nuclear-news

Nuclear weapons for Iraq?

The Security Council’s action demonstrates how the inconsistency and hypocrisy apply not only to nuclear weapons but also to nuclear programs short of weapons……we ought not to get very relaxed about Iraq possibly developing a nuclear weapon in the future, however remote a possibility that may seem now.

An Iraqi Nuclear Weapon | The National Interest , by Paul Pillar, 16 Dec 10, At the urging of the United States, the United Nations Security Council passed on Wednesday a resolution permitting Iraq to have a civilian nuclear program. The resolution, which also lifted prohibitions on exports to Iraq of certain materials that could be used to develop nuclear and other unconventional weapons, was one of several U.S.-backed measures to end restrictions that dated from before the invasion that removed Saddam Hussein from power.
The Council’s action represented a retreat from its earlier position that it would not lift the nuclear restrictions unless Baghdad accepted an additional protocol to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that provides for more intrusive international inspections. The Council’s action in affirming Iraq’s right to a peaceful nuclear program is ironic in view of the obsessive campaign to deny the country on its eastern border the same right.
This is one more demonstration of the hypocrisy and inconsistency that characterize much nonproliferation policy, especially as it relates to the Middle East. What ostensibly is a concern about a certain category of weapons is actually much more a concern about the coloration and even the rhetoric of certain regimes that might get those weapons.

It isn’t even chiefly a concern about nuclear-armed regimes throwing their weight around and handling neighbors roughly; if it were, then we ought to be paying far more attention than we do to the elephant in the room: Israel’s sizable nuclear arsenal. The Security Council’s action demonstrates how the inconsistency and hypocrisy apply not only to nuclear weapons but also to nuclear programs short of weapons……
in focusing on the ways in which Iran could be a threat we too infrequently consider the threats that Iranians see from elsewhere. The main thing that would ease Iranian concerns about Iraq is something that should increase ours: the increased Iranian influence in post-Saddam Iraq. There are other reasons we ought not to get very relaxed about Iraq possibly developing a nuclear weapon in the future, however remote a possibility that may seem now. Iraq is a very unstable country, to the point of substantial and seemingly unending violence…….

An Iraqi Nuclear Weapon | The National Interest Blog

December 18, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iraq, politics international