Nuclear power and the creation of global flash-points

BY LYNN Ockersz

WHATEVER their differences may have been on the world's flash points in the recent past, the US and the predominant powers of the EU seem to have closed ranks on issues arising from Iran's nuclear programme.

The respective positions of the principal actors in this ongoing drama are just these: while Iran claims that its nuclear programme has only peaceful purposes, the Western camp suspects it to be otherwise.

The latter insists that uranium enrichment by Iran could lead to the processing of nuclear bomb grade fuel and the consequent assembling of nuclear weapons.

It is plain to see that Iran doesn't intend buckling under Western pressure on this question. For instance, during a recent visit to Venezuela, Iranian President Mohammed Khatami called on Venezuela and other countries seen as coming under pressure by Washington to "be strong" and "reject their threats to invade us".

Iranian defiance was further underlined when an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying that: "The Islamic Republic of Iran is determined to use peaceful nuclear technology and no pressure, intimidation or threat can make Iran give up its right."

With the big powers of the West reportedly contemplating sounding the UN Security Council on getting tough with Iran on the nuclear issue, the question that is likely to crop up in many minds is whether we are going through the preliminaries to an Iraq-type, Western-inspired confrontation and armed conflagration, this time on Iranian soil.

What is likely to lend credence to this anticipation is the naming of Iran, along with Iraq and North Korea, by the US President not so long ago as being part of an 'Axis of Evil'.

Besides, Washington would prefer to shift world attention from the military and political quagmire which is Iraq, to a new flash-point, Iran, to blur the growing impression that the US military intervention in Iraq is by and large, botched.

While current US moves in South West Asia could be thus accounted for, what wouldn't be immediately clear are the reasons for growing opposition to Iran's perceived nuclear policy, within the EU.

In other words, what interest could the big powers of the EU, such as France, Germany and Britain have in the US-Iranian standoff on the nuclear issue?

The answer to the query needs to be sought in the global power structure, which is, of course, weighted towards the Western military alliance, epitomised by NATO. Today, nuclear weapons have emerged as the tilting factor in the global power balance.

Given the ideological polarities between Islamic Iran and the Western military alliance, a nuclear-armed Iran would come to be viewed by the West as one of the biggest threats to the current global hegemony exercised by it. Hence the ability of the US and the principal powers of the EU to make common cause over Iran.

But it shouldn't come as a surprise if Iran proves a hard nut to crack on this issue. Today a nuclear capability is a principal component in national power.

It should be faced that its possessors are today the principal wielders of global power and hegemony. This is the reason why a nuclear capability has emerged as a prized possession by security-conscious states.

Given the principal role played by nuclear power in national prestige, influence and power, only a phased elimination of nuclear weapons possessed by all nuclear-armed states could ensure an end to the spectre of a possible nuclear confrontation among states.

This proposition, of course, wouldn't have any takers in the Western military alliance. On what moral basis could it then, fight for a nuclear-weapons free world?