Love of the Land: Linkage Threat: Will Israel Pay the Price for Obama’s Nuclear Delusions?

Linkage Threat: Will Israel Pay the Price for Obama’s Nuclear Delusions?

Jonathan Tobin
Contentions/Commentary
07 May '10

While the world watches and waits to see what, if anything, Washington will do to stop Iran’s nuclear program, the greatest obstacle to action may not be just the president’s indifference to the existential threat to Israel or the possibility such a development would pose to regional stability. Instead, as it is rapidly becoming evident, one of the fundamental problems here may be something else: the Obama administration’s obsession with pursuing the left’s Cold War agenda against nuclear arms.

As the New York Times’s report (mentioned earlier today by Jennifer) shows, President Obama plans to revive a civilian nuclear agreement with Russia, one that had been spiked by the Bush administration after Moscow’s invasion of Georgia in 2008. When it comes to nuclear issues, the administration’s priority remains the futile pursuit of agreements that will diminish America’s nuclear edge rather than an all-out effort to stop the spread of such weapons. As was the case with last year’s decision to betray past promises to the Czech Republic and Poland on missile defense to appease Russia, Obama’s main concern seems to be conciliating America’s antagonists rather than solidarity with allies. Rather than wait to see if Russia will make good on the vague pledges it has made about supporting the United States on Iran, Obama has gone ahead and handed the Medvedev/Putin regime a major victory in exchange for nothing.

Yet as troubling as this foolish determination to please Russia’s new autocrats may be, it is merely part of a larger agenda in which the administration’s interest in nuclear issues has created a situation that, rather than isolating the rogue regime in Tehran, may serve to harm Israel. As the United Nations’s month-long nuclear nonproliferation conference that began last week has shown, Washington’s push on the issue has been derailed. The president’s much-heralded deference to international opinion and his clear interest in appeasing Russia and China have contributed to a situation where the main topic of conversation is becoming not how to stop Iran but rather how to disarm its intended victim Israel. The fact that Israel’s possession of nukes is purely defensive — after all, it is the only nation marked for extinction by many of its neighbors as well as by the Iranian regime — is more easily forgotten amid the new emphasis given to banning nukes started by Obama. This is reinforced by a statement earlier this week from the head of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, who is asking for international input on an Arab-led push to have Israel join the Nonproliferation Treaty, in a move that increases pressure on Jerusalem to disclose more information about its own nuclear weapons.

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Love of the Land: Linkage Threat: Will Israel Pay the Price for Obama’s Nuclear Delusions?

Love of the Land: Ahmadinejad Unveils His Grand Strategy: A Nuclear Defensive Umbrella for Aggression

Ahmadinejad Unveils His Grand Strategy: A Nuclear Defensive Umbrella for Aggression

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
05 May '10

Whatever you think of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad he is not a stupid man. And he's also not acting like an intimidated one. During the latest UN meeting on nuclear issues, when the new International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)director-general urged Iran to "clarify" its activities, the camera showed Ahmadinejad laughing contemptuously.

Diplomatic engagement isn't going to win this guy over, nor are hollow threats. He knows the current U.S. government court-martials Navy Seals for giving a bloody lip to a terrorist who murdered American civilians in Iraq and mutilated their corpses (though the two tried have been cleared). What does he have to be scared about?

The main theme of Ahmadinejad’s speech at the 2010 Review Conference by countries that have signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is to outflank Obama’s calls for getting rid of nuclear weapons, trying to repeat Iran's success of last September in getting sanctions postponed. Back then, Iran proposed a plan for letting its nuclear materials be reprocessed abroad. But once the sanctions’ momentum had been derailed, Iran made clear that it had no intention of agreeing to anything like that.

Incidentally, it was Obama who added the issue of getting rid of all nuclear weapons in the world to the UN conference agenda.

Afer running his own international nuclear summit under the slogan, "Nuclear Power for All, Nuclear Weapons for None," Ahmadinejad gave a UN speech sounding word for word what an idealistic pacifist would say: nuclear weapons are bad; ban them now.

Nuclear weapons, Ahmadinejad explained, don’t bring real security and producing or possessing them, “under whatever pretext..is a very dangerous act which first and foremost makes the country” having them worse off. He even stated:

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Love of the Land: Ahmadinejad Unveils His Grand Strategy: A Nuclear Defensive Umbrella for Aggression

Love of the Land: The NPT Illusion

The NPT Illusion

Disarmament fantasies help the Iranian regime.


Bret Stephens
Wall Street Journal
04 May '10

These are strange days for New York City's finest. Over the weekend, they deployed in force to find the terrorist who tried to bomb Times Square. Yesterday, they deployed in force to protect the terrorist who is president of Iran. One of these guys works in propane, fireworks and gasoline; the other guy in enriched uranium, polonium triggers and ballistic missiles.

That other guy—the one who didn't roll into town in a Pathfinder—was in Manhattan to unload on this month's U.N. review conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. And unload he did: on the Truman administration, on the Obama administration, on "the Zionist regime," on U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, on the NPT itself. For all this, Iran is still considered a member in good standing of the treaty, entitled to its seat at the International Atomic Energy Agency and its right to the nuclear reactors.

Does this make sense? In the upside-down universe of Turtle Bay—the same one in which Iran was just elected by acclamation to the U.N.'s Commission on the Status of Women—it does. What's stranger is that it also makes sense to President Obama, who has called the NPT the "cornerstone of the world's efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons." If that's the cornerstone, it's no wonder the edifice on top of it is collapsing.

The case for the NPT is that it has slowed nuclear proliferation by offering a grand bargain between the world's nuclear haves and have-nots. The haves promise to work toward the elimination of their arsenals via arms-control treaties; the have-nots get access to civilian nuclear technology while promising not to build weapons of their own.

As a show of global good citizenship, last month President Obama signed another arms-control treaty with Russia, and yesterday disclosed previously classified information about the exact size of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. This surely made a deep impression in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Bhutan, where conspicuous displays of moral stainlessness are considered the essence of geopolitical strategy.

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Love of the Land: The NPT Illusion

Love of the Land: The Vienna Nuclear Talks – and Iranian/Western Rashomon

The Vienna Nuclear Talks – and Iranian/Western Rashomon

MEMRI
Inquiry and Analysis - No. 557
25 October 09

Reports in the Iranian media on the Vienna talks differ considerably from those in the Western media. The following are the main points of difference:

1. The Purpose of the Talks

The Western version: The purpose of the talks is to discuss the future of Iran's nuclear program; it was the U.S. that forced Iran to attend the talks.

The Iranian version: The purpose of the talks is not to discuss the future of Iran's nuclear program or of its uranium enrichment activities, but to address Iran's need to purchase uranium at a level of 20% for use in its nuclear reactor in Tehran.

2. The Outcome of the Talks

The Western version: The sides have agreed on a draft deal. This has been transferred to the participating countries, all of which must respond by the evening of October 23, 2009.

The Iranian version: There is no agreed-upon draft deal. Each side has submitted its own proposal for the perusal of the other, and Iran is waiting for a reply to its proposal to purchase nuclear fuel. [1]

The October 23 deadline was presented by ElBaradei at his own initiative, and does not obligate Iran.

3. Iran's Position on the Western Proposal

The Western version: Iran is expected to give an affirmative answer shortly.

The Iranian version: An answer cannot be expected soon, in light of the gravity of the issue.

Under no circumstances will Iran allow its "strategic reserves" of enriched uranium to be removed from the country. [2]

If Iran's demand to purchase uranium at a level of 20% is not met, it will enrich uranium to this level in Iran. [3]

The deal proposed by the West is nothing but an attempt to deceive Iran, and is not anchored in international law. It is the IAEA that is obliged, according to its own regulations, to supply any NPT member with enriched uranium for research purposes. [4]

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[1] A source close to the Iranian delegation in Vienna said: "The Islamic Republic of Iran has submitted a clear proposal to buy the fuel required for the Tehran nuclear reactor, and is awaiting an answer." The source said further, "Iran is a buyer of fuel for the Tehran reactor, and sellers should respond to the buyer's proposal," IRIBnews (Iran), October 23, 2009.

[2] A source close to the Iranian delegation to the Vienna talks said that "one thing is clear, namely that Iran will not lose its strategic reserves." Kayhan (Iran), October 24, 2009.

An editorial in the daily Kayhan, which is close to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, stated: "The West - which a week or two ago thought with enthusiasm that Iran would be willing to give up all its strategic reserves at once, [namely all] its [uranium] enriched to a low level, in return for a handful of promises - is now gradually learning that Iran has no intention whatsoever to do so. In fact, to put it as briefly as possible, Iran's strategic choice in the Vienna talks is not to hand over its nuclear material and to receive it [back in the form of] nuclear fuel, because in principle, [Iran] cannot place the least bit of trust in the Western side to remain committed to its promises on this issue... Iran will never give up its strategic reserves." Kayhan (Iran), October 24, 2009.

[3] The Kayhan editorial stated: "[Iran's] strategic options are either to purchase nuclear fuel or to enrich [uranium] to 20% inside Iran - and the West must choose between the two. Kayhan (Iran), October 24, 2009.

[4] Iranian Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani said that the West was trying to deceive Iran or impose its position upon it. He explained that a deal in which the West took Iran's nuclear fuel and promised to enrich it further had no legal or logical basis. According to the IAEA regulations, he said, the West was "obliged to provide Iran with enriched uranium for the research reactor in Tehran. Moreover, there is no guarantee that if a deal is struck, the West will [actually] provide Iran with the nuclear fuel [after it receives Iran's nuclear material]." ISNA (Iran), October 24, 2009.

In an editorial, the daily Jomhouri-ye Eslami called to object to the attempts to remove Iran's uranium reserves from the country, saying that this was an American trap personally designed by President Obama. An Iranian consent to this deal, the paper continued, would eliminate Iran's achievements in the field of nuclear enrichment, and this in return for nothing more than "false promises and illusions." Jomhouri-ye Eslami (Iran), October 25, 2009.

Iran's deputy Majlis speaker, Mohammed Reza Bahonar, said at an October 24, 2009 conference in Tehran that the IAEA's charter obliged it to supply its member states with nuclear fuel, and that failure to supply Iran with enriched uranium would therefore be a violation of this body's obligations. ILNA (Iran), October 25, 2009.

Love of the Land: The Vienna Nuclear Talks – and Iranian/Western Rashomon

Love of the Land: In the fight against nuclear proliferation, don't forget about Syria

In the fight against nuclear proliferation, don't forget about Syria

Bennett Ramberg
JPost Opinion
20 October 09

Renewed international efforts to reign in Iran's atomic program have shrouded another unresolved Middle East nuclear challenger, Syria. The International Atomic Energy Agency's failure to get Damascus to reveal the history of its secret nuclear reactor and related elements raise troubling questions not simply about the Assad regime's nuclear intentions but, more fundamentally, about the ability of the IAEA to act as an effective watchdog. Unless Syria provides a full accounting, its successful stonewalling will only serve further to undermine international efforts to curb proliferation.

International awareness that Syria poses a nuclear threat emerged only in September 2007 when it is believed that Israeli aircraft destroyed the nuclear plant under construction in the country's remote northeast desert.

The attack generated a surprisingly muted response from Damascus and Jerusalem, but in Vienna, the IAEA condemned the strike arguing that Israel should have informed the agency about Syria's installation. Israel's unwillingness reflected a common and growing uneasiness that the IAEA has become a hollow instrument to ferret out nuclear cheaters or reverse them once revealed. The result - Jerusalem, unwilling to risk international dithering, allegedly took matters into its own hands.

THE SEPTEMBER 2009 meetings of the agency's 35 nation Board of Governors and the General Conference - the annual conclave of the IAEA's entire membership - sustained growing apprehensions about Middle East nuclear proliferation but focused on Israel to abandon its program. The General Conference only gently rapped the knuckles of Syria and Iran, calling on both "to cooperate fully with the IAEA within the framework of their respective obligations."

The statement reflected a "coaxing" strategy - repeated requests that nuclear transgressors provide transparency and eliminate contraband - that has become the agency's trademark to constrain violators. The approach builds on the hope that calibrated calls for openness can prompt transgressors to feel more comfortable with revelation. However, too often the response is otherwise. Violators throw a few bones followed by agency demands for more. The dance repeats but never comes to a satisfactory non-proliferation conclusion.

The Iran case illustrates. Coaxing discouraged the revolutionary regime from bolting the non-proliferation treaty while tethering it to safeguards on declared nuclear sites. Coaxing also generated IAEA inspector access to sites otherwise unavailable for review, but not "comprehensive" nuclear transparency. But the policy also allowed Teheran to buy time to build a nuclear weapons breakout capacity.

Evidently, Syria has learned much from the Iranian experience as it denies agency requests for a full explanation of its nuclear enterprise. The behavior reveals why coaxing that buys time wastes time to promote accountability.

Syria, which became an NPT party in 1968, applied safeguards to a small research reactor in Damascus in 1992. The agreement required Syria to inform the IAEA about any planned nuclear installations. The alleged Israeli strike clearly spoke to the Assad regime's failure to do so.

In a time line provided by Washington eight months later, officials traced the origins of the Dair Alzour reactor to a collaborative North Korean undertaking that broke ground in 2001. Israeli operatives confirmed the facility's weapons potential prior to the assault, although there remains the mystery of how Damascus intended to extract weapons usable plutonium absent a chemical extraction plant.

Following the attack, the IAEA attempted to get Syria to clarify the plant's purpose. Ten months would pass before Damascus allowed inspectors access to the site. Syria used the interim to demolish the installation's skeleton. It then buried its foundation, plowed over the ground and built a structure over the remains. It removed debris to an undisclosed location. Despite the cover-up, inspectors found uranium particles in soil samples. Syria unsatisfactorily explained that the residue came from Israeli munitions that destroyed the plant.

IN FOUR reports published by the agency since 2007, Director-General Mohammed ElBaradei repeatedly called upon an "uncooperative" Damascus to reveal the facility's function, the uranium residue and the location of debris carted away. He also requested access to three additional suspect sites. Syria stonewalled.

Damascus' repeated resistance to transparency naturally raises questions about what the Assad regime is hiding. But Syria's behavior also begs a response to an equally fundamental matter: How ought the international community deal with current and future violators? Evidently coaxing does not work. Transgressors see coaxing as IAEA impotence. Change requires the agency and the Security Council to replace the practice with meaningful "benchmarks" enforced by with "time certain" sanctions that nuclear violators cannot ignore.

In the months to come the IAEA will have an opportunity to strengthen its policing function, with a new director-general in December followed in May 2010 with the important NPT Review Conference that convenes every five years. The meeting offers an opportunity for attendees to press the Security Council to authorize the IAEA to be more assertive with nuclear violators. The practice is long overdue.

The writer served as a State Department policy analyst during the George H.W. Bush administration and as a consultant to the US Senate, Rand, Nuclear Control Institute, Henry Stimson Center, Global Green and Committee to Bridge the Gap.

Love of the Land: In the fight against nuclear proliferation, don't forget about Syria

Love of the Land: The IAEA and Israel

The IAEA and Israel

INSS Insight No. 135,
Ephraim Asculai
05 October 09

Israel was one of the founding members of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which was established in 1957. At that time there were high hopes for this organization, established as a follow-up to President Eisenhower's vision of Atoms for Peace. It was to be a technical organization, with the objectives to: "seek to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world. It shall ensure, so far as it is able, that assistance provided by it or at its request or under its supervision or control is not used in such a way as to further any military purpose." These objectives are still valid, inscribed in the Statute of the IAEA, but their interpretations have strayed widely. From a highly technical organization the IAEA has turned into a highly political technical organization.

Because of the politicized situation, the IAEA General Conference (GC) was able on September 18, 2009 to pass a resolution that "calls upon Israel to accede to the NPT and place all its nuclear facilities under comprehensive IAEA safeguards." The resolution did not call on India and Pakistan, members of the same IAEA region and two countries that carried out underground nuclear tests, to accede to the NPT, and there was no resolution reprimanding Iran for its continuous non-adherence to the requests of the IAEA for information on its suspect nuclear program. Interestingly, the vote on the "Israeli Resolution" was almost evenly split and was passed by less than a majority of the GC attendees (49 voted for, 45, including most of the Western countries, against, and 16 abstained). There is also an annual GC resolution discussing "The Application of IAEA Safeguards in the Middle East." The much discussed Iranian proposal for a resolution prohibiting attacks on nuclear installations was apparently withdrawn before it came to a vote.

Because of the "regional system" employed in most of the UN family organizations, Israel was never given a seat on the IAEA's Board of Governors (BOG). According to this system, the seats on the BOG are allocated to geographic regions and nominated by the regional states. Israel geographically belongs to the Middle East and South Asia region, which also includes India and Pakistan. Israel, not being accepted by the others as a member of its region, is excluded from exercising its inherent right. This is nothing new, and in some of the organizations Israel found its place as a member of the European Region, in some cases of a Western group, and oddly enough, also at one time in the sports region of Oceania. This also did damage to the IAEA, e.g., when Israel, because of this discrimination, strongly and successfully opposed giving the task of hosting the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) to the IAEA. In the text of the CTBT, the place of Israel is assured.

The first time Israel was singled out at the IAEA was in 1981, following the destruction of the Iraqi reactor that was under construction at Tuwaitha. At that time, the UN Security Council passed a resolution calling on Israel to adhere to the NPT. This was followed by a similar IAEA GC resolution. In comparison, in 1998, following the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests, there was a strong GC resolution condemning the tests and calling on all states to adhere to the NPT. India and Pakistan were never mentioned by name. The tests were described as having taken place in South Asia (the Middle East was not included in the definition of the region).

Politics clearly dominates the issue. Egypt, the traditional leader of campaigns against Israel in international bodies, likely prefers that Israel not declare whether it has or does not have nuclear weapons. Rather, Egypt wants to make sure it will not have these in the future. Egypt well knows that the route to WMD disarmament is not through the formal adherence to treaties. Upholding treaties is possible only when it is in the basic interest of the treaty parties to do so. With Iraq and Libya having been caught red-handed, and with Iran rushing towards nuclear weapons, in spite of these countries being parties to the NPT, the situation in the Middle East is not very conducive towards regional nuclear disarmament. Is it reasonable to demand that Israel abandon its years'-long policy of opacity? Even Egypt knows that the chances of this happening in the present state of affairs are very low. Thus the latest IAEA resolution is a part of the ongoing haranguing of Israel.

In an additional deviation from the stated objectives of the IAEA, the outgoing director general of the IAEA took it upon himself to further politicize his appointment (he is designated in the Statute as the "chief administrative officer of the Agency") in voicing his opinion time and again that Israel must adhere to the NPT.

In this political context, Israel will probably not take these resolutions, statements, and other politically discriminating actions seriously. According to the preamble to the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, "the principles of free consent and of good faith…are universally recognized." The free consent of Israel will not come about because of resolutions. Israel's actions will be decided internally, after due consideration and due process.

The importance of the IAEA lies not in its political actions, but in its immense technical capabilities. It helps countries all over the globe in the application of nuclear technologies for peaceful purposes. It plays an important role in the application of safeguards, albeit limited in many cases. On the other hand, the IAEA suffered gravely because of the political overtones in its Iran reports. The GC did the IAEA a disservice in its discriminatory resolution on Israel. If it wants to be taken seriously, the IAEA must change its ways. It is up to the incoming director general to do this.

Love of the Land: The IAEA and Israel