America’s nuclear gamble

The George W Bush administration has recently shifted its policy towards Iran, favouring a more “European” approach that prioritises diplomatic initiatives rather than hardline rhetoric. The move, which includes trade concessions in return for Iran’s abandonment of its putative nuclear weapons programme, may prove temporary; its “soft” tone may even be designed to attract a rebuff from Iran which will make it easier for the United States to return to a threatening stance vis-à-vis an “axis of evil” power.

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Beyond this, though, is a further development that could have considerable consequences for nuclear proliferation. Put bluntly, there are now indications that the Bush administration no longer accepts a basic premise of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), one of the most robust and longest-lasting multilateral agreements of the last half-century (see David E Sanger, “Bush seeks to alter global nuclear pact”, International Herald Tribune, 16 March 2005).

The NPT was initially negotiated in the mid-1960s, opened for signing in 1968 and came into force in 1970; 189 states around the world are now signatories. Its origins lay in the period after 1962, when the Cuban missile crisis had shown how dangerous the nuclear age had become. This was also an era of widespread support for civil nuclear power programmes (“atoms for peace”) among those who believed that nuclear technology could be separated from weapons production. Many argued, at the time and later, that the intrinsic links between civil and military technologies made such a division unrealistic.

NPT refuseniks include the nuclear weapons powers Israel, India and Pakistan; North Korea withdrew from the treaty in January 2003 and announced soon after that it had developed a small nuclear weapons capability. Alongside this, all other declared nuclear weapons states have signed the treaty, including the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council: the US, Russia, Britain, France and China. It may seem odd that the NPT allows this apparent contradiction, but the treaty’s Article Six accepts nuclear weapons states to join as long as they work rapidly towards disarmament. The evident failure of all five states to do so is an acknowledged flaw in the treaty’s implementation.

In any case, the encouragement of a momentum towards disarmament was central to the NPT’s purpose, and few doubt that it represented significant progress in containing the unregulated spread of nuclear weapons technologies. It has helped to limit nuclear proliferation to just nine countries – in the treaty’s early years, many analysts expected that by the early 21st century there would be fifteen or twenty.

Every five years, the signatories hold a full-scale treaty review conference. The next one will be held in New York in May 2005, and it is likely that any substantial change in US policy will become evident there.

It is possible that the US will challenge the essential “deal” at the heart of the NPT treaty – namely, that signatory states can develop civil nuclear power programmes in return for submitting to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) inspection system designed to ensure that such programmes (including uranium enrichment) are not diverted to military purposes.

The Bush administration, provoked by its concerns over Iran, has come to doubt the efficacy of this deal. It bluntly opposes a “rogue state” such as Iran being able to develop uranium enrichment facilities – even if such activities are under IAEA inspection procedures and compatible with the NPT.

The Bushites’ attitude is not widely shared in western Europe, while many middle eastern states view Israel as the region’s “rogue” state – maintaining a substantial if officially unacknowledged nuclear weapons capability, and being supported by the US (see Kaushik Kapisthalam, “An attack on nuclear control”, Asia Times, 22 March 2005).

Moreover, the US pays far less attention to Pakistan’s involvement in nuclear proliferation – in the form of Abdul Qadeer Khan’s worldwide network – than it does to Iran.

Washington is indifferent to such points. It is determined to prevent Iran acquiring the capacity to develop nuclear weapons, and is prepared to consider military action against Tehran to make its point.

Paul Rogers’ March 2005 global security briefing for the Oxford Research Group is Endless war: The global war on terror and the new Bush administration. For details, click here

In these circumstances, the Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference in May might prove to be of historic significance. A US challenge to the treaty’s core “deal” would be at least as significant as its withdrawal from the Kyoto protocols on climate change, indicating that the second George W Bush administration is as unilateralist in its attitude to international security as the first.