Posted on 21 Oct 2009 at 9:38pm By GavinoBack in the 1980s, when the unilateral nuclear disarmament and socialist workers groups were campaigning against the ‘peace through strength’ policies of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, there was an uneasy feeling about the motivations of the left-wing activists and those who intellectualized with them. Were they misguided in their pacifism or actually covertly working for the Soviets?
Today it is hard to make the same argument. When liberals downplay Iran’s nuclear program nobody is suggesting that they are covertly supporting the Islamic regime. So if capitulation is not a plausible explanation, what is their motivation? Does this boil down to a divergence of opinion on the risks that exist? Are the intellectuals anti-Israel? Or is there simply intellectual indifference to Iran’s quest to acquire nuclear weapons?
Are Washington's liberals underestimating nuclear risks?
Such a debate in the past was academic. Whether by accident or design, groups like the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in the UK were aiding the Soviet Union by undermining the policies that ultimately brought down the Berlin Wall in 1989.
A left-winger in my politics class at High School actually went to Moscow at the invitation of the Soviets to see how wonderful life really was in this socialist utopia. When he returned, he enthusiastically declared that the Soviet Union was not only a more fair and just society than the England we inhabited, it was more prosperous too. He must have been devastated when reality emerged a decade later.
Today, the left is telling us not to worry about Iran. One of the groups lobbying the Obama administration is the Ploughshares Fund, whose president detailed five reasons in the Washington Post why this is a non-issue. Are the claims realistic?
First is the assertion that there is “no evidence” Iran’s leaders have “decided” to make a nuclear device “within one to three years”. The fact that Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons is probably the biggest open secret in the world. It has a network of facilities that produce enriched uranium, has largely evaded International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections, is testing missile delivery systems and has talked about wiping Israel off the face of the earth. The “no evidence” claim just doesn’t stand up to any kind of scrutiny. If Iran isn’t building a weapon, why have the Europeans been negotiating for years to get them to stop? Given uncertainties in the nuclear development process, Iran itself most likely doesn’t know exactly when the work will be complete, but based on our own experience with weapons development in the 1940s, and the clandestine programs of other countries, the likelihood is that Iran will be able to test a device within the next few years. That will change the dynamics of the Middle East and undermine global security. The absence of certainty on timelines doesn’t diminish or eliminate that risk.
Second, “a military attack would only increase the possibility of Iran developing a nuclear bomb.” Iran’s development of a nuclear bomb is clearly already well underway. What the interest group is really alluding to is retrospective justification for the program. In other words, a military attack will allow Iran to say “we told you so” and argue that they need the weapons precisely to deter such attacks. It is a circular argument and the word “only” overlooks the impact that a military strike might have in delaying the development process. According to the Ploughshare Fund, an attack would lead Iranians to “rally around the regime”. Certainly, it is difficult to predict what consequences would follow a military strike but some might argue that an attack would undermine the current regime and bolster prospects for political change.
Third, sanctions don’t work so we need to find “a face-saving way out for the Iranian leadership” that will produce “normalized relations with the West”. But where is the evidence that Iran’s leaders are looking for a way out? All the evidence suggests that they are determined to proceed and gain the stature and power that comes with having nuclear weapons. And why would a leadership that stridently opposes western civilization wish to normalize relations with it? In reality, the extremists want to undermine our way of life.
Fourth, Iran may continue to develop a nuclear program even if the current regime loses power. This may or may not be true, but the point is that the political checks and balances that come from democratic controls would help the establishment of meaningful international safeguards against the proliferation of bomb-making material and remove the immediate threat against Israel.
Fifth, the real danger is “not a nuclear-armed Iran but a Middle East with more nuclear-armed nations”. But it is precisely the development of nuclear weapons by Iran that is feeding the desire of other nations to develop nuclear technology of their own. Without Iran, this factor disappears.
Iran’s development of nuclear weapons technology highlights the inability of the United Nations to limit proliferation. The IAEA monitors effectively in democracies that are committed to cooperate with it and thereby provides reassurance within the nuclear club. But it has no secret intelligence gathering or enforcement capability of its own and is impotent when it comes to acting against covert nuclear programs in countries like Iran. Indeed, Iran has used its IAEA membership and the fact that it is a signatory to the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) as cover for its illicit program.
Unfortunately, political maturity around the world has advanced much more slowly than the ability to develop weapons of mass destruction. The West seems to have no solution to the dangers that this presents. While there are no easy answers, it is troubling that nuclear naivety maintains such prominence and influence among the liberal elites in Washington, DC.
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My experience is that conservatives identify the problem and look for solutions whereas liberals find a solution they are comfortable with and work back to find some justifications. This is exactly what Ploughshare is doing.
Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan or A. Q. Khan- born April 27, 1936 in (Bhopal, British India) is a Pakistani nuclear scientist and metallurgical engineer, widely regarded as the founder of Pakistan’s nuclear program.
During the 1980s and 1990s, the Western governments became increasingly convinced that covert nuclear and ballistic missile collaboration was taking place between China, Pakistan, and North Korea. In 1987, a British newspaper reported that Khan had confirmed Pakistan’s acquisition of a nuclear weapons development capability, by his saying that the U.S. intelligence report “about our possessing the bomb (nuclear weapon) is correct and so is speculation of some foreign newspapers”. The Pakistani Government later disavowed that statement.
And Khan initially denied making the statement, though he later retracted his denial. In October 1991, the Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported that Khan had repeated his claim to have nuclear capability at a dinner meeting of businessmen and industrialists in Karachi, which “sent a wave of jubilation” through the audience.
In October 1990, the activities of Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) led to the United States terminating economic and military aid to Pakistan. Following this, the Government of Pakistan agreed to a freeze in its nuclear weapons development program. But Khan, in a July 1996 interview with the Pakistani weekly Friday Times, said, “that at no stage was the program [of producing nuclear weapons-grade enriched uranium] ever stopped”.
This familiar pattern of deceit, political dialogue, and diplomatic stall tactics allowed Pakistan to finalize and acquire nuclear weapons and proliferate them to rouge nations such as North Korea and China.
We have been on the brink of nuclear annihilation before during a young Kennedy administration. Luckily both the Soviets and the U.S. governments cared more for their people, than starting a war that could not have had a winner. Today we have Iranians who care not as much for their people, but are intent on controlling the world with their religious fanaticism, to destroy Israel and dominate the Middle East.
Is Barack Obama a naïve president like John F. Kennedy who in 1962 believed that the Soviet Union would not deliver offensive missile to Cuba? Or is he truly attempting to hand over our country to Muslim extremist and rouge nations on a silver platter?
A new book called Atomic Obsession by John Mueller basically says no need to worry about nukes, let countries have the bomb if they want it. As you say, there is a lot of naivety out there.