A
Path To Peace With Iran
By Scott Ritter
22 April, 2006
Alternet
It
has been more than a week now since the Iranian government announced
that it had "joined the nuclear club" by successfully enriching
uranium, albeit for nuclear fuel, not a weapon. Once a nation has the
capacity to enrich to the former, enrichment to the latter is simply
a matter of time; the technology is the same. Iran's declaration immediately
made headlines around the world, with stunned punditry engaging in wild
speculation about the potential ramifications of this turn of events.
From a simple laboratory-scale enrichment experiment, a massive nuclear
weapons program grew Pheonix-like from the ashes, prompting dire warnings
from US Government officials such as Assistant Secretary of State for
International Security and Nonproliferation Stephen Rademaker, who told
a press conference in Moscow, where he was visiting to discuss the Iranian
nuclear issue with Russian officials, that Iran "...may be capable
of making a nuclear bomb within 16 days."
Rademaker was referring to
the mathematical possibilities arising from Iran enriching uranium to
weapons grade-levels at its centrifuge enrichment plant at Natanz, using
a 50,000-centrifuge cascade system the United States and others say
is capable of being installed at the facility. In a nod to the hypothetical
nature of his outlandish remark, Rademaker did note that the Iranians
have gone on record as only wanting to install a 3,000-centrifuge cascade
at Natanz. In that case, Rademaker said, "We calculate that a 3,000-machine
cascade could produce enough uranium to build a nuclear weapon within
271 days." Apparently 271 days isn't as terrifyingly sexy as 16
days, given that the majority of the media reported Rademakers initial
statement.
In all fairness to Mr. Rademaker,
the full 16 days window he postulated remains open, and so it is perhaps
too harsh to pass criticism until it is known whether or not his prediction
will come to pass. But I'll wager a dime to a dollar that come 16 days
-- or even 271 days -- the world will find Iran no closer to a nuclear
bomb than it is today, because the reality is Iran does not possess
an active, ongoing, viable nuclear weapons program. In all reality,
Iran does not yet even possess the capability to enrich uranium on an
industrial scale. Its claims regarding the laboratory-scale work that
was conducted -- a limited run of some 164 centrifuges which enriched
Uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6) from 0.7% to 3.5% U235 -- has yet to
be verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which
is in the process of collecting samples of the enriched gas for further
analysis.
The fact that the IAEA safeguard
inspections are at play in Iran may in itself come as a surprise to
most observers of the ongoing Iranian nuclear saga. Iran is still very
much a member, in good standing, of the non-proliferation treaty, and
all of its nuclear activities continue to be under the stringent monitoring
of the IAEA safeguard inspectors, an odd reality for a nation only 16
days away from being able to replicate the American attack on Hiroshima,
if Stephen Rademaker is to be taken seriously. It takes an extraordinary
stretch of the imagination to have Iran fabricating a nuclear weapon
right under the nose of IAEA inspectors who today manage an inspection
process that is not only technologically advanced, but seasoned after
years of sleuthing after nuclear weapons programs in Iraq, North Korea,
South Africa and Iran. To liken these professionals, as is the habit
of many in the Bush administration today, to "keystone cops"
is like comparing the US Marine Corps to the Boy Scouts. The IAEA inspectors
are the best in the world at what they do. The fact that they have not
found a "smoking gun" to back up what has been to date nothing
more than irresponsible speculation concerning the existence of an Iranian
nuclear weapons program should ease the fears of those politicians and
pundits prone to panic. Unfortunately, this has not been the case, and
as a result the world finds itself inching ever closer to a tragically
unnecessary war between the United States and Iran.
The problems that plague
Washington DC on the issue of Iran are the same problems that haunt
America overall regarding Iraq -- no clear understanding of why we as
a nation are doing what we are doing where we are doing it, and absolutely
no system of accountability for those who are implicated, directly through
their actions or indirectly through abrogation of duties and responsibilities,
in embroiling America in such senseless conflict. There seems to be,
especially among the so-called "anti-war" crowd, a tendency
to blame the "system" for all that ails us, with a specific
trend to isolate particular nodes of economic and/or political power
for special indictment.
In this light, the current
war in Iraq and the real possibility of war with Iran becomes the responsibility
of "Big Oil," the "Neo Cons," the "Military
Industrial Complex," and more recently, the "Israeli Lobby."
There are more names one can add to the list; everyone, it seems, is
to blame. Congress, while not getting a pass, does get special dispensation
in so far that we can understand why the elected representatives of
the people abrogate the trust and confidence we place in them by noting
that they have fallen under the ever expanding control of "special
interests," namely the aforementioned power nodes that are to blame
for everything. Likewise, since these power nodes also control the mainstream
media, one can begin to understand why it is that the pro-war message
trumps the anti-war message every step of the way.
Of course, there is much
merit in all of the above arguments. There are in fact special interest
groups (the so-called "power nodes") which exude influence,
both in terms of influencing the legislative agenda of elected officials
as well as the overall "thematic" of mainstream media, far
in excess of that which is healthy in an ostensibly representative democracy.
But it is wrong, and futile, to simply blame these power nodes, or the
institutions they have come to so heavily influence. These power nodes
did not simply appear out of nowhere. They are a product of American
history and culture, a manifestation of the reality that, even more
so than the processes of representative democracy, America is a product
of unadulterated capitalism.
All that is good and bad
about our society today stems from that basic truth. The American capitalist
system exists to make money, and that money ends up concentrated in
the hands of a few, while the majority of Americans toil in support
of this massive capital generating behemoth. As a nation over time we
have tinkered with the American system (imperfectly, it may be argued)
in a way that seeks to protect the civil liberties of the individual.
But in the end we are compelled not to bite the hand that feeds us,
and the corporation for the most part has benefited at the expense of
the citizen. Some would argue that the gains of the corporation translate
into the gains of the citizen. This is true, as long as there remains
a system of checks and balances through the vehicle of the rule of law
that stays the hand of excessive greed at the expense of individual
rights. But in the end the strongest proponent of individual rights
must be the individual citizen, and when the system of capitalism dulls
the attraction of citizenship based upon the rule of law (a process
that is extraordinarily time consuming and difficult) with the allure
of consumer-based creature comforts delivered to the masses, the individual
is faced with an up-hill struggle of immense proportions that cannot
be won unless a helping hand is offered by the very system of capitalism
the individual is struggling against.
In short, America as a nation
is genetically constructed in a manner that places a premium on greed.
However, the DNA that drives this greed gene requires a compliant host,
which we could call the American citizenry, if it is to survive. There
has always been a complicated Kabuki-type dance occurring between the
American corporation and the American citizen, with a Constitutionally
mandated system of governance, replete with pre-programmed checks and
balances, serving as puppet master in an effort to preserve a relative
balance. But, as President Eisenhower foretold when warning America
about the ascendancy of the military-industrial complex back in the
1950's, if this delicate balance is disrupted, the system is in danger
of collapsing.
The American system has been
in collapse for many decades now, with the rise of corporate power occurring
in direct relationship with the demise of concept and reality of individual
citizenship. How America as a nation reacted to the horrific events
of September 11, 2001 clearly put the manifestation of this collapse
on center stage. Americans for the most part remained mute and motionless
as the rights of the individual were infringed on irrationally by the
so-called Patriot Act. The various economic and political power nodes,
once held in check by a Congress which at one time recognized its responsibilities
to the individual citizen, now ran rough shod over the elected representatives
of the people by exploiting the fear of the people generated by the
people's own ignorance of the world they lived in. In short, the current
war in Iraq, and the looming war with Iran, can be explained as a manifestation
of American capitalism gone mad.
Some might argue that this
very definition in itself provides justification for a total rejection
of the current manifestation of the American system, and the need to
seek a new path or direction. There are those in the anti-war movement
today who articulate such an argument. I, for one, am not prepared to
embrace this way of thinking. I recognize both the good and bad inherent
in the difficult blending of capitalistic greed and individual humanism
that is modern America, and accept that this system is the best model
in existence today, as long as it maintains a system of checks and balances
that keeps the forces of excessiveness under control. In likening America
to a biological entity suffering from genetic mutation, I not only attempt
to identify the problem, but also the cure.
The delicate balancing act
that exists between capitalism and individual rights is a pre-requisite
for American national survival. Right now this system is out of balance,
and America is teetering down a path of self-destruction. Fortunately,
like most biological beings, there is an internal mechanism that recognizes
when a system is out of alignment, and seeks to make the appropriate
adjustments in time to forestall its demise. Since America is, first
and foremost, a capitalist system, it is to capitalism that one must
look to for these adjustments. We got the first inklings of this very
sort of attitudinal wake-up call just this week, when Senator Richard
Lugar of Indiana, a Republican of distinction who chairs the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, called for the Bush administration to "cool
it" on the issue of Iran.
Senator Lugar did not base
his arguments on grand ideological principles of peace and justice,
but rather the more base passion of prosperity. Speaking before an audience
at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, Senator Lugar warned
that a confrontation between the United States and Iran over its nuclear
programs could trigger economic collapse at home and abroad should Iran's
oil and gas resources be withdrawn from the global energy market. With
global consumption of oil on the rise, not only in the United States
but also developing economies such as China and India, spare production
capacity has dwindled from 10 percent in 2002 to less than two percent
today, Lugar noted. If Iran pulled its oil and gas resources from the
market, or had them pulled indirectly through sustained US military
intervention, the global energy market would be thrown into a crisis
the likes of which have never been seen.
Senator Lugar spoke of the
threat that exists simply if the price of oil is sustained at the $60
a barrel level, noting that Americans paid 17 percent more for energy
in 2005 than in the previous year, an increase which accounted for more
than a third of the American trade deficit. "If oil prices remain
at $60 a barrel through 2006, we will spend about $320 billion on oil
imports this year." As of this writing, oil prices were just above
$70 per barrel, with the Iranian government noting that in their opinion
the price of oil was still below its "real value." What Lugar
did not engage in directly, but referred to obliquely, was that the
forces of capitalism which drive America also drive the global oil market,
and that if America, which currently consumes 25 percent of the world's
oil, engages in actions with Iran that disrupt the global oil market,
the competition which fuels speculative oil pricing would go out of
control as the United States, Europe, China and India competed to lock
down energy supplies they all need to survive. Lugar spoke of his concerns
over oil prices sustained at $60 per barrel. Imagine the consequences
of sustained oil prices of $100 per barrel, or more.
This reality is understood
not only by Senator Lugar, but also various conservative foreign policy
figures, including those who articulated in favor of war with Iraq.
Influential persons such as Richard Haas and Richard Armitage have come
out recently in favor of broad diplomatic and economic engagement with
Iran, versus the extreme confrontational approach of the Bush White
House. These conservatives are loathe to take the lead on such a volatile
issue on their own initiative. Instead, their posturing away from confrontation
with Iran is more likely a manifestation of the reality that the conservative
capitalist circles they operate in are becoming increasingly nervous
about the damage such confrontation could bring to the economic system
that currently sustains them.
It is said that politics
makes for strange bedfellows. If there is to be any hope of forestalling
a disastrous war between the United States and Iran, there must be an
internal realignment of the delicate Kabuki dance between capitalism
and individualism in America that seeks to sustain the American way
of life, versus destroy it. Today, many in the anti-war movement decry
conservative capitalists as being the source of all that ails America,
and the nurturing point which feeds the various economic and political
power nodes that produce the variety of special interest groups the
anti-war movement likes to pin responsibility for war in Iraq (and the
possibility of war with Iran) on. Likewise, this total disconnect between
many of those that populate the anti-war movement and the conservative
circles in which Richard Lugar, Richard Haas, and Richard Armitage operate
in means that there is no tendency on the part of these conservatives
to reach out to the anti-war movement for help in forestalling a conflict
both sides agree is wrong for America.
Many in the anti-war movement
seem to recognize that there is a need to expand the base of this movement
to be much more inclusive of mainstream America. I suggest that the
pace of current events dictate a much more dramatic solution -- that
the anti-war movement begin to reach out to the very institutions that
it condemns and make common cause for the preservation of a way of life
-- the unique blend of corporate capitalism and individual rights --
that is at risk from the policies of the Bush administration. It is
not likely that there will be many points of agreement on the long-term
path that America should take regarding achieving the ideal balance
between these two competing, and somewhat contradictory, concepts. But
one thing is certain: if the Bush administration has its way regarding
war with Iran, both concepts will be put at risk in the chaos which
will follow.
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