[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Chomsky / A Negotiated Solution To The Iranian Nuclear Crisis Is Within Reach / Jun 19

[Morton K. Brussel]

The Chomsky article from ZNet  is informative, as one would expect,  
and reasonable, but does not address the fundamental fact that the  
U.S. power élite does not want an accommodation with Iran that would  
leave it with an independent régime. So Chomsky's reasonable  
suggestions would seem not to be relevant to our present situation,  
except perhaps to hope that some in positions of influence are open  
to non-imperialist reason.

Begin forwarded message:

>
> Today's commentary:
> http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2006-06/19chomsky.cfm
>
> ==================================
>
> ZNet Commentary
> A Negotiated Solution To The Iranian Nuclear Crisis Is Within Reach  
> June 19, 2006
> By Noam Chomsky
>
> The urgency of halting the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and  
> moving toward their elimination, could hardly be greater. Failure  
> to do so is almost certain to lead to grim consequences, even the  
> end of biology's only experiment with higher intelligence. As  
> threatening as the crisis is, the means exist to defuse it.
>
> A near-meltdown seems to be imminent over Iran and its nuclear  
> programmes. Before 1979, when the Shah was in power, Washington  
> strongly supported these programmes. Today the standard claim is  
> that Iran has no need for nuclear power, and therefore must be  
> pursuing a secret weapons programme. "For a major oil producer such  
> as Iran, nuclear energy is a wasteful use of resources," Henry  
> Kissinger wrote in the Washington Post last year.
>
> Thirty years ago, however, when Kissinger was secretary of state  
> for President Gerald Ford, he held that "introduction of nuclear  
> power will both provide for the growing needs of Iran's economy and  
> free remaining oil reserves for export or conversion to  
> petrochemicals".
>
> Last year Dafna Linzer of the Washington Post asked Kissinger about  
> his reversal of opinion. Kissinger responded with his usual  
> engaging frankness: "They were an allied country."
>
> In 1976 the Ford administration "endorsed Iranian plans to build a  
> massive nuclear energy industry, but also worked hard to complete a  
> multibillion-dollar deal that would have given Tehran control of  
> large quantities of plutonium and enriched uranium - the two  
> pathways to a nuclear bomb", Linzer wrote. The top planners of the  
> Bush administration, who are now denouncing these programmes, were  
> then in key national security posts: Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld  
> and Paul Wolfowitz.
>
> Iranians are surely not as willing as the west to discard history  
> to the rubbish heap. They know that the United States, along with  
> its allies, has been tormenting Iranians for more than 50 years,  
> ever since a US-UK military coup overthrew the parliamentary  
> government and installed the Shah, who ruled with an iron hand  
> until a popular uprising expelled him in 1979.
>
> The Reagan administration then supported Saddam Hussein's invasion  
> of Iran, providing him with military and other aid that helped him  
> slaughter hundreds of thousands of Iranians (along with Iraqi  
> Kurds). Then came President Clinton's harsh sanctions, followed by  
> Bush's threats to attack Iran - themselves a serious breach of the  
> UN charter.
>
> Last month the Bush administration conditionally agreed to join its  
> European allies in direct talks with Iran, but refused to withdraw  
> the threat of attack, rendering virtually meaningless any  
> negotiations offer that comes, in effect, at gunpoint. Recent  
> history provides further reason for scepticism about Washington's  
> intentions.
>
> In May 2003, according to Flynt Leverett, then a senior official in  
> Bush's National Security Council, the reformist government of  
> Mohammad Khatami proposed "an agenda for a diplomatic process that  
> was intended to resolve on a comprehensive basis all of the  
> bilateral differences between the United States and Iran".
>
> Included were "weapons of mass destruction, a two-state solution to  
> the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the future of Lebanon's Hizbullah  
> organisation and cooperation with the UN nuclear safeguards  
> agency", the Financial Times reported last month. The Bush  
> administration refused, and reprimanded the Swiss diplomat who  
> conveyed the offer.
>
> A year later the European Union and Iran struck a bargain: Iran  
> would temporarily suspend uranium enrichment, and in return Europe  
> would provide assurances that the United States and Israel would  
> not attack Iran. Under US pressure, Europe backed off, and Iran  
> renewed its enrichment processes.
>
> Iran's nuclear programmes, as far as is known, fall within its  
> rights under article four of the non-proliferation treaty (NPT),  
> which grants non-nuclear states the right to produce fuel for  
> nuclear energy. The Bush administration argues that article four  
> should be strengthened, and I think that makes sense.
>
> When the NPT came into force in 1970 there was a considerable gap  
> between producing fuel for energy and for nuclear weapons. But  
> advances in technology have narrowed the gap. However, any such  
> revision of article four would have to ensure unimpeded access for  
> non-military use, in accord with the initial NPT bargain between  
> declared nuclear powers and the non-nuclear states.
>
> In 2003 a reasonable proposal to this end was put forward by  
> Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency:  
> that all production and processing of weapon-usable material be  
> under international control, with "assurance that legitimate would- 
> be users could get their supplies". That should be the first step,  
> he proposed, toward fully implementing the 1993 UN resolution for a  
> fissile material cutoff treaty (or Fissban).
>
> ElBaradei's proposal has to date been accepted by only one state,  
> to my knowledge: Iran, in February, in an interview with Ali  
> Larijani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator. The Bush administration  
> rejects a verifiable Fissban - and stands nearly alone. In November  
> 2004 the UN committee on disarmament voted in favour of a  
> verifiable Fissban. The vote was 147 to one (United States), with  
> two abstentions: Israel and Britain. Last year a vote in the full  
> general assembly was 179 to two, Israel and Britain again  
> abstaining. The United States was joined by Palau.
>
> There are ways to mitigate and probably end these crises. The first  
> is to call off the very credible US and Israeli threats that  
> virtually urge Iran to develop nuclear weapons as a deterrent.
>
> A second step would be to join the rest of the world in accepting a  
> verifiable Fissban treaty, as well as ElBaradei's proposal, or  
> something similar.
>
> A third step would be to live up to article six of the NPT, which  
> obligates the nuclear states to take "good-faith" efforts to  
> eliminate nuclear weapons, a binding legal obligation, as the world  
> court determined. None of the nuclear states has lived up to that  
> obligation, but the United States is far in the lead in violating it.
>
> Even steps in these directions would mitigate the upcoming crisis  
> with Iran. Above all, it is important to heed the words of Mohamed  
> ElBaradei: "There is no military solution to this situation. It is  
> inconceivable. The only durable solution is a negotiated solution."  
> And it is within reach.
>
> · Noam Chomsky's new book is Failed States: The Abuse of Power and  
> the Assault on Democracy; he is professor of linguistics and  
> philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
>
>
>