Following the National Intelligence Estimate (“NIE”) report, the rhetoric on Iran has decreased significantly. Not only have politicians stopped debating about it (except for attacks against Clinton for supporting a resolution calling the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization), but the news and reports about Iranian nuclear programs have stopped getting the front page coverage in major papers that they apparently deserved in the past.
Yet there’s a problem here, an itch that everyone feels but no one has yet scratched. The Bush administration has long stopped caring about Iran possessing nuclear WEAPONS. It cares about Iran possessing nuclear KNOWLEDGE. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (“NPT”) was a negotiated settlement between states who possessed nuclear power and those who didn’t.
The compromise was this: the nuclear powers agreed to share their knowledge and technology and to de-militarize their programs in exchange for assurances that the non-nuclear states would never ever possess nuclear weapons.
So while the NPT forbids militarization of nuclear technology, it actually encourages development and exchange of nuclear knowledge. The basis for this compromise is clear, nuclear technology provides any states a host of resolutions to energy problems. At the same time, it can give any state a dangerous tool.
This brings us to our current dilemma. The Bush Administration has arguably increased, rather than lower the stakes against Iran. Instead of embracing the NIE and engaging Iran, it has not only rejected the NIE (in a speech in the Gulf, Bush specifically noted that he did not agree with the NIE) but he has also increased the burden on Iran.
In other words, instead of taking us further from confrontation, he has actually brought us closer. Think of it this way, after the NIE report came out, whether he definitively believed that Iran wants to build a nuclear weapon. In response, he states “…yeah, I believe [Iran] want to have the capacity, the knowledge, in order to make a nuclear weapon.”
In his classic rhetorical moment, he summed up the administration’s position on Iran: “Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous and Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”
Now here’s the point, the funny thing about knowledge is that the same knowledge needed to develop a peaceful civilian program which is perfectly legal under the NPT and in fact encouraged by the negotiating party is identical to the knowledge needed to develop a nuclear weapon. In fact, it is well known that every one of the 50+ countries in the world who have “nuclear know-how” have the knowledge to also build nuclear weapons.
So what Bush is really trying to do is deny Iran what they are perfectly entitled to under international law and under international agreements that the U.S. itself has signed onto. This makes the position by the U.S. not only irresponsible and unagreeable, but ultimately it makes it much more dangerous.
In many ways, this type of rhetoric is seeking to create a difficult international distinction between “states we like” and “states we don’t like.” Utilizing that distinction, we will respect international rules and regulations with states we like, but we feel free to throw such negotiated settlements out the door with states we don’t like. The product of such a distinction: international anarchy.
The whole point of international treaties, like the NPT, is to create a framework by which states at odds can negotiate peacefully. Without respecting the contours of those treaties, the whole notion of international order is thrown out the door. In the end, we might not agree with Iran’s policies and record, but we also should not encourage any country to arbitrarily throw international law out the door in order to seek a resolution that is more politically advantageous to it.
The fact remains that the NIE report conclusively found that Iran is not developing weapons. This should be a time where we are pursuing negotiations, not increasing the line to war. Bush’s advisors should take this measure in hand and pursue the same policy that John F. Kennedy did during the Cuban Missile Crisis: that there is more to lose by not talking than to gain by remaining silent to one another.
