Why Do We Punish the Peacemakers?

by LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

(L to R) Brian Terrell, Mary Yelenick and Anthony Donovan, vigil with signs outside the courthouse. (Photo by the author.)

You’re liable to run into trouble if you try to suggest there is a greater threat to planetary survival than climate change. But there is. It’s called nuclear war.

Granted — and thank goodness — climate change is finally all the rage now. Rage has taken over, and rightly so, especially among the young whose future has been effectively ruined by the inaction of their elders.

There is no arguing that the climate crisis is an emergency. We have left it so late that the steps we must take have likely become unachievable — such as never extracting another drop of oil, another lump of coal, or another whiff of gas from the earth ever; starting now.

We are in a desperate scramble to save ourselves.

Meanwhile, the fact that we could set omnicide in motion with one deliberate or accidental push of the nuclear button is all but ignored.

You could argue that presenting people with the prospect of global annihilation is so overwhelmingly horrible it just paralyzes them into inaction.

But why then, faced with a similar outcome, are people galvanized into action on the climate emergency? But not nuclear weapons?

This is not to say that we should be choosing one or the other. Both are existential threats, and whereas we used to argue that climate change was a lingering death versus nuclear war an instant one, that’s no longer true. The climate crisis is upon us. We are dying because of it right now.

However, to completely ignore a human-made threat that could annihilate virtually every living thing is extraordinarily ostrich-like behavior (albeit ostriches don’t really stick their heads in the sand, but the metaphor has, well, stuck.)

Such inaction isn’t true universally of course. There is a certain population who continue to protest nuclear weapons. And they are largely the same some people who have always done it. They are gray-haired and tired and utterly dedicated. Most of them are over 60. A lot more of them are pushing 80 or even in their 90s. There is a resoluteness to the anti-nuclear war movement that is hard to match anywhere else, a remarkable stick-with-it-ness.

Some of them, as Jack Cohen-Joppa’s recent story on our pages described, are prepared to go to jail in their efforts to draw attention —  and put an end — to deadly nuclear weapons. They are willing, even eager, repeat offenders. Many are part of what is known as the Plowshares movement.

Like Cohen-Joppa, I, too, was in Brunswick, Georgia in October, to cover the trial of the latest such  Plowshares action, as seven activists faced the consequences of breaking into the Kings Bay Trident submarine base. The trial took place inside a dreary 1950s courthouse building originally intended as a fallout shelter in the event of a nuclear attack. Oh the irony!

Four of the Kings Bay defendants at a talk before the trial. (Photo: the author).

The first thought that comes to mind when covering a trial like this is “why on earth are we so intent on punishing good, sincere and peaceful people who are trying to prevent the worst possible crime against humanity?”

Just how insane would that proverbial Martian think us to be were he/she to watch us wage this tiny courtroom drama against such decent and caring people rather than joining together as one species in a united global effort to save ourselves from the climate crisis? And abolishing nuclear weapons to boot.

Obviously, we should be thanking, not jailing, the Kings Bay Plowshares 7. And the many who came before, and will come after. Because, when you cover a Plowshares trial, you quickly discover that not at all the heroes are in the dock.

Throughout the trial, there was a permanent vigil of sign-carrying supporters outside the courthouse. One afternoon, I stopped and chatted with a member of this dedicated crew. He was holding a poster with a picture of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7.

I learned I was talking to Daniel Sicken. He had been part of a Plowshares action on August 6 1998, marking the Hiroshima and Nagasaki anniversaries. He and Olivier Sachio Coe (Ko-Yin) had entered a U.S. Air force Minuteman III strategic nuclear missile silo in northeast Colorado. There they had symbolically disarmed the weapon by hammering on it and pouring blood.

“Did you go to jail?” I asked Sicken, now 77. “Oh yes,” he said almost cheerfully. “I spent three years in federal prison for that!”

Daniel Sicken, who spent three years in jail for his own Plowshares action. Photo: the author.

There were heroes among the courtroom audience, too — by Cohen-Joppa’s count, at least eight others who had been arrested and/or done jail time protesting nuclear weapons.

One of them was Nukewatch’s John LaForge, who handed me a flier describing his own August 1984 action, and subsequent trial and conviction. The document featured one of the more surprising things I had ever read — a powerful statement from his trial judge who refused to inflict the expected 10-year sentence on LaForge and his co-defendant, Barb Katt. The two had walked onto the Sperry Univac plant in Eagen, Minnesota, and smashed launch-control computers being built for Trident missile-firing submarines.

Judge Miles Lord’s sentencing speech is such a powerful testament to justice, reason and good sense, that we reproduce it in full, within LaForge’s own article about it, on these pages this week.

The seven Kings Bay defendants are still awaiting sentencing — likely some time in January — but expectations are not as rosy as the surprise decision rendered LaForge and Katt.

Unless, of course, federal judge Lisa Godbey Wood chooses to take inspiration from the two portraits gracing the walls of her courtroom, and that, during the trial, stared right down at the defendants’ table directly below them. One was English martyr, Sir Thomas More, the other Justice Anthony A. Alaimo, after whom the courtroom itself was named.

Yet more irony! More, the author of Utopia, went willingly to his death for his religious beliefs, refusing to acknowledge his king and former pupil, Henry VIII, as the head of the Church of England. More also refused to endorse Henry’s divorce from his Catholic wife, Catherine of Aragon.

Alaimo also defied laws he found abhorrent when he was a prisoner of war in Nazi Germany during World War II. While held at Stalag Luft III prison camp, Alaimo participated in the long undetected tunneling effort that eventually became known as “the Great Escape”. (He recounts this story, much later, in the video below.)

Stalag Luft III was known as “the most secure prisoner of war camp in the heart of Hitler’s Germany”. America’s nuclear weapons facilities are similarly described — although the ease with which protesters have been able to enter them, and the time it has taken on each occasion to detect and apprehend them, certainly begs that question more than a touch.

The record for lurking about undetected on one of these “secure” military properties may just have gone to Sylvia Boyes, who spent 12 hours on the Coulport military base between November 19 and 20. Coulport, located on Loch Long in Argyll, Scotland, is the storage and loading facility for the nuclear warheads of the United Kingdom’s Trident program.

Boyes cut and breached two areas of fence and eventually walked to the main gate to hand herself in, so arguably she was never actually “detected” at all! Her activism dates back to the Greenham Common protest days and, like her Plowshares compadres, she is a “repeat offender.”

Sylvia Boyes, recently arrested, is part of the Faslane Peace Camp. (Photo courtesy Faslane Peace Camp Facebook page).

Just like the two heroes watching over them, the seven defendants below the portraits had challenged something they viewed as illegal and immoral — nuclear weapons. They held fast to their religious beliefs, no matter the punishment. They felt compelled to carry out their actions and quite certain that they were preventing, rather than committing, a crime.

The trial could have been avoided altogether. The prosecution had earlier offered the seven a plea deal — plead guilty to one felony and the trespass misdemeanor, and take the consequences.

But the defendants — Mark Colville, Clare Grady, Martha Hennessy, Fr. Steve Kelly, Liz McAlister, Patrick O’Neill and Carmen Trotta — declined. They wanted their day in court for the same reason that they committed the act itself — to draw attention to the deadly peril we all live in every day due to the existence of nuclear weapons.

And so for the better part of four days, until they were convicted, they got that chance. But did it work?

During jury selection, a pool of 72 potential jurors was asked if any of them had “strong opinions about nuclear weapons?” Not one of them raised their hand. They were also asked if any of them had any “moral or philosophical objections to the possession of nuclear weapons?” Again, no one raised their hand.

This was a jury of locals, all of whom live within the shadow of the greatest death machine ever created by human kind. As O’Neill had written before the trial began, Trident missiles, if launched, could kill twice the population of people currently living on planet Earth.

But no one felt strongly.

This is a problem.

None of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 would say their actions — and indeed their personal sacrifice, although they would not describe it as such, — were wasted. But they also noted that the mainstream media largely chose to ignore their case. National press coverage was in short supply, other than by valiant stalwarts such as Democracy Now! and progressive religious outlets such as the National Catholic Reporter.

(Democracy Now!’s coverage of the verdict is below. Scroll to the 9:56 time code for the Kings Bay Plowshares segment.)

Out on the campaign trail, no one is asking the presidential candidates how they feel about the U.S. “upgrading” its nuclear arsenal rather than abolishing it, which it is duty bound to do as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. And no one is asking if each of the candidates is comfortable with the proposed $1 trillion plus the U.S. will spend over the next 30 years for this “upgrade.” (Bernie Sanders has identified excessive defense spending as needing redress.)

It is this crime — the immoral squandering of our money and resources for such an unimaginably evil end — that the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 and the many before them, seek to draw attention to. But for people to notice, they must hear the message. If the messenger is the media and the media is silent, what else can be done?

In the UK there are four American Trident submarines, housed at Faslane on Gare Loch, adjacent to Long Loch where Sylvia Boyes was arrested. With a general election coming up on December 12, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament has decided to make the abolition of Trident a central issue for aspiring and incumbent members of Parliament.

“Now is the time to put nuclear weapons on the public agenda. So CND is taking action to make Trident an unignorable issue at this election,” said a CND campaign announcement.

“We’re about to launch a major campaign to lobby parliamentary candidates, to tell them that their views on nuclear weapons matter and can affect how we vote.

“The majority of us don’t want to see £205 billion wasted on replacing Trident — and we want newly elected MPs to oppose it.”

Here in the United States, we should be asking our political candidates — and those already in office — the same questions, and sending them the same message. Nuclear weapons should indeed by unignorable.

Linda Pentz Gunter is the editor and curator of BeyondNuclearInternational.org and the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear.

Nuclear Lies and Broken Promises

Conn M. HALLINAN

When Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told an economic meeting in the city of Sivas on Sept. 4 that Turkey was considering building nuclear weapons, he was responding to a broken promise.

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the government of Iran of lying about its nuclear program, he was concealing one of the greatest subterfuges in the history of nuclear weapons.

And the vast majority of Americans haven’t a clue about either.

Early in the morning of Sept. 22, 1979, a US satellite recorded a double flash near the Prince Edward islands in the South Atlantic. The satellite, a Vela 5B, carries a device called a “bhangmeter” whose purpose is to detect nuclear explosions. Sent into orbit following the signing of the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963, its job was to monitor any violations of the agreement. The Treaty banned nuclear explosions in the atmosphere, underwater and in space.

Nuclear explosions have a unique footprint. When the weapon detonates, it sends out an initial pulse of light, but as the fireball expands, it cools down for a few milliseconds, then spikes again.

“Nothing in nature produces such a double-humped light flash,” says Victor Gilinsky. “The spacing of the hump gives an indication of the amount of energy, or yield, released by the explosion.” Gilinsky was a member of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and a former Rand Corporation physicist.

There was little question who had conducted the test. The Prince Edward islands were owned by South Africa and US intelligence knew the apartheid government was conducting research into nuclear weapons, but had yet to produce one. But Israel had nukes and both countries had close military ties. In short, it was almost certainly an Israeli weapon, though Israel denied it.

In the weeks that followed, clear evidence for a nuclear test emerged from hydrophones near Ascension Island and a jump in radioactive iodine-131 in Australian sheep. Only nuclear explosions produce iodine-131.

But the test came at a bad time for US President Jimmy Carter, who was gearing up his re-election campaign, a cornerstone of which was a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt.

If the Israelis were seen to have violated the Partial Test Ban, as well as the 1977 Glenn Amendment to the Arms Export Control Act, the US would have been required to cut off all arms sales to Israel and apply heavy sanctions. Carter was nervous about what such a finding would have on the election, since a major part of Carter’s platform was arms control and non-proliferation.

So Carter threw together a panel of experts whose job was not to examine the incident but to cover it up. The Ruina Panel cooked up a tortured explanation involving mini-meteors that the media accepted and, as a result, so did the American public.

But nuclear physicists knew the panel was blowing smoke and that the evidence was unarguable. The device was set off on a barge between Prince Edward Island and Marion Island (the former should not be confused with Canada’s Prince Edward Island) with a yield of from 3 to 4 kilotons. A secret CIA panel concurred but put the yield at 1.5 to 2 kilotons. For comparison, the Hiroshima bomb was 15 kilotons.

It was also clear why the Israelis took the risk. Israel had a number of Hiroshima-style fission bombs but was working on producing a thermonuclear weapon—a hydrogen bomb. Fission bombs are easy to use, but fusion weapons are tricky and require a test. That the Vela picked it up was pure chance, since the satellite had been retired. But its bhangmeters were still working.

From Carter on, every US president has covered up the Israeli violation of the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty, as well as the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). So when Netanyahu says Iran is lying about its nuclear program, much of the rest of the world, including the US nuclear establishment, rolls their eyes.

As for Turkish President Erdogan, he is perfectly correct that the nuclear powers have broken the promise they made back in 1968 when the signed the NPT. Article VI of that agreement calls for an end to the nuclear arms race and the abolition of nuclear weapons. Indeed, in many ways Article VI is the heart of the NPT. Non-nuclear armed countries signed the agreement, only to find themselves locked into a system of “nuclear apartheid,” where they agreed not to acquire such weapons of mass destruction, while China, Russia, Great Britain, France and the US get to keep theirs.

The “Big Five” not only kept their weapons, they are all in the process of upgrading and expanding them. The US is also shedding other agreements, like the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force Agreement. Washington is also getting ready to abandon the START treaty that limits the US and Russia to a set number of warheads and long-range strategic launchers.

What is amazing is that only four other countries have abandoned the NPT: Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and India (only the latter three have been sanctioned by the US). But that situation cannot hold forever, especially since part of Article VI calls for general disarmament, a pledge that has been honored in the breach. The US currently has the largest defense budget in its history and spends about 47 percent of what the entire rest of the world spends on their militaries.

While the US doesn’t seem able to win wars with that huge military—Afghanistan and Iraq were disasters—it can inflict a stunning amount of damage that few countries are willing to absorb. Even when Washington doesn’t resort to its military, its sanctions can decimate a country’s economy and impoverish its citizens. North Korea and Iran are cases in point.

If the US were willing to cover up the 1979 Israeli test, while sanctioning other countries that acquire nuclear weapons, why would anyone think that this is nothing more than hypocrisy on the subject of proliferation? And if the NPT is simply a device to ensure that other countries cannot defend themselves from other nations’ conventional and/or nuclear forces, why would anyone sign on or stay in the Treaty?

Turkish President Erdogan may be bluffing. He loves bombast and effectively uses it to keep his foes off balance. The threat may be a strategy for getting the US to back off on its support for Israel and Greece in their joint efforts to develop energy sources in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

But Turkey also has security concerns. In his speech, Erdogan pointed out “There is Israel just beside us. Do they have [nuclear weapons]? They do.” He went on to say that if Turkey did not response to Israeli “bullying,” in the region, “We will face the prospect of losing our strategic superiority in the region.”

Iran may be lying—although though there is no evidence that Teheran is making a serious run at producing a nuclear weapon—but if they are, they in good company with the Americans and the Israelis.

Sooner or later someone is going to set off one of those nukes. The likeliest candidates are India and Pakistan, although use by the US and China in the South China Sea is not out of the question. Neither is a dustup between NATO and Russia in the Baltic.

It is easy to blame the current resident of the White House for world tensions, except that the major nuclear powers have been ignoring their commitments on nuclear weapons and disarmament for over 50 years.

The path back to sanity is thorny but not impossible:

One: re-join the Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty, thus making Russia’s medium range missiles unnecessary, and reduce tensions between the US and China by withdrawing ABM systems from Japan and South Korea.

Two: re-instate the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force Agreement and find a way to bring China, India and Pakistan into it. That will require a general reduction of US military forces in Asia coupled with an agreement with China to back off on its claims over most of the South China Sea. Tensions between India and Pakistan would be greatly reduced by simply fulfilling the UN pledge to hold a referendum in Kashmir. The latter would almost certainly vote for independence.

Three: continue adherence to the START Treaty but halt the modernization of the Big Five’s nuclear weapons arsenals and begin to implement Article VI of the NPT in regards to both nuclear and conventional forces.

Pie in the sky? Well, it beats a mushroom cloud..

dispatchesfromtheedgeblog

New Study Warns India-Pakistan Nuclear War Could Kill 125 Million Immediately—Then Spark Global Mass Starvation

"The world cannot afford the impacts on public health, the environment and our climate that would result from any use of nuclear weapons. They must be eliminated before they eliminate us."

by

Julia Conley

A nuclear war "would threaten not only the locations where bombs might be targeted but the entire world," Rutgers University researchers said Wednesday. (Photo: Ploughshares Fund)

The U.S. and other nuclear powers should rapidly stop nuclear proliferation, researchers at Rutgers University said Wednesday as they released a study showing that a nuclear war between India and Pakistan could kill 125 million people instantly before causing global mass starvation.

"When nuclear weapons come into play, what happens in South Asia won't stay in South Asia. You won't see the mushroom clouds, but you can look forward to years of climate disruption, draught, famine and death. Or we could just get rid of them."
—Derek Johnson, Global Zero

Published in the journal Science Advances, the new research shows that rapidly growing nuclear stockpiles in India and Pakistan, which are currently in conflict over Kashmir, could release 16 million to 35 million tons of soot, or black carbon, into the atmosphere if the two countries escalated their standoff into nuclear strikes by 2025.

"Such a war would threaten not only the locations where bombs might be targeted but the entire world," said Alan Robock, co-author of the study and a professor of environmental sciences at Rutgers.

The only way to avoid such an outcome, said Robock, is to eliminate nuclear weapons.

"Nuclear weapons cannot be used in any rational scenario but could be used by accident or as a result of hacking, panic, or deranged world leaders," he said. "The only way to prevent this is to eliminate them."

Global Zero‏Verified account @globalzero

According to a new study, as many as 125 million people would die within days if a nuclear war erupts between India & Pakistan. As co-author @AlanRobock states, the only way to prevent this is to eliminate nuclear weapons.

The findings of Robock and other researchers are Rutgers represent an update to research published a decade ago by groups including Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which found that 22 million people could die immediately the event of nuclear war in the region and two billion could starve as a result.

Growing urban populations and nuclear arsenals in countries including India, Pakistan, and the U.S. would make such action even more deadly.

"Nine countries have nuclear weapons, but Pakistan and India are the only ones rapidly increasing their arsenals," Robock said. "Because of the continuing unrest between these two nuclear-armed countries, particularly over Kashmir, it is important to understand the consequences of a nuclear war."

In the event of nuclear war, black carbon's spread across the globe over a matter of weeks would result in the absorption of solar radiation, slashing the sunlight that reaches Earth by 20 to 35 percent. Precipitation and vegetation growth would be reduced by up to 30 percent, and the planet would take more than a decade to recover as the soot would remain in the upper atmosphere for years.

As Derek Johnson, chief executive of the anti-nuclear group Global Zero, tweeted, "You won't see the mushroom clouds, but you can look forward to years of climate disruption, drought, famine, and death."

Derek Johnson‏Verified account @derekjGZ

When nuclear weapons come into play, what happens in South Asia won't stay in South Asia. You won't see the mushroom clouds, but you can look forward to years of climate disruption, draught, famine and death. Or we could just get rid of them. #globalzero

The estimates were based on the possibility that India could use 100 weapons and Pakistan could use 150; by 2025, the researchers expect the two countries to have between 400 to 500 nuclear weapons combined.

The prediction that nuclear war could kill 125 million people immediately could be applied to any region or country with densely-population urban areas.

PSR noted that the research was released months after U.S. President Donald Trump announced the development of a new so-called "low-yield" nuclear weapon.

"Not to be overlooked, at this moment, the United States wants to deploy so-called 'low-yield' nuclear weapons, which are touted as 'more usable,'" PSR Iowa coordinator Maureen McCue said in a statement. "The world cannot afford the impacts on public health, the environment and our climate that would result from any use of nuclear weapons. They must be eliminated before they eliminate us."

Warning that "the world can't afford to ignore the disturbing findings of the study," the group urged policymakers to work to end nuclear proliferation in the U.S. and elsewhere to avoid catastrophic, long-lasting damage.

"Nuclear weapons make us less, not more, safe, and as this study highlights, nuclear war poses one of the gravest threats to human health and survival," said Jeff Carter, executive director of PSR. "Given the current climate of withdrawal from vital international arms agreements, increased tensions that heighten the risk of nuclear conflict, and the escalation of a new nuclear arms race, there is no better time for the UnitedStates to assert leadership among its fellow nuclear-armed states by establishing an official policy never to use nuclear weapons first and prohibit funding for so-called 'low-yield' nuclear weapons."

How to Prevent a War with Iran

The window to change course is still open, but it is closing fast.

by Jamal Abdi Ryan Costello

President Donald Trump has bought into a maximum pressure strategy that has undermined diplomatic opportunities and brought the United States and Iran to the brink of war. However, there are signs that the president is growing frustrated with the lack of results and is exploring opportunities to re-open the diplomatic window that he has willingly closed. At this critical juncture, the Trump administration still has time to shift from dead-end pressure to serious diplomacy. Fortunately, a number of foreign policy practitioners from both sides of the aisle recently joined together to outline a series of achievable steps that could be taken to reduce the likelihood of war and open up space for serious diplomacy.

To start, the United States and Iran are locked into stiff negotiating positions. Tehran insists it will not negotiate under pressure, while Washington shows no sign that it will back off pressure for Iranian concessions. Given that it was the U.S. decision to violate the nuclear deal in pursuit of maximum pressure that undermined hopes for future negotiations, it is incumbent on the United States to take the first step to open up space for diplomacy. As a result, Washington should suspend recent sanctions it has imposed, including by extending waivers for foreign purchasers of Iranian oil. Doing so would not necessarily be an abandonment of maximum pressure, which has already been demonstrated, but is necessary for Iran to show its bottom line has been met to engage in talks.

In tandem, Iran should welcome the suspension of U.S. sanctions by returning to full, voluntary compliance with the nuclear deal. Such a move would further calm tensions and demonstrate to President Trump that investing in diplomacy could bear further fruit.
Once tensions are calmed by these reciprocal actions, the Trump administration and Iran should capitalize on the opening to engage in serious diplomacy. For the United States, the appointment of a credible and empowered Iran envoy with a mandate to establish clear lines of communication with Iran, and help defuse crises that may arise, is an absolute necessity. Unfortunately, neither John Bolton nor Mike Pompeo have the credibility to engage in serious negotiations with Iran. Both have been chief proponents of sanctions and war who have taken pride in their efforts to sabotage Iran diplomacy. Additionally, reports indicate that Pompeo is reluctant to engage in negotiations with Iran as it could haunt his future political aspirations, which would likely include a run for president in 2024.

As a result, the decision to use Senator Rand Paul as an envoy for backchannel talks with Iran appears to be a wise choice for the interim. Paul has the ear of the president, voted against Iran sanctions and warned Pompeo that he does not have authority for war against Iran. However, given that future negotiations would likely last many months, finding a more permanent envoy to lead Iran negotiations would be necessary.

While far from easy, the lowest hanging fruit for diplomacy with Iran may be a prisoner swap. If such negotiations are already underway, they should be intensified. If not, they should be opened immediately. Such swaps have been negotiated in the past, Iran has hinted both privately and publicly that it is open to such talks, and the president himself has demonstrated an interest in bringing Americans home. Not only does the United States owe it to the prisoners and their families to seriously pursue their freedom, but it serves U.S. interests as it could build confidence for broader diplomacy.

Additionally, while the risks of war with Iran are substantial in several theaters, the numerous recent run-ins in the Persian Gulf underscore the need for an Incidents at Sea agreement between Washington and Tehran. The United States and Soviet Union hammered out such an arrangement to avoid unnecessary collisions and miscalculations at the height of the Cold War in 1972, which succeeded in reducing the number of dangerous naval encounters between the two rivals. Striking such an arrangement with Iran would be feasible, provided U.S. pressure on Iran’s oil shipments are relieved, and help protect international shipping moving forward.

There are roles for other actors, as well. Europe has been caught between a rock and a hard place, committed to keeping the deal alive but limited in its ability to effectively counter U.S. sanctions. Europe should capitalize on a diplomatic opening to enable the trade and economic benefits promised under the nuclear deal, which would help stabilize tensions and prevent backsliding. Moreover, Congress should not bank on the president overruling Bolton and Pompeo to step away from the war track, and must pass legislation ruling out an unauthorized war with Iran.

A U.S. war with Iran is not inevitable. Both nations have demonstrated a desire to avoid a costly conflict even as they engage in escalation. There remain numerous steps that can take the United States off the path to a war that could be far more devastating than the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The president claims to have learned the lessons from that disastrous conflict. Yet, the onus is on him to take the first step and pursue a different track with Iran. The window to change course is still open, but it is closing fast.

Jamal Abdi is president of the National Iranian American Council.

Ryan Costello is policy director of the National Iranian American Council.

The U.S.-Iran Standoff Can Only End When the U.S. Accepts Iran’s Right to Have a Nuclear Energy Program

The United States, however isolated, refuses to accept that Iran has the right—under international law—to a nuclear energy program (which includes enrichment).

by

Vijay Prashad

The United States has had a sanctions regime in place against Iran for decades, almost since the Iranian Revolution of 1979. (Photo: Stephen Melkisethian/flickr/cc)

At a Non-Aligned Movement meeting in Caracas, Venezuela, Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif accused the United States of America of “economic terrorism.” Unilateral U.S. sanctions have clobbered Iran, which—like most countries on earth—is reliant on the financial system that remains dominated by the United States.

The United States has had a sanctions regime in place against Iran for decades, almost since the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The U.S., France, and Germany later reneged on their nuclear energy contracts with Iran and kept billions of dollars of Iranian money. Matters sharpened in 1996, when the U.S. administration of Bill Clinton signed the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act. Since then, the U.S. pressure on Iran has increased, then decreased, and increased again—but it has not been withdrawn.

Article IV

The United States, since 1979 but more firmly since 1996, has accused Iran of trying to produce a nuclear weapon. Iran has denied this.

Iran claims that it is merely acting within what is permitted by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Iran signed in 1968. The NPT allows its members to develop a nuclear energy program, which includes the enrichment of uranium into fuel for nuclear reactors. Iran began its nuclear power program in 1957. The United States of America—alongside France and Germany—provided nuclear plants, and fuel for the development of nuclear energy in Iran.

Article IV of the NPT clearly states that all signatories have the right to “participate in... the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.” This includes the enrichment of uranium, at a threshold much below nuclear weapons-grade.

U.S. Intransigence

Following the Iranian revolution, the West ended support for Iran’s nuclear energy program. Iran only restarted its nuclear energy program in the 1980s, but this time with limited access to technology and fuel.

It was from this period—when Iran restarted its nuclear energy program—that the United States has made the claim that Iran is not obliged to enrich uranium.

The United States says that Iran’s requirement to enrich uranium—at any level—is the pathway to nuclear weaponization.

Iran says that the NPT allows it to enrich uranium.

Here is the real gap between the two countries. This alternative perception of what Iran is legally allowed to do is at the root of the problem.

When Iran signed the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), it agreed to freeze uranium enrichment at a low level. This was a major concession, which permitted the deal to be signed.

When U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the JCPOA, Iran argued that it was no longer obliged to freeze its uranium enrichment at 3.67 percent. Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesperson for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, announced that Iran has exceeded this cap, reaching 4.5 percent.

In response, the United States government rushed to push for new—harsh—sanctions on Iran’s nuclear supply network, which includes sanctions on companies in Belgium, China, and Iran. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Iran of being “weapons of mass destruction proliferators.”

Certainly, Iran has exceeded the cap placed by the JCPOA. But it has only reached 4.5 percent—which is far below the 90 percent enrichment level needed to produce a nuclear weapon.

In 2010, Iran had offered to freeze its enrichment level at 5 percent, just above where it has now reached. That offer was rejected. In 2011, the Russians proposed a “step-by-step” plan, which once more proposed the 5 percent enrichment level as well as a comprehensive plan for transparency (including the full array of International Atomic Energy Agency surveillance) and a limitation on centrifuge research and production. This was also rejected by the United States and its European partners.

Tehran’s Conditions

Iran’s head of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, argues that the U.S. and Iran have different views on the NPT. That treaty allows countries to enrich uranium as long as it is at a level merely for nuclear energy and not for nuclear weapons. Iran insisted that the JCPOA affirmed Iran’s right to enrich uranium. That was “Tehran’s condition for entering the negotiations,” said Shamkhani.

The JCPOA has the imprimatur of international law with UN Security Council resolution 2231 (2015). That resolution says that the initial restrictions on Iran “will be followed by a gradual evolution, at a reasonable pace, of Iran’s peaceful nuclear programme, including its enrichment activities, to a commercial programme for exclusively peaceful purposes, consistent with international non-proliferation norms.” The full array of restrictions were to end in 2023.

Iran is a signatory of all the major treaties against weapons of mass destruction: NPT (1968), Biological Weapons Convention (1996), and Chemical Weapons Convention (1997). Based on these conventions and treaties, Iran claims the right to a peaceful nuclear program. The United States denies Iran the right to develop a peaceful nuclear energy program. That is the basic problem.

The U.S. has weaponized the NPT and the International Atomic Energy Agency to fulfill its political goals. India is not a signatory of the NPT. It not only has a nuclear energy program, but it has a declared nuclear weapons program (having tested nuclear weapons in 1974 and 1998). The United States has circumvented the NPT to arrange for the delivery of enriched uranium to India. Israel has a nuclear weapons program. The United States fully backs Israel and has never called for IAEA inspections inside Israel. This shows that the U.S. objection to Iran is not based on international law, but merely based on its political objectives.

At the Caracas meeting, the mood in the Non-Aligned Movement is against the U.S. view. The NAM has regularly affirmed Iran’s right to a peaceful nuclear energy program. Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif pointed to the “new wave of extreme one-sided adventurism” of the United States, which, he said, is “threatening peace and stability all around the world.” Iran’s “peaceful nuclear program,” Zarif said, is being disallowed by the United States, which has ended the Iranian nuclear agreement and violated the UN Security Council resolution.

There is no exit here. The United States, however isolated, refuses to accept that Iran has the right—under international law—to a nuclear energy program (which includes enrichment). As long as the U.S. holds this view, and as long as the other countries sit back and allow the U.S. to throw its weight around, there will be no solution to the standoff around Iran.

Vijay Prashad is the Director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and Chief Editor of LeftWord Books. He is a Writing Fellow and Chief Correspondent at Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He writes regularly for The Hindu, Frontline, Newsclick, and BirGün.