Recent media reports indicate a perceptible shift in the approach of the United States to the Iranian nuclear issue.
The US is, apparently, willing to offer a package of inducements to Iran if it shelves its uranium enrichment program. The rejection of the offer is not likely to lead to a military strike but it may attract penal sanctions.
The US is willing to hold direct talks with Iran to settle the issue. The change in the American policy, ostensibly, reflects the nearly unanimous international view that the issue should be sorted out through peaceful means.
Swedish foreign minister, who is currently chairing the UN General Assembly, expressed this sentiment when he appealed to the international community to explore all peaceful alternatives to resolve the nuclear issue. Or else, he feared, the consequences would be catastrophic. The US has, obviously, failed to convince the Europeans, who used to rally round the US on most international issues, the need for a military strike against Iran. The overbearing US self-confidence seems to have shaken as a result of its nightmarish experiences in Baghdad.
Moreover if a US military campaign in Iran fails to deliver the goods its consequences will, undoubtedly, be fatal to the American influence on global affairs.
Washington is aware that a successful nuclear test by Iran will upset the political balance in the Middle East. It would mean Iran becoming a political heavyweight in a region of paramount importance to the world economy. The world will, no doubt, accept the fact of Iran’s nuclear achievements, as it did in the cases of India and Pakistan.
The US is confident that India and Pakistan may become its allies in the event of a showdown with China, the rising superpower of the East.
But in the Middle East a new nuclear power other than Israel is not agreeable to the US. A nuclear Iran would, undoubtedly, force Israel to accept policies that would not suit its designs on the remaining Palestinian territories.
The self-imposed mystery surrounding the Iranian nuclear programs and the attempt to gain time is reminiscent of the extreme secrecy with which Israel conducted its nuclear experiments until it stockpiled a large number of warheads to find a place among the world’s nuclear powers. Israel’s tendency to pile up weapons since the early 1960s has set in motion an arms race in the region, which helped the Western arms supplying nations amass huge profits. Actually, the countries in the Middle East should have spent the money on developmental programs to alleviate people’s poverty and make them educated.
The only reason that compels the countries in the Middle East to go nuclear is the enormous threat posed by Israel’s nuclear bombs supported by the US, which harbors the ambition to control the huge hydrocarbon reserves in the region.
Whatever may be the justifications the Muslim countries advance to possess nuclear weapons, the US and Israel refuse to acknowledge the Arab’s right to acquire their own weapons. Their fear about Israel’s weapons is not unfounded. The past records show that Israel demolished the Iraqi nuclear facility in 1981 apart from planting nuclear mines during the war with Egypt.
Yet, Washington insists on keeping the Middle East free of nuclear weapons exempting the huge nuclear stockpile of Israel, which started manufacturing them three decades ago.
Israel’s nuclear arsenal is a matter of deep concern to the other countries in the region. It is destabilizing factor too. The countries of the region look for the nuclear option and desire to possess other weapons of mass destruction in order to strike a balance in the power equation between the two sides, particularly when Israel obstinately refuses to have a just settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. This is apart from the apprehensions of the lovers of peace about the inexorable human suffering and ecological destruction accompanying the use of WMD.
The demand for a total ban on nuke activities is supported by reports of large-scale environmental pollution caused by the reactors in Israel’s Demona aside from the increasing possibility of triggering earthquakes in the region.
We should also note that the nuclear arms possessed by both the US and Russia served as a deterring factor to maintain world peace during the Cold War years before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. This makes one wonder whether the possession of WMDs would guarantee the world peace. Or should the world continue the present status quo of a selected few possessing and monopolizing them posing a huge threat to all other countries of the world?
It is always better to get rid of all WMDs including nuclear weapons without exception. This is the only way to preserve the world peace.
