Correction: Iran Does NOT Maintain Right to Nukes

by on August 17, 2010
Posted In: politics

In a previous post about the futility of preventing Iran (or anyone else) from developing nuclear weapons, I wrongly mentioned that Iran has maintained the right to do so. That was faulty memory. I should have looked up the source and gotten it right. My bad. Iran maintains the right to develop nuclear fuel, but also maintains that developing nuclear weapons is contrary to Islam. From the BBC:

Iran has an “inalienable right” to produce nuclear fuel, the country’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has told the United Nations.

Speaking before the General Assembly, he invited other states and private companies to help with the programme.

He strongly criticised US arms policies and said Islam precluded Iran from having atomic weapons.

Under the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran is entitled to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Wikipedia has a more thorough history of the Iranian nuclear power issue. Props to Rojo for correcting me. I don’t want my mistake to throw another log on the bonfire of disinformation already putting smoke in our eyes.

So there is no proof that Iran is developing a nuclear weapons program, and has publicly stated it does not want to. I think the source of my mistaken assumption that they had maintained a right — other than the constant buzz of fear and war-stroking among well-placed talking heads — is my own distrust of such pronouncements. Sure, Mahmoud, your religion forbids it. That’s not very convincing. General history of religious violence (by any religion you care to name) and the particular repressive application of violence against Iranian citizens by its own government make it hard for me to take claims of religious prohibition seriously. I don’t take U.S. efforts at nuclear arms reduction very seriously, either; we may cut them back as a good will gesture to other nuclear armed states, but we will never reach zero. That’s not in the interests of our militarized corporate state.

In other words, mistrust all around.

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Bouncers at the Club Door

by on August 16, 2010
Posted In: politics

Yup.

Yet this is hypocrisy to which we’ve grown so accustomed that nobody seems to notice it any more. The nuclear club is meant to be exclusive. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty recognises the five permanent members of the UN security council as “nuclear weapons states”, committing them to act as bouncers at the club door. The treaty theoretically obliges these members to ditch their own nukes in the fullness of time – an aptly pompous expression, for an otherwise nuke-free world would make a rogue state with even one bomb so powerful that the chances of universal disarmament are zero. Ever since Hiroshima, we’ve been faced with the depressing fact that you cannot un-invent something.

You also cannot retain a device for yourself and then lecture others that they are not “entitled” to it. Iran is, alas, just as entitled to nuclear weapons as the US and Britain. Ditto North Korea. All the Obama administration has the moral and political right to assert is: “We don’t want Iran to have nuclear weapons.” To which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would quite sensibly respond: “So what?”

Which, insofar as enrichment of uranium for domestic nuclear energy use goes, he has. Granted, the IAEA has been frustrated in its attempts to verify the existence of an Iranian nukes program at all, but Iran has maintained the right to develop one. And as I have said before, we can do nothing to stop them. Which doesn’t mean someone won’t try.

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Not a Withdrawal

by on August 16, 2010
Posted In: politics

The story of U.S. counterinsurgency “success” and military withdrawal is a bed-time tale told to put the American public to sleep. So argues Hannah Gurman in a Salon piece that punctures several propaganda balloons floated by the ObamAdmin, GOP and Dem hawks, and the usual right-thinkers among the commentariat. Here is one to keep in mind as the president seeks to “move forward”:

The oil and gas companies are not the only ones who will profit from the postwar order in Iraq. The United States military and defense industry will make out well, too. Despite claims to the contrary, this is not the end of the U.S. military presence in Iraq. In addition to the several bases that will remain active, housing the soldiers and private contractors whose titles will change to advisors, there will be an indefinite state of dependency on U.S.-manufactured weapons and technology. Defense companies, such as ARINC will continue to make hundreds of millions providing Mi-17 helicopters and other military hardware and logistics to Iraq.

While the Ministry of Information does not advertise the reality of America’s enduring military presence in Iraq, it is quick to announce a civilian “surge” in the country. Along these lines, officials have been boasting about the massive U.S. embassy in Baghdad. “Along with the Great Wall of China,” said Ambassador Hill, “its one of those things you can see with the naked eye from outer space. I mean, it’s huge.” Indeed. At 104 acres, it is the largest U.S. embassy in the world. In addition to six apartment buildings, it has a luxury pool, as well as a water and sewage treatment plant. Stop for a second and reflect on these last two amenities. They give you some measure of what American officials really know but aren’t saying about the state of drinking water and sanitation in Iraq. The State Department has requested a mini-army to protect this Fortress America — including 24 Black Hawk helicopters and 50 bomb-resistant vehicles. Again, stop for a minute and ask yourself what this really suggests. The shadow army says a lot more than the official pronouncements do about the true state of security in Iraq.

We’ll be back. We have barely left. Think of the U.S. embassy in Iraq as a kind of well-armed anchor baby.

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