[Peace-discuss] Iran as Bush's nuclear bogeyman

[ppatton at uiuc.edu]

OPEN FORUM
Iran as Bush's nuclear bogeyman

William O. Beeman, Donald A. Weadon
		Thursday, September 30, 2004
San Francisco Chronicle

The Bush administration continues an escalating spiral toward 
conflict with Iran, using Iran's nuclear policy as its 
primary focus. At the same time, the administration is 
reducing restrictions on other emerging nuclear states that 
pose a far more serious and immediate threat to world peace.

The consequence of this badly inconsistent policy is 
increased nuclear danger for the entire world. Since the end 
of the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union, the United 
States has lacked convenient villains to be "against, " and 
the essential mechanics of American foreign policy seems to 
lose focus and founder.

Iran has become an on-again, off-again focus of American 
international discomfiture. It is a purported linchpin in 
international terrorism, a defiant nation who refuses to 
submit to years of U.S. economic warfare, a state run by 
theocratic functionaries, and now a nuclear felon. In short, 
Iran is a perfect villain, just what America needs, and the 
nuclear issue is a perfect pretext for this hostile behavior -
- one that plays well to a nervous American public.

What the Bush administration is not telling Americans is that 
while it is directing attacks and calling for sanctions 
against Iran, it is touting meaningless nuclear containment 
efforts on the one hand and is consciously ignoring illegal 
and far more dangerous nuclear weapons development on the 
other. None of this is being done to guarantee public safety, 
but rather for partisan political reasons.

The silliest example of "progress" in nuclear containment is 
that of Libya. On Sept. 20, just after removing them from the 
list of terrorist nations, President Bush revoked a number of 
restrictive executive orders against Libya in part for 
Libya's abandonment of its nuclear ambitions. The Bush 
administration claims this as a diplomatic success. In fact, 
the Libyans gave up a fledgling and inconsequential program 
in exchange for political acceptance by the Western world and 
decreased trade restrictions.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq also did nothing to contain nuclear 
weapons development, since Saddam Hussein's progress on this 
front was negligible. Nevertheless, Iraq's "nuclear threat" 
was one of the reasons given by President Bush to justify the 
Iraq invasion. These examples of "noncontainment" containment 
are the purest political spin. The choice of the United 
States to ignore real and significant weapons development 
elsewhere for equally political reasons has far more serious 
consequences.

The United States also recently removed nuclear restrictions 
imposed upon India for their thinly disguised nuclear weapons 
program. Much of the impetus for this reportedly came from 
the head of the export licensing arm of the Commerce 
Department, who is lobbying for a job as ambassador to India 
and who has a very cozy relationship with the Defense 
Department's neoconservative leadership.

And then there is North Korea. Washington continues to huff 
and puff at Pyongyang, but mindful of the intelligence 
community's long-held determination that we have no real 
strategic options, we continue to appease North Korea's 
frankly aggressive nuclear weapons ambitions.

The United States imposed no real sanctions upon Pakistan 
even though their none-too-secret proliferation, "Dr. A.Q. 
Khan's Road Show," spanned from South Africa to Taiwan and 
was responsible for a frightening East Asian nuclear race 
with India. But Pakistani assistance in the war on terrorism 
has been so essential as a point of political spin for the 
Bush administration that the Pakistan government has been 
granted a pass on their nuclear weapons program.

What about Taiwan? Their decades-old nuclear program included 
not only weapons development at the Chung Shan Institute, but 
also production of American Society for Mechanical 
Engineering Code Part III nuclear components - - the 
international standard -- at Kaioshung for nuclear programs 
throughout the world. The open-market availability of these 
parts through Taiwan is a key element of the world 
proliferation problem. Sanctions? Absolutely not.

Brazil is now defying the International Atomic Energy Agency 
(IAEA) regarding questions over its nuclear program, which is 
not benign. This would violate the long-standing U.S. 
determination to keep South America nuclear- free. And the 
U.S. response? No seismic rumbles of the kind directed toward 
Iran are apparent here. And forget South Korean enrichment 
efforts -- clearly they were "just a mistake."

Finally, Israel has a robust nuclear weapons arsenal and is 
not a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation treaty, with 
nary a word of disapproval from Washington.

But, oh, those mad mullahs in Iran! From the rhetoric pouring 
out of the Bush administration, one would think that they 
constitute the greatest nuclear threat on the planet.

The Iranian program, in comparison to so many others, is less 
developed and less dangerous. It is ironic that the United 
States propelled Iran on a nuclear course years ago, urging 
them to sink billions into a handful of energy-producing 
reactors which we now demand they dismantle. Iran has 
specifically renounced the development of nuclear weapons, 
and is a signatory to the most stringent nuclear 
nonproliferation agreements. Even if Iran wanted to develop 
nuclear weaponry, the CIA estimates that it would take years 
before anything of any significance could be produced.

Yet speculation is widespread that a military strike by the 
United States or Israel against Iran's reactors is a 
possibility, despite the fact that such a strike is fraught 
with great risk. The U.S. intelligence community was reported 
in the Sept. 27 issue of Newsweek to have concluded, after 
months of "war-gaming," that no military strategy exists that 
would keep a strike on Iran from escalating.

The Bush administration has so mishandled matters that it has 
now touched the most powerful symbolic nerve for Iran -- 
national "face." The United States has pushed Iran so hard 
and with such discriminatory prejudice that the leadership of 
the Islamic Republic has shown itself willing to partially 
act against their own interests to rescue Iran's national 
honor. Threats from the United States, or from its surrogate 
in this struggle, Israel, are met with escalating defiance by 
Iran. The Reuters disclosure on Sept. 21 that the United 
States has agreed to send 500 "bunker buster" BLU-109 bombs, 
presumably to attack Iranian nuclear facilities has only 
served to further infuriate the Iranians.

Iranian President Khatami said on Sept. 20, "They [the 
International Atomic Energy Agency and the United States] 
have to explicitly recognize our natural and legal right [to 
peaceful nuclear energy] to open the way for greater 
understanding and cooperation." He added, "We've made our 
choice. Now it is up to others to make their choice." Iran 
then resumed its nuclear enrichment program.

The Bush administration's pursuit of Iran on this issue is 
counter- productive, and may become deadly dangerous. Through 
its exclusive targeting of Iran, leading perhaps to an attack 
on Iran's nuclear facilities, the Bush administration is not 
making the world a safer place. They are giving a pass to 
powers far more dangerous than Iran, and goading Iran to 
retaliate for any violence directed against it. If Iran 
chooses to answer these attacks, it is not likely to be in a 
way that will improve prospects for peace in the Middle East, 
or in the rest of the world.

William O. Beeman is professor of anthropology and director 
of Middle East Studies at Brown University. Donald A. Weadon, 
a former naval officer, is a Washington-based international 
lawyer specializing in technology, defense, and trade 
sanctions.