Is it now Iran’s turn? That seems to be a natural question in view of the pressure that Tehran has come under in the last few days. The question is not just being asked in Iran. The Bush White House declared long ago that Iran was part of an “axis of evil” that it was determined to dismantle and destroy.
Iran has repeatedly asserted that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
The demand by the International Atomic Agency that Iran should sign an additional protocol to the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty to allow the agency to inspect all suspect sites, not just those declared by Tehran, cannot be an American plot. The European Union, Australia and G-8 leaders have, apart from the United States, added their voice to the demand. Even Russia, which is helping Iran to construct its first nuclear plant in the southern city of Bushehr, has joined the calls for a “confidence-building” gesture.
Of course, the horror of at least five of these nations at the thought that Iran could develop nuclear weapons goes to show how easy it is for the powerful to pass off hypocrisy as outrage. They have such big stockpiles of these weapons that Iran will not be able to match them in a hundred years’ time.
And right in the Middle East, which the EU and US are anxious to keep nuclear-free, there is Israel, with enough weapons to reduce the entire region to radioactive rubble. Iran as well as many others have a question that no one in the G-8 — or the IAEA, for that matter — has been able to answer: Why not Israel?
But all these very logical arguments ignore one reality: Nuclear weapons add nothing to the security of a nation unless it has an economy that can afford the cost of keeping it effective. For those of us who do not have the technical knowledge to calculate the cost, the easiest way is to remember one fact of history: The Soviet empire collapsed because its economy could not sustain the cost of keeping in the race with the United States.
All nations and peoples have to assess realistically what they can afford and what they cannot. For those nations that cannot guarantee the basic needs of life to their citizens — food, shelter, education and health — providing those essentials should be the priority. Nuclear weapons give prestige, but it is not lack of prestige that is killing thousands of people in Third World countries.
A confrontation over a weapons system that adds nothing to security is not worth the cost in lives and misery that will have to be paid to prove the right to possess them. A way should be found to end the dispute before it spins out of control.
