be placed on the political agenda of American-led diplomacy relating to the conflict;
(2) moves toward nuclear disarmament negotiations that have been legally mandated and would be beneficial for the world, and for the nuclear weapons states and their peoples, will not be made in the current atmosphere that blocks all serious initiatives to abolish nuclear weapons;
(3) the drift toward a devastating attack on Iran will only be stopped by an urgent mobilisation of anti-war forces in civil society, which seems unlikely given other preoccupations.
To overcome such pessimism requires a broader vision of peace and justice that is even broader than the contextual approach taken by Prince Turki. It would centre on demilitarisation of the region through disarmament, as well as a firm regional commitment to avoid entangling alliances with external actors, meaning no military deployments or bases in the region. With drones engaging in lethal missions in the Middle East and an array of American military bases, this seems like a utopian fantasy, and maybe it is.
But maybe also we have reached a paradoxical stage in the region, and possibly the world, where only the utopian imagination can offer us a realistic vision of a hopeful human future.
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Syria’s Challenge to Nuclear Proliferation and What IAEA Could Do
This article was originally published by the Huffington Post.
“Syria has not cooperated with the Agency since June 2008 in connection with the unresolved issues related to the Dair Alzour site and the other three locations allegedly functionally related to it. As a consequence, the Agency has not been able to make progress towards resolving the outstanding issues related to those sites.”
So concludes the September 6, 2010 International Atomic Agency report revealing the nuclear investigative dead end bearing on suspect Syrian nuclear activities. Simply reissuing the conclusion, as IAEA does on a quarterly basis, marks a policy to nowhere. The time is long overdue for the nuclear watchdog to take a more assertive stand not simply to hold Damascus accountable for past and continued nuclear cheating but to use Syria as an example to buttress the flailing nonproliferation regime. IAEA can start this week at the Board of Governors meeting.
Syria’s nuclear weapons ambitions came to light in September 2007 when Israeli aircraft destroyed what had been a concealed nuclear weapons reactor. Subsequent revelations by American intelligence and media uncovered a number of troubling facts. First, IAEA safeguards had failed to detect even a inkling of Syria’s nuclear cheating. The failure continues a pattern found elsewhere–Iraq (in the 1980s), Libya and Iran–raising troubling questions about NPT safeguards generally. Second, even when evidence reveals a nuclear violator, Syria demonstrates IAEA impotence to force transparency or reverse behavior. Indeed, Damascus has done Tehran one better: following its sole material concession–granting inspectors access to the bombed reactor site, but only after Syrian engineers had carted away debris and placed a new building over the plant’s footprint to conceal evidence–it repeatedly has said “no” to IAEA requests to provide additional information about past and current nuclear activity and gotten away with it.
The collusion of other countries in Syria’s venture remains equally troubling. North Korea provided reactor technology and Iran, financing. Tehran’s contribution marks the first time an NPT party helped another to develop a weapons capacity.
The implications for the region are not hard to foresee. Fast forward a decade or two. Nuclear energy has spread across the Middle East implementing plans begun in 2010 or earlier: Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and others have in place the skeleton for a weapons program shrouded by “peaceful” energy reactors. Suspicions mount. Rumors spread about hidden weapons activities. IAEA either remains clueless or inspectors report concerns to a sclerotic Board of Governors. Governments and pundits express dismay: how did we get to this point?
This week IAEA’s Board of Governors can act to promote a different history by confronting Syria. The Board has the ability to do so by calling for a “special inspection” of all suspect Syrian sites as provided by the safeguards agreement the Agency entered into with Damascus: “If the Agency considers that information made available by the State, including explanations from the State and information obtained from routine inspections, is not adequate for the Agency to fulfill its responsibilities under the Agreement…” it may order “special inspection.” Discovery of nuclear contraband would demand elimination.
Were Syria to balk, the Board of Governors should declare Damascus in noncompliance and send the matter to the Security Council to take action including sanctions. No doubt the course will bring out the cynic in many of us. After all, Iran’s continuing sanctions defiance and North Korea’s success in detonating a nuclear weapon despite economic penalties and political isolation suggest sanctions offer little.
But this may misread history. At times, sanctions worked to halt nuclear efforts. They helped defeat Iraq’s inclinations after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. They stunted Libya’s nuclear program. And because Syria remains economically weak, sanctioning Damascus can bring results. Swift and robust application–rather than the Council’s historic incremental approach–can make the strategy work. The alternative–more toothless IAEA reports–will only set the stage for a proliferating world none of us can wish for.
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Nuclear Dangers and Opportunities in the Middle East
Iran’s uranium enrichment program has drawn much criticism, and there has been talk in both Israel and the United States of possible attacks against Iranian nuclear facilities. The drift toward a military solution seems to be gathering an alarming momentum, with little public discussion of alternative approaches in the mainstream US media. There would likely be very heavy costs associated with carrying out such attacks.
Iranian leaders have a variety of instruments available for retaliation, and there is little reason to think that these would not be used. It is highly probable that Israel would be attacked in response by Hezbollah and Hamas, both of which have the capabilities to inflict serious damage. Even more damage could be done by Iran itself, which is developing long-range delivery capacities by way of advanced missile technology and a type of bomb-carrying drone aircraft.
There exists also the Iranian option to block passage through the Strait of Hormuz through which two-thirds of the world’s imported oil travels, undoubtedly producing supply shortages, a spike in prices, long gas lines in countries around the world, and global economic chaos. Beyond this, there are a variety of unresolved conflicts in the region that could be easily inflamed by Iranian interventions, most obviously Iraq.
Attacks against Iran, as a non-defensive recourse to force, would violate international law and the UN Charter. Force is only lawful in international conflict situations if used as self-defense in response to a prior armed attack. The core Charter commitment in Article 2(4) prohibits threats as well as uses of force. By that standard, both Israel and the United States, by their threats alone, may already be viewed as law-breakers. The actual use of force would leave no doubt.
A far better option than attacking Iran would be attempting to negotiate a Middle East Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone. There is widespread support for this initiative among the governments in the region and the world. It was a priority goal agreed to by consensus at the 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference. But there is one large catch that has so far been a decisive inhibitor: Israel is unalterably opposed, as the establishment of the zone would require Israel to dismantle its own nuclear weapons arsenal.
Obviously, the idea of a Middle East Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone has little regional appeal if it does not include Israel. Israel’s insistence on retaining nuclear weapons while being ready to wage a war, with menacing repercussions, to prevent Iran from acquiring such weaponry is expressive of the deeply troubling double standards that are an overall feature of the nonproliferation regime.
A Middle East Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone would immediately improve overall regional stability and, as well, take account of the prospect of many Arab countries poised to embark on nuclear energy programs of their own. Indeed, without such a zone, there is a substantial possibility of a regional nuclear arms race that would tempt countries such as Turkey, Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, as well as Iran, to have the supposed deterrent benefits of a nuclear arsenal.
A Middle East Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone that includes all the countries of the region is an issue that demands U.S. leadership. Only the United States has the leverage and stature to bring the diverse cast of regional actors to the negotiating table to make the needed effort to avert war. There can be no advance assurances that such a diplomatic initiative would succeed, but to fail to try would be lamentable.
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First Iran, Now Arabs Going Nuclear: An Interview with Richard Falk
This interview was originally published on Al-Jazeera
There is renewed effort to engage Iran on its nuclear programme. Washington has expressed willingness to hold direct talks with Tehran, which marks a dramatic shift between the policy of Barack Obama, the US president, and his predecessor George Bush.
The emphasis on dialogue comes as North Korea signals that it is restarting a nuclear plant that produces arms-grade plutonium, and Arab nations are importing nuclear technology and assistance at an unprecedented pace.
Al Jazeera spoke to Richard Falk, the chair of the board at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, about Iran’s nuclear programme, its effect on regional Arab ambitions for nuclear power, and whether the Middle East will enter a nuclear arms race.The following are excerpts from the interview:
Al Jazeera: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, recently announced the opening of a nuclear fuel plant, and stressed Iran’s ability and right to enrich uranium. However, he also welcomed constructive dialogue with the US and other powers. What motives are behind his statements? fFalk: I think it is difficult to assess the motives behind this kind of Iranian public initiative. It may be connected with domestic politics – the eflection campaign there – where Ahmadinejad is trying to present himself as a leader who has restored Iran’s stature and that this stature is associated symbolically with a robust nuclear programme.
It may also be a signal that though Iran seems receptive to resuming some kind of negotiations about their nuclear programme … this shouldn’t be made too easily.
It could be that this is part of a bargaining strategy by indicating that they already have enrichment capabilities and if they were to curtail them they would have to be given quite a bit in exchange.
Are Arab states pursuing nuclear programmes due to growing energy demands or does the perceived threat from Iran’s apparent capability to develop nuclear weapons play a role?
Often in these kinds of decisions the true motives are disguised and the public explanations are presented in the most acceptable, least provocative form.
I think that is the case here. Most of the rationale for these expanded nuclear energy programmes are almost always related to domestic factors, increasing electricity demand and the expense of importing energy.
It is hard not to believe, given the geopolitical climate in the region – not only Iran, but the Iraq war and other factors like Israel’s nuclear capabilities – that the geo-strategic factors have not entered into the motives of all these countries going in that direction.
Of course, they are also imitating one another. There is a sense that if you don’t move in this direction you are acknowledging you are subordinate or marginalised in the region.There is also a prestige element at work. It is extremely hard to read the hierarchy of motives. In the background it is probably the way in which India and Pakistan evolved their nuclear programmes.
They developed over time and as a result, India began to be taken seriously as a world power when it crossed the nuclear threshhold.
Will the Middle East witness a race for nuclear technologies?
The background of all of this is the abandonment by the Arab countries of their earlier mission of seeking a nuclear-free region that are directed at weapons and combining it with regional security.
Perhaps it is an interpretation that Israel is never going to go along with the idea of a nuclear-free Middle East.And now that Iran is at least a latent nuclear weapons state, it doesn’t make any sense to proceed in that direction anymore, rather to the extent that strategic considerations are at work.
It seems that the leading Arab countries think that they need to have their own long-term security. It should be a contingency option for them.
Arab leaders have implied that Israel does not want to see Arab countries acquire nuclear technology and has thwarted their efforts to advance their programmes.
As you suggested, the evidence over the years is that Israel becomes very nervous when any of the Arab countries move in directions that could challenge its regional military superiority.
Though that is sort of a remote prospect, the manner in which Israel views its relationship with its neighbours is such that it has consistently opposed arms sales of any kind or of enhancement of their potential capabilities.
Maybe Israel would prefer to see the Arab countries energy-dependent rather than energy-independent. I think it is consistent with the kind of regional hegemonic ambition that Israel both defensively and offensively assert.
Thirty years ago you called for a total renunciation of nuclear power in exchange for other pollution-free energy sources. Obama has also pledged to create a nuclear-free world. But is it too late?
I think it is already too late. A number of elements make it too late.
The first of which is this sense that alternative energy is indispensable for dealing with the limitations on oil supply and in the face of increasing demand for oil and gas, combined with considerations for climate change and combined with the fact that there is a sufficient commitment on the part of a sufficient number of important states that it is just implausible to think that this kind of total de-nuclearisation can occur.
The only thing that might give it a renewed possibility is another Chernobyl-type accident. Or several Chernobyls which would highlight the other aspect of developing nuclear energy – what you do with the waste and a variety of related things.
Jordan wants to maintain their right to enrich uranium under the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT). But the UAE has unilaterally given up theirs to prove their peaceful intentions to advance their programme. Should Arab countries be allowed to enrich uranium?
The US geopolitical discipline in relation to nuclear energy and weapons has faced a two-tier view of international legitimacy. Some countries are allowed to have the weapons and other countries are not.
Of the ones that are, most say that the others are not allowed to come close to the threshhold. At the same time, from the perspective of the international law regime embodied by the NPT, it was supposed to be consistent with having the complete benefits of peaceful uses, including the option to develop the nuclear fuel cycle.
You have a much stricter regime geopolitically than you do legally. The UAE is trying to conform to the geopolitical discipline or reality by assuring the world its nuclear energy programme is accepting international inspection and forgoing the option to reprocess nuclear fuel or have the enrichment capability.
I suppose the UAE is trying to make itself look like the optimal actor of how to ensure the energy security transition beyond the petroleum age. They also have the resources to pull off the kind of programme there.
Is it fair for ‘nuclear weapons states’ to tell others they cannot produce weapons without stripping down their own nuclear arsenals?
The fascinating fact is that they have been able to successfully for 45 years convince most of the actors in the world that they are better off going along with nonproliferation charades, rather than repudiating them.
It is based on this whole pervasive double standard that is embedded in the whole idea of nuclear nonproliferation and what I call the mind game that has been successfully played by the nuclear weapons states that makes us believe that the danger comes more from those who don’t have the weapons, rather than those who have the weapons.
Nuclear weapons states have not fulfilled the Article Six pledge of nuclear disarmament. It was unanimously affirmed in the advisory opinion of the world court of the legality of nuclear weapons.
It was divided on the issues of use, but unanimous on obligation to seek in good faith and I think they have not acted in good faith and fulfilled the real bargain. Therefore non-nuclear states, from a legal point of view, would be quite entitled to say they are no longer bound either.
Is it in the interest of these states, particularly Israel and the US, to work toward military de-nuclearisation?
I would think it is in Israel’s long term interest. It is particularly pertinent to the region because there are several dimensions of unresolved conflict, one important adversary posses a rather formidable nuclear weapons capability, others, particularly Iran have clearly latent potential.
So if one is thinking from the perspective of conflict avoidance or war prevention, it could seem that one is at a point where it would make a lot of sense to exert that kind of political pressure.
Israel talks a lot about attacking Iran, but that is filled with uncertainty and probably would generate a very strong backlash in the region and possibly even in the US and Europe. They stand to gain a lot by a reliable process of regional regulation, security, system of mutual non-aggression.
In that sense it exposes the unwillingness of the US to press Israel in the way it would press other countries, which is illustrative of another aspect of these double standard in nuclear weapons and nuclear energy.Richard Falk is Chair of the Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
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How to Achieve Peace in the Middle East
“A U.S. war against Iraq would open the gates of hell in the Middle East.”
Amr Moussa
In November 2005 I traveled to the Middle East in search of answers to questions like is Osama bin Laden still alive, how much time do we have before the next 9/11 attack, and what can be done to prevent it. I learned that Osama bin Laden is indeed alive and the next 9/11 attack continues to be planned (the American Hiroshima plan has evolved to include nuclear facilities outside the United States). In the process of seeking these answers I tested a proposal to prevent the next 9/11 attack and put the United States on the path of peace. I presented specific action steps to citizens from Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Qatar, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. My conversations included people I met in the streets as well as senior executives at Al Jazeera and in the energy business. I was also able to obtain the perspective of someone close to Osama bin Laden. The following is the summary of my observations and why we must seize the remaining time that we have to prevent future Hiroshimas.
To understand the action steps for peace, it is helpful to first consider why global terrorism is currently expanding around the world. Al Qaeda and affiliated movements that are committing acts of violence are labeled “Jihad Fighters” and illustrated in Diagram A. People who are sympathetic and intellectually agree with the jihad fighters are labeled as “Supporters.” The exact size of worldwide jihad fighters and supporters are classified by the U.S. government and not officially published by Al Qaeda or affiliated resistance organizations. On a related note, approximately 90,000 mujahadeen or jihad fighters and 15,000 Soviet soldiers were killed in the 1979-1989 Soviet-Afghan war. The population of potential jihad fighters has the potential to be far greater than the hundred thousand plus jihad fighters that fought alongside Osama bin Laden in the Soviet-Afghan war.
Diagram A *Prior to 1989 Al Qaeda was not attacking the United States as the CIA was helping recruit jihad fighters in partnership with the intelligence services of Pakistan, Britain, and Saudi Arabia. A 1989 graphic showing the size of jihad fighters would be larger than the period before 9/11/2001 because the intelligences services from these four countries were very successful at recruiting jihad fighters from over 40 countries. When the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan ended on February 15, 1989, most jihad fighters returned to their home countries and became supporters but did not continue acts of violence in partnership with Al Qaeda.
The increasing insurgency or “resistance” as labeled by most of the people I spoke with, lends support that the war in Iraq is being lost. Osama bin Laden and his supporters are increasing the number of jihad fighters in Iraq from around the world as well as the number of supporters. Since U.S. foreign policy is currently creating more jihad fighters and supporters, what can be done to reverse the trend? Diagram B projects the current trend in five years as well as presents an alternative five year snapshot.
Diagram B – The Year 2010 *This remaining force dedicated to violence is reduced in size dramatically. The remaining jihad fighters can be brought to justice by international police and tried in local courts.
What are people in the Middle East saying about this challenge? Everyone that I spoke with agreed the gates of hell must be closed. This reference to the opening quote in this article is consistently communicated as the most important first step. This means people in the Middle East want the U.S. out of Iraq. Not a reduction in forces staged over several years, but an immediate end of the U.S. presence in Iraq. If the circles in the prior diagrams were balloons, the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the ongoing occupation is the primary source of new hot air making these circles bigger.
People in the Middle East will actually laugh at you if you suggest America is liberating the Iraqi people. The standard response is America is liberating Iraq’s oil, not its people. This is a no win situation for the United States. Superficial selling points, like the world is better off without Saddam, don’t go over very well with people who know that the U.S. supported Saddam while he was slaughtering Muslims. People in this part of the world have not forgotten that the U.S. sold weapons to Saddam that enabled him to stay in power and kill his people.
For people who are 50 years old and younger, they have consistently witnessed how the U.S. suppresses democracy in the Middle East. The 1953 CIA overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran is far from being forgotten. Whether the country is Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Iran, Kuwait or any other Middle East country, the U.S. has consistently suppressed democracy in favor of governments that facilitated access to oil fields. The people I spoke with have no delusions that things have changed and Iraq will become a democracy.
A simple question can help you appreciate the perspective of people in the Middle East. If the Iraqi government wanted all U.S. forces to leave today or even in a few years, would they? The answer is U.S. forces will remain in Iraq for many years to come and no Iraqi government will stay in power for long if it attempts to kick the U.S. military out of the country. Only the U.S. public is being fooled by associating statements about future troop reductions with ending the presence of all troops. Egyptians know this first hand as Britain made statements and did periodically reduce its forces for decades before finally leaving Egypt.
The debate on the immediate removal of U.S. forces in Iraq rarely introduces alternatives beyond total chaos or continued occupation. Alternatives that are far less costly and far more likely to work do exist. The problem for the Bush administration is these alternatives require giving up control of Iraq’s oil and water resources. For example, people in the Middle East would welcome a United Nations peacekeeping force that did not include the U.S. or Britain. This is especially true if the U.S. and Britain fund the effort and many of the peacekeepers came from Muslim nations. This one change alone would redefine the debate as one where the liberation is a liberation of people and not oil. This is absolutely achievable and would cost a fraction in dollars and most importantly lives relative to the current occupation. People from the Middle East are confident that removing the existing primarily “Christian Army” factor would help deflate Osama bin Laden’s claims that the invasion of Iraq is really a war on Islam.
Once my conversations progressed beyond the removal of U.S. forces from Iraq, the next action step was removing all U.S. forces from the Middle East. The U.S. government understood how the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia, which during the Gulf War exceeded 500,000 troops, was a leading reason why 15 of the 19 9/11 highjackers were from Saudi Arabia. To correct this problem that was fueling Osama bin Laden’s calls for jihad, in August 2003 the U.S. completed the removal all U.S. military forces from Saudi Arabia. This foreign policy change would have removed a major motivator for calls of jihad if the soldiers were not redeployed to other countries.
No one wants a foreign army in their backyard. Somehow the Bush administration thinks the problem can be sidestepped by hiding the U.S. bases in the desert. The citizens of the Middle East are aware of this strategy to “hide” the U.S. soldiers. The “hide” strategy fails to hide the fact that foreign soldiers are in the country to reinforce governments that suppress democracy. A major factor creating jihad fighters is eliminated when U.S. soldiers leave the Middle East. This is commonsense when you think about how you would feel if a foreign army was stationed in the U.S. to help keep President Bush in power.
The first two action steps, ending the occupation of Iraq and removing all U.S. military from the Middle East, will stop the growth of anti-U.S. jihad and support. What is needed to reduce and transform anti-U.S. jihad to a barely visible dot and ultimately eliminate jihad support? The answer continues with the U.S. reclaiming its credibility as a nation adhering to international law. Starting a war has resulted in the U.S. being perceived as a nation that does not adhere to international law. The tortures at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay have destroyed U.S. credibility as a voice for human rights. The use of white phosphorus (WP) weapons to “shake and bake” communicates that Iraqi citizens are having their skin melted off their bodies instead of being liberated. The Pentagon November 2005 confirmation of WP weapons after countless denials makes people in the Middle East wonder when their fears of depleted uranium weapons will finally be confirmed. Each violation of international law helps to solidify the case that Osama bin Laden is fighting for justice and the U.S. is a force of evil.
When the U.S. supports the United Nations, endorses the International Criminal Court, and adheres to the Geneva protections without exception, credibility slowly begins to be restored. Policies that are fueling the perception that the U.S. is lawless, must be ended. Programs like extraordinary renditions, where people are kidnapped from around the world and sent to secret prisons, cannot coexist with the perception that the U.S. adheres to international law. People in the Middle East have observed that if the U.S. is bringing democracy that includes programs to torture people, they do not want democracy in Iraq.
To shrink the global terrorism dot to the point where it would be virtually non-existent, as it is in places like Switzerland, the U.S. will need to renounce its weapons of mass destruction and stop selling weapons to other countries. Current U.S. foreign policies help keep American weapons factories warm, but these policies will come back to haunt everyone. Even if the U.S. took the initial step of stopping the sale of weapons in the Middle East, the global terrorism movement would deteriorate dramatically. Jihad recruiters would face a stiff challenge if the U.S. stopped selling weapons to Israel. Israel, as the only current nuclear weapon nation in the Middle East, hardly needs addition U.S. weapons.
The combination of no U.S. soldiers anywhere in the Middle East, adherence to international law, and termination of selling weapons will successfully end the anti-U.S. jihad. The Bush administration follows a foreign policy that you have to do some bad things to produce good endings. The action steps needed challenge this point. To achieve peace we must work for justice. U.S. foreign policies in the Middle East has been blind to what Americans value at home and this over time has fueled violent movements. Some say that it is too late, promoting true democracy in the Middle East will bring into power fundamentalists. When is it ever to late to do what is right? The failure to denounce sham democracies like Egypt, are only guaranteed to bring fundamentalist groups like the Egyptian Brotherhood into power.
In summary, I learned during my visit to the Middle East that a more peaceful world is possible. We know how and only need the courage to implement the initial steps.
- End the U.S. occupation of Iraq and support U.N. “liberation” peacekeepers
- Remove all U.S. forces from the Middle East
- Adhere to international law.
- End hypocritical weapons of mass destruction policies and stop selling weapons.
One final observation that is important to always remember. Muslims in the Middle East are people like you and I. They love their children and want peace. None of the people I spoke with approved of terrorism, especially violence against civilians. This means that unless the United States makes the mistake of making the war on terrorism a war on Islam, the world can be saved from a war that will span the globe and likely last more than 100 years. Unfortunately, starting the war in Iraq, occupying the Middle East with dozens of military bases, torturing Muslims, and supporting governments that suppress democracy are perceived by many as a war on Islam. As members of humanity we must hold our leaders accountable and implement the above four steps for peace.
David Dionisi is a former US army intelligence officer and business executive. He is the author of American Hiroshima (www.americanhiroshima.info).
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Middle East Expert Visits the Foundation
Professor Farzeen Nasri, a long-time consultant to the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF), recently gave a talk entitled “American Policy in the Middle East: Who Does it Benefit?” at a special NAPF Luncheon Dialogue. A native of Iran, Prof. Nasri currently serves as Director of the International Studies program at Ventura College and teaches political science and economics courses. At the luncheon, he offered his thoughts on the critical role of the media in constructing the public’s perception of threat, the realities of divergent Muslim groups, and the consequences of American foreign policy in the Middle East.
Prof. Nasri began by stating that individuals and states act on perceptions, and the observer is the key translator who turns facts into a reality. He asserted that we must overcome cognitive dissonance (the tendency to disregard opposing data in search of information that is instead supportive of our preconceived beliefs) for successful international problem solving. The global level requires actors to see each other’s perspectives; one party must essentially become the “other.”
Nasri went on to describe how terrorism is perceptual: those considered “freedom fighters” or “founding fathers” by some are seen as “terrorists” by others. It is important to remember that many “terrorists” are relatively affluent, educated youth who are not against the United States but rather its invasive foreign policy.
The media is supposed to present accurate perceptions of the parties involved in a conflict. But according to Prof. Nasri, the American media has failed in its responsibility to turn fact into reality, leading him to conclude that it is “the most important threat to American democracy.” BBC has recently stated that the American media, which is very one-sided, especially in issues of foreign concern, has lost any credibility it once had after its coverage of Iraq. Advertisers have the power to decide what is presented through American media, an issue of increasing concern with the Federal Communications Commission’s recent vote to ease restrictions on media consolidation. Furthermore, U.S. corporate control of the media is not contained in this country alone: Fox’s role in Israel has led to the demise of BBC there, and Rupert Murdock owns media in England, China, Australia, and Israel, in addition to his expanding ownership of U.S. media.
What can American citizens do to confront the failure of their country’s mainstream media? Prof. Nasri suggested that they follow the example of other countries in having media classes as a part of general education. In such classes, students are instructed on how to read the news and distinguish news from propaganda.
Focusing in on the politics on the Middle East, Prof. Nasri reminded the luncheon’s participants that Arabs make up less than one-third of the world’s total Muslim population and that not all Muslim countries have religious rulers. All religions have both fanatics and moderates, and Islam is no exception. Prof. Nasri identifies four major groups of Muslims:
1. Fundamentalists, who insist on rigid adherence to the words and acts of Mohammed, often take direct and aggressive political action.
2. Traditionalists, consisting largely of Islamic scholars, teacher, and apolitical individuals, have allowed recent events to influence their religious practice.
3. Modernists, who seek tolerance and social justice through a religion that incorporates science, reject governments ruled by clergy.
4. Pragmatists, often discredited by the other three groups, do not necessarily follow religious directives. Influenced by secular education, their ideal system consists of modernization, lay Muslim rulers, a secular government, and a combination of socialism and capitalism.
Prof. Nasri noted that current U.S. policy makers, and to a large extent U.S. citizens, ignore the differences between Islamic belief systems, subscribing instead to a “Clash of Civilizations” mentality.
American policy in the Middle East is described by Prof. Nasri as a “new imperialism,” protecting U.S. interests abroad and attempting to control oil and fresh water in the region. Through its actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States has earned a reputation for being “strong on destruction; weak on construction.” Among the international community, America is now known as a nation of lawbreakers.
Prof. Nasri revealed several negative domestic results from American policy towards the Middle East in addition to the changes in the international perception of the United States: The media has lost its credibility. Students from the Middle East are discouraged from coming to the U.S., meaning a loss in the brainpower and the cultural perspective in American universities and firms. There is militarization of American culture. And the economy has been weakened as tourism and sale of American products abroad has declined.
Prof. Nasri concluded by sharing his insights on how American policy in the Middle East has influenced the world system: It has weakened NATO while encouraging a “might is right” attitude. It has legitimized the idea of using non-governmental organizations and supranational actors only when they are in accordance with particular agendas. And it has disregarded years of work towards global cooperation.
American foreign policy in the Middle East, as seen by Prof. Nasri, is hurting American relations in the region and damaging the United States’ reputation in the world. In order for this to change, Americans must become better informed: about who the media really is, who Muslims really are, and how U.S. foreign policy is actually affecting the world in which we live.
* Jui Shah, a student at the School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University, is a Lena Cheng Intern at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.