Mission impossible

Head of IAEA Mohammad el-Baradei faces impossible task of nuclear non-proliferation

Not non-proliferation, total elimination is the only answer. The present stock of nuclear weapons can destroy this unfortunate earth many times over even before God himself goes for ending His creation. It is, however, true that in the event of man-made devastations, those responsible will have to face justice before God almighty.

The consequences of the use of these weapons are known to all as the world remains witness to the devastation created by the US in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But the nuclear powers will never abandon these mass killing weapons. They will retain them in the name of deterrent and continue to go for vertical proliferations with a view to making these weapons more evil and more destructive. The world would also like to know from Nobel laureate Mohammad el-Baradei and his IAEA how Israel already produced some nuclear bombs. Did this advance the "peace" for which the Nobel Peace award was given?

Generally, the nuclear powers all gang up to stop others going nuclear. The argument is: we are civilized countries with sensible leadership; so we can have these weapons. We use these weapons only to remove other evils. What a bizarre justification! Now the latest is that nuclear bunker blasters are likely to be used by the US to remove alleged nuclear bomb production in Iran. Such wild speculations on existence of nuclear bomb led to the Iraq invasion. The result is Iraq is in civil war and the country is fast moving towards disintegration into three pieces.

If nuclear bomb is a deterrent and for self defense, what is the problem if Iran intends to have some? Pakistan and India defied these nuclear powers and produced nuclear bombs and there is a balance of power in that part of the world. Likewise, if Israel can have some 200 nuclear bombs, why Iran can't have some?

The presumption is that Israel can have nuclear bombs as it had and still has sensible leadership (only with the records of Sabra/Shatila Palestinian massacre to its credit and not Hiroshima amd Nagasaki where its mentor and protector excelled). Israel kills only the Palestinian "terrorists" and tells the world that those Palestinians were making bombs or planting bombs, and the world accepts the Israeli version because the Israeli leadership, like the US leadership, do not tell lies. What an unjust world we live in!

Iran's leadership cannot be trusted as they have beards and use no neck-ties. Iran's leadership, in the absence of Saddam, may, one day, drop a bomb on Israel and that is the crux of the problem. And the "international community" has turned against Iran just on the speculation that Iran could have nuclear bomb in some ten years time.

Iran has reached 3.5% uranium enrichment which is needed to have nuclear power, but 80% is needed to make nuclear bomb and it's a very complex long-drawn enrichment process. There is hardly any chance, on the basis of present reports, for Iran to reach that stage, even if it wants, in some ten or fifteen years unless it has done it already in a clandestine manner which seems very unlikely.

However, such speculation has apparently galvanized several of the nuclear powers (Russia and China may act differently) to go against Iran. The latest is that Iran has agreed to deal with the IAEA in an acceptable manner provided the case is withdrawn from the UNSC.

The issue of nuclear proliferation particularly in the Middle East engaged the US policy-makers even in 60s and 70s. During those days, a top policy maker in the US administration rightly predicted that: "Israeli nuclear weapons would push the Arabs into a desperate attempt to acquire nuclear weapons."

Some policy makers of the US could see the dangers of nuclear proliferation and this is why it was later recommended that: "If Washington found itself having to consider using force to prevent the development or use of weapons of mass destruction by another nation, its option should include "pre-emptive action."

Though Israel developed nuclear weapons, Washington never said anything let alone took any pre-emptive action against Israel as was done against Iraq and is now being contemplated against Iran. This means that Iran or any other country which is not with the US cannot go even for nuclear power.

There is no doubt that if the US could have stuck to what one of its top policy-makers predicted in the late 1960s regarding Israel going nuclear and stop it from developing nuclear weapons, the face of the Middle East and indeed that of the world would have been different.

Probably, there would not have been any Iraq invasion, which continues to poison the rest of the world with the latest form of terrorism that originated in Afghanistan in the period of 60s to 80s under the good care of the CIA.

Now the US is desperately fighting the terrorism it created in Afghanistan, as the same is now directed against it. Despite the long war in Afghanistan against the spread of communism and for oil, the present mess in the Middle East would have been preventable if the US had ever made an effort to stop Israel from having nuclear weapons. As the US is pledge-bound to protect Israel, it was never necessary for Israel to go nuclear; this only made Israel, the US, and the rest of the world unsafe.

Muslehuddin Ahmad is a former Secretary and Ambassador and founder VC of North South University.