American dilemma
John Cherian
One of the issues that dominated the proceedings at the month-long
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in New York in
May was Israel’s so-called nuclear ambiguity. During the course of the
conference, an overwhelming majority of the delegates forcefully argued
that the nuclear-armed Israel should be asked to sign the 40-year-old
accord.
Reflecting the majority view, the final document, adopted at the end
of the conference, called on Israel to sign the NPT and ‘place all its
nuclear facilities under comprehensive safeguards’ of the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The document also called for the
elimination of all weapons of mass destruction (WMD), including chemical
and biological weapons, from the West Asian region.
President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu at the White House in Washington on July 6. Obama told
his guest that he “recognises that Israel must always have the
ability to defend itself, by itself, against any threats or
possible continuation of threats”. |
For the first time, the United States went along with the
international consensus and became a signatory to the document. On
previous occasions, the US had worked from behind the scenes to omit any
references to Israel or its nuclear program. This time, the Arab nations
insisted that West Asia be declared a nuclear-free zone. The creation of
a WMD-free zone will leave Israel with no option but to give up on its
arsenal of deadly weapons.
US President Barack Obama has been preaching non-proliferation at all
his international stops. There was the danger of the NPT conference
being derailed if US continued with its old practice of vetoing all
documents that compromised Israel’s ‘nuclear ambiguity’. However,
despite strenuous opposition from Israel, Obama chose to go along with
the final document, which explicitly stated, for the first time, that
the West Asian region should be declared nuclear-free.
To add to Israel’s discomfiture, the NPT Review Conference called for
an international conference in 2012 with the aim of establishing a
nuclear-free West Asia. The declaration called on the United Nations
Secretary-General and also the US, Russia and the United Kingdom to name
a facilitator to organise the 2012 conference.
Under an NPT Action Plan announced during the conference, the five
recognized nuclear powers, the US, Russia, the UK, France and China,
committed themselves to speeding up the disarmament process and
reporting on the progress in 2014. Ever since the NPT came into force in
1970, the major powers have been paying lip service about reducing their
arsenals and establishing nuclear-free zones.
Israel, for that matter, has sworn that it will never initial the NPT;
at the same time, it has called for the strengthening of the NPT regime
to punish alleged rogue proliferators such as Iran and Syria. Apart from
Israel, India and Pakistan, both de facto nuclear powers, have so far
refused to sign the NPT, describing it as discriminatory. North Korea
walked out of the NPT in 2003. All other nations are signatories to the
NPT.
The NPT disarmament obligations are not confined to a handful of
countries such as Iran, Syria and North Korea. Article VI of the NPT
Treaty specifically calls on the nuclear nations “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 – under
strict and effective international control”.
Many of the nuclear-weapons states are, however, expanding their
nuclear arsenals. The US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) published this
year shows that the US is actually strengthening its nuclear force. It
has added an even more lethal “conventional deterrent” to its armoury
that can strike any target in the world within an hour’s time.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad |
The message to Israel and the US from the NPT Review Conference is
loud and clear. There cannot be double standards adopted all the time.
While intense pressure is being put on Iran on the nuclear issue,
Israel, which has the biggest nuclear arsenal in the region, has been
allowed to replenish it, fuelling the volatility of the region.
The Cuban leader Fidel Castro, in his recent pronouncements, has said
that there is the real danger of a nuclear war breaking out in West
Asia. Some hawkish politicians in Israel and the US have been urging the
use of nuclear weapons against Iran.
Though the US was a signatory to the document, its National Security
Adviser James Jones was quick to “deplore” the inclusion of Israel in
it. He added that it was “equally deplorable” that there was no mention
of Iran’s nuclear ambitions in the document. Jones said that the goal of
a nuclear-free West Asia could be achieved only after the Arabs had made
their peace with Israel.
To reassure Israel, Obama told visiting Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu in the first week of July that the US ‘strongly’
opposed the move to single out Israel on the issue of non-proliferation.
He added that the greatest threat to proliferation was Iran’s failure to
live up to its NPT commitments. More ominously, a statement released by
his administration during the Netanyahu visit bestowed upon Israel the
“inherent right” to possess nuclear weapons for purposes of
“deterrence”.
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has said that the tiny Jewish
state possesses 200-300 nuclear warheads. The joint statement issued
after the visit stated that Obama told Netanyahu “that he recognizes
that Israel must always have the ability to defend itself, by itself,
against any threats or possible continuation of threats, and that only
Israel can determine its security needs”. Officials in the Obama
administration now say that the support for a nuclear-free West Asia at
the NPT conference was “a mistake”.
Obama’s volte-face was evident. He stated that both sides discussed
issues that arose out of the NPT Conference during Netanyahu’s visit.
“And I reiterated to the Prime Minister that there is no change in US
policy when it comes to these issues. We strongly believe that given its
size, the region that it is in, and the threats that are levelled
against it, Israel has unique security requirements,” he proclaimed.
Double standards
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking at a summit of D-8
countries in Abuja, Nigeria, was quick to react to the latest show of
double standards by the Obama administration. He said that talks on
Iran’s atomic program could resume only after the US clarified its stand
on Israel’s nuclear program.
“The first condition is that they should express their views about
the nuclear weapons of the Zionist regime. Do they agree with that or
not. If they agree that these bombs should be available to them, the
course of the dialogue would be different,” he told the media in the
Nigerian capital. The Iranian President added that the US should clarify
its own commitment to the goal of non-proliferation and its readiness to
resort to the ‘use of force’ against his country.
It should be remembered that in the 1970s and 1980s Israel closely
collaborated with the apartheid regime in South Africa in nuclear
matters when there was an international embargo against that country. It
was widely known that South Africa too had the capacity to produce a
nuclear weapon during the days of the racist regime. A recently
published book, Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South
Africa, written by Sasha Polakow-Suransky, a senior editor at Foreign
Affairs, examines this. The book, which relies on declassified South
African documents, reveals that Israel had offered to sell
nuclear-capable Jericho missiles to the racist government.
The book quotes a senior Israeli politician, Elazar Granot, who
served on the Israeli Parliament’s Defence Committee in the 1980s, that
the South Africans did substantial work for Israel’s military and
nuclear program. South Africa supplied uranium to Israel. Israel
reciprocated, according to the author, by selling tritium to the
apartheid regime. Tritium is used in more advanced nuclear weapons. This
fact was revealed to the author by none other than Fannie Botha, the
then South African Minister of Mines.
Meanwhile, reports are emerging that the US, despite its recent
posturing, is moving forward with plans to strengthen Israel’s nuclear
weapons stockpile. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has broken a story that
chronicles in detail the nuclear cooperation between the Jewish state
and its patron. Forbes magazine has reported that 22 tonnes of
uranium-235, a key material used to make nuclear bombs, was diverted
from US laboratories to Israel.
A March 2010 audit by two former employees of the US Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, published in The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists,
reveals that 337 tonnes of highly enriched uranium procured by a company
called Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) from the US
is still unaccounted for. NUMEC was a front for the Israeli Government.
The former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) station chief in Tel
Aviv had described NUMEC as an Israeli operation from the beginning.
The Frontline |