The image of UN Security Council as an impartial agency to bring peace to the world has been shattered by the American practice of imposing its decisions on the world body.
The United States is obviously itching for an attack on Iran over the nuclear issue, ignoring President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s offer to accept the supervision of International Atomic Energy Agency over his country’s nuclear program.
The new French President Nicole Sarkozy said, in an apparent bid to proclaim his loyalty to President Bush, that possession of nuclear weapons by Iran was unacceptable. This, according to him, meant a clear threat to the stability of the region.
The French president did not have any doubt that the world could be a safer place to live in only if the United Nations was bold enough to take a strong stand against the menace of nuclear proliferation. No one doubted the correctness of the French president’s observation except that he did not mention how the regional peace could be achieved without Israel getting rid of its nuclear arsenal.
German Chancellor Angela Merckel also warned of the threat posed by the Iranian nuclear program. Merckel urged the international community to stand united to discipline Iran. While charging Iran with striving to make a nuclear bomb Merckel made a bizarre demand, quite contrary to the common legal practice, that Iran should convince the world that it was not making a nuclear bomb. It is a simple legal norm that the onus of providing the charge is on the one who makes it. It is those who accuse Iran of making the nuclear bomb, and not Iran, who should prove the correctness of their charges.
On the other hand Brazilian President Lula Da Silva defended the right of Iran to benefit from peaceful nuclear technology. Speaking to the media in the wake of the General Assembly meeting, he said Iran should not be punished just because the West suspected that Iran intended to make a nuclear bomb.
Citing the US approach to several international issues, Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega described the United States as the most oppressive dictatorship on the earth.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergie Lavrov said that his country did not make up its mind as to what should be its stand on the Security Council resolution on Iran. It is awaiting a report of the International Atomic Energy Agency on the Iranian nuclear enrichment program to get a clear picture of the situation. China and some other countries supported the Russian stand that we should wait until IAEA Director-General Mohamed El-Baradei submits his report next month.
I don’t think any likely US strikes would be able to crush Iran’s defensive capabilities, as was the case with Iraq. Iran cannot be compared to Iraq though they are geographically contiguous territories. Iran would, most probably, not make a direct retaliatory attack on the American forces spread out at various points in the Gulf. On the other hand it may, for instance, strike the countries in the region where the US forces are present.
The Security Council members who are aware of US plans have persuaded the US to postpone the attack until November awaiting the reports of the IAEA and the European Union.
On the other hand, the American administration has not so far succeeded in forging a united Arab front to support the US military move against Iran. In an apparent bid to canvass the Arab public support for US plans, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the front would achieve three major things in the Middle East.
They are the formation of an independent Palestinian state, supporting the Lebanese government and a peaceful Iraq. Nobody in the region believes that any US unilateral actions would be capable of solving these complex problems. The US should have learned from its past experience that no amount of military power, unless backed by diplomacy, would solve the problems of the Middle East.
Nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction is the first step to ensure a peaceful future for humanity. How could there be any peace in the Middle East if Israel refuses to sign the NPT (Non-proliferation Treaty)? There should not be any double standard while demanding an end to the nuclear activities in the region. Any effort to stop the Iranian nuclear ambitions should go side by side with the efforts to remove all such weapons from Israel. This is the only way to make the region and thus the world a safer place to live in.
