Iran and the NPT

The non-nuclear signatories renounce their rights to develop or possess nuclear weapons. There are strict provisions for control and inspection through the UN nuclear monitoring agency, the IAEA, which reports to the Security Council.

The treaty recognises the right of the five members of the existing official nuclear club, who also happen to be the five permanent members of the Security Council, to possess nuclear weapons. What it really does is to consolidate the monopolistic position of the existing nuclear powers while branding any other country trying to develop nuclear technology as a virtual outlaw. India, Pakistan, and Israel, who later developed nuclear weapons, declined to sign the agreement. However, they are now considered as unofficial members of the club.

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Although the treaty provides for a gradual elimination of the existing stock of nuclear weapons, nothing significant has been done to implement this provision. Instead, over the years, the US has gone on exploring a range of new and more sophisticated nuclear weapons while preaching non-proliferation to others. The treaty also provides for the peaceful uses of atomic energy.

Now the US is busy trying to generate public hysteria in the US in favour of a pre-emptive strike against Iran. Why? In 1953, the US overthrew the democratically elected government of Mossadegh, who had nationalised Iran's oil fields in 1951. The Americans then brought the Shah back from exile. The Shah paid the favour back by dividing up Iranian oil production mainly among the American and British oil companies, which led to the beginning of an intense anti-American feeling among the Iranians.

The Shah was overthrown in 1979, and since then, despite American arms sales worth billions of dollars to Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, mutual distrust between the US and Iran has only deepened further. It is in this context that one must examine the reaction of the US to Iran's nuclear projects. It does not consider Iran as a nation which can be trusted with nuclear technology.

Actually, Bush wants to rewrite the main provisions of the treaty without renegotiating them. He knows that Iran has not breached the NPT. He realises that under the treaty, Iran can develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. He is not even against proliferation of nuclear weapons as demonstrated by his recent visit to India and the US clandestine support to Israel in the development of nuclear weapons which again was in clear violation of the NPT.

What Bush wants is to maintain American hegemony in the world and to exercise his "divine right" to decide which country can develop nuclear technology and which cannot. Clearly Bush feels that Iran is not entitled to do it.

The recently published National Security Strategy of the US insists on stopping Iran's nuclear program at any cost. Then it warns Iran that pre-emptive strikes continue to occupy a central position in America's global strategy. According to Seymour Hirsh of The New Yorker, American Special Forces have already been deployed inside Iran and are now engaged in subversive activities among Iran's ethnic minorities.

According to some reports, even the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Iran -- which we should remind everybody is a non-nuclear nation -- is being considered by Bush. If America goes ahead with its plan and attacks Iran, this would confirm most signatories' conviction that only nuclear deterrents can save them from American invasions. This would mean the end of the NPT.

Unfortunately, the NPT has now become part of a political game. The only way to make the NPT more effective would be to make it more equitable. The existing nuclear powers must show their sincerity by stopping further research in this field, by being more transparent about their stock of nuclear weapons, creating nuclear free zones in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Above all, the US being the sole surviving super-power and owner of the largest stock of nuclear weapons must stop threatening non-nuclear nations with pre-emptive strikes. These threats are counter-productive in the long run because they create insecurity among small nations, which then feel compelled to acquire nuclear weapons.

As far as Iran is concerned, it is possible that the ultimate goal of its leaders is to build a bomb. But if a country is being branded continuously by the world's only superpower as its worst enemy, constantly threatened with pre-emptive strikes, spied upon twenty-four hours a day by satellite, and is surrounded by enemy forces, can we really blame that country for trying to develop nuclear bombs as an ultimate deterrent?

Chaklader Mahboob-ul Alam writers from Madrid.