NPT Is As Good As Dead

The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was signed in 1970 to prevent the spread of nuclear weaponry, to promote cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy and to further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament. 187 countries including the five Big Powers, the U.S., Russia, Britain, France, and China, are the members of the treaty. The other three declared nuclear countries, namely, Israel, India, and Pakistan are not members. North Korea, which joined the treaty in 1985 declared its intention to leave the treaty in January 2003. North Korea is nuclear by its own admission. The treaty members meet every five years to review the progress and to set the future goals. The 2005 review meeting opened last Monday, May 2, 2005, and will remain in session for one month. The current state of the NPT is not healthy. Serious disagreements exist in the member states. The non-nuclear members are complaining that there is no restraint on the part of the nuclear member states, which have shown little interest in reducing their nuclear arsenals in compliance with the treaty requirements.

The non-nuclear states met separately in Mexico City last week of April 2005 to reach some mutual common understanding on the issues that are of concern to them. They assert that more emphasis should be put on banning the development of new weapons by the existing nuclear powers. According to Guardian Unlimited (May 2, 2005), “The Bush administration has been trying for two years to persuade Congress to fund research on a new generation of weapons, including small yield ‘mini-nukes’ and nuclear ‘bunker-busters.’ Britain too has raised the possibility of replacing its traditional missiles.” The non-nuclear states feel increasingly at threat because these mini-nukes can actually be used against them without causing Armageddon-scale of devastation. Guardian Unlimited further stated, “The Bush administration has also signaled it has no intention of joining the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), or signing a verifiable accord ending the production of new fissile material intended for nuclear weapons. Both were pledges it made in 2,000.”

It seems that the U.S. is guilty of doing the same or similar things of which it is accusing Iran. There is thus a deep mutual distrust and in this ambience, the terms of the treaty cannot be enforced on the member countries. The intensity of the distrust is such that an agenda for the current month long meeting could not be prepared before hand. The member nuclear states need to set example by retrenching their nuclear arsenals and abandoning their plans for developing further nuclear weapons before they can seriously hope to rein-in the other member states aspiring to go nuclear. By their plans for the mini-nukes and nuclear bunker-buster bombs, they are terrifying the smaller countries which they call the rogue states.

The biggest issue that has been projected on the international scene pertains to the nuclear power plants of Iran. “The U.S. says Iran is abusing its rights using the NPT as a cover to go to the brink of weapons production with the intention of withdrawing abruptly from the treaty at a time of it’s choosing and assembling weapons within weeks. Such a strategy has already been pursued by North Korea.”

These suspicions are quite true but the situation is complex. The U.S., a nuclear member state, is accusing Iran of surreptitious and baneful intentions while another member nuclear state, Russia, is helping Iran in its nuclearization plans. The situation is further complicated because the U.S. does not have moral authority to force Iran not going nuclear because it is planning to build mini-nukes of its own and is adamantly refusing to sign the CTBT. The seeds of Iran’s nuclear ambitions were sown when Israel covertly became nuclear with the connivance of the U.S. The nuclear bombs then entered the Middle East which is a hazardous minefield for the whole world. The U.S. with the help of the other nuclear powers should have seriously tried to keep the Middle East free of nuclear weaponry.

Iran claims that the future of its expensive nuclear power plants is at jeopardy if it has to rely on other countries for its nuclear fuel. There is no guarantee that such countries, of their own will or under the U.S. pressure, will not stifle Iran of its nuclear fuel in the event of any future political upheaval. The NPT terms do not put a moratorium on the development of nuclear energy for peaceful purpose. So Iran is not contravening any of the NPT’s terms and conditions. “The NPT’s Article IV warrantees non-weapons states the right to peaceful nuclear technology, including uranium enrichment equipment to produce fuel for nuclear power plants,” (Dawn, May 3, 2005).

Since there is still no clear rapprochement between Iran and the European powers that are persuading Iran to relinquish its uranium enrichment plans for making nuclear fuel, Iran has announced its intention to go ahead. The Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, Hamed Reza Asefi, told reporters (Guardian Unlimited, May 3, 2005), “We will resume some nuclear activities. What activities {will be resumed} or when is still under study. It will be announced in the future.”

U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Annan, has called the existing state as the ‘crisis of confidence’. And crisis of confidence it indeed is. None of the nuclear member states seriously did much to cultivate confidence. As long as the climate of the crisis of confidence persists, there is no hope of any progress on curbing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The countries will continue accusing and counter-accusing each other. The United Nations is too weak to enforce anything even its own resolutions. It failed to stop or persuade the U.S. from not invading Iraq. Kofi Annan is on record to say that the Iraq invasion was illegal. The world seems to be reverting to the jungle law.

Akemi Hatano, 66, marched with hundreds of others past the United Nations on Sunday, May 1st, protesting the proliferation of the nuclear weapons. She was only 7 when the U.S. bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She was fortunate to survive while 160,000 others living in her neighborhood were incinerated or evaporated by the atomic bombs. There are probably not many who can feel her pain.

The human race might abolish itself by its own weaponry.