nuclear-news

With the six-month negotiating initiative set in motion, made possible by a softening of Iranian bargaining points, the Senate – under pressure from the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and allied groups – was considering even harsher sanctions legislation, SB1881, supported to date by 59 Senators, including 16 Democrats.  Introduced by Senators Mark Kirk (R-Ill) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), the bill would effectively scuttle an already-fragile diplomatic process, revisiting prospects for military action.   For the boldest anti-Iranian groups, that seems to be precisely the hope: if tightened sanctions fail to provoke system collapse and possibly regime change, or at least complete jettisoning of nuclear activity, then the military option returns full-force.  For such warmongering hopefuls, the existence of an Iranian nuclear program as such could be nothing more than an essentially manufactured threat, a pretext for war.

The problem with nuclear diplomacy today is that it amounts to little more than an outright political instrument of the global atomic powers, led by the U.S., exerting leverage through the United Nations Security Council and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).  In the months leading up to the interim deal Iran had been processing uranium at several locations, consistent with energy requisites (below 20 percent enrichment) and fully within its rights as longstanding member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).  That level was reduced by the November accords to five percent.  After much hard-line U.S. negotiating – and maneuvering — Iran was able to gain sanctions relief equivalent to just seven billion dollars in domestic product over six months, leaving it an object of international economic isolation, its energy, banking, and trade sectors gutted by byzantine restrictions and obstacles, its civilian economy in shambles, its population hit hard by extreme shortages and inflation.

Despite generous concessions from Tehran, moreover, the U.S. still refuses to accept Iranian entitlement to peaceful atomic development, although at least 40 other countries (among the 190 NPT signatories) are known to possess nuclear programs at various stages of refinement without having to face crushing sanctions

In Secretary of State John Kerry’s words: “There is no [Iranian] right to enrich uranium within the four corners of the NPT.  And this document [interim accords] does not do that.”  Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, denouncing the agreement as a treacherous “deal that keeps Iran’s nuclear train on track”, reiterated that nothing short of full Iranian abandonment of its nuclear program is thinkable – this from the militaristic leader of a nation with an arsenal of between 200 and 400 atomic warheads.  As in the past, Netanyahu wasted little opportunity in attacking the NPT, which Israel refuses to join, as “worthless”.

Joining forces with Israel and the lobby, Washington politicians in shamefully large numbers were still urging complete Iranian submission – on the feeble assumption that, as Senator Charles Schumer’s (D.-N.Y.) words, “Iran continues to be in hot pursuit of nuclear weapons.”   Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, insists the Iranian economy (that is, general population) must suffer material and social chaos so long as even the faintest signs of uranium enrichment remain…….http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/02/04/nuclear-diplomacy-the-great-charade/