The debate over Iran’s possible nuclear armament program is shot through with double standard and blindness. It is easy to agree that Iran should not become a nuclear power. We do not want such weapons in the Middle East. But we already have them. Israel is a nuclear power. As long as it does not sign up to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, its nuclear program will never be inspected. Washington has connived at this dangerous situation even though it nullifies America’s commitment under Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty II not only to cut nuclear weapon stockpiles but also to work for their eradication. North Korea is apparently a nuclear power, yet far from threatening Pyongyang with UN sanctions or worse, Washington has placated this old style communist regime with aid. Nor have the Americans reacted precipitously against Pakistan or India, neither signatories of the NPT.
Not only this but far from preparing to abandon their nuclear capability, the Americans and British are busy working on even deadlier upgrades for their arsenals. Washington may protest that the program is “defensive” but that is not the way it looks to outsiders. America’s nukes are the bedrock underpinning its superpower status. From such foundations it can safely strike out and destroy a regime like Saddam’s in Iraq.
The ultimate double standard is that if the Americans were serious about creating a world free of the scourge of nuclear warheads, they would not only be trying to stop proliferation, but they would be actively working toward disarmament themselves. That they are not, convinces anyone who fears US intervention in their affairs at some later date, that if they have the technical capability, they may be able to protect themselves in their turn with their own “defensive” nuclear capability.
And then there is the blindness. It is not just that the Americans seem incapable of appreciating how their own devastating weapons capability appears to others; they also seem to have forgotten the catalog of inaccurate information that was assembled to justify the invasion of Iraq; to have forgotten how they bullied the UN to approve that invasion and when they failed, went ahead anyway.
The Americans are still smarting from the humiliation of the 1979 hostage crisis. Is George Bush thinking of pay back time for Iran, as he did for Saddam, especially since Iran’s new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was then a Revolutionary Guard and is rumored by the administration to have taken part in the hostage seizure?
No one is going to listen seriously to the Americans in their campaign against nonproliferation unless they themselves are seen to be doing something to dismantle their own stockpile. Worse, as long as Washington connives at Israel’s nuclear capability, the terrible argument will exist for a country like Iran, that it should arm itself likewise. Nuclear weapons are a danger in anybody’s hands, not just Iran’s or North Korea’s. There is a major opportunity here to restart the push for general disarmament but no chance that this shortsighted US president will recognize it.
