@@ Why hasn't the U.S. fulfilled its NPT obligations??? -- which NPT obligations is Iran violating? NONE @@
Arash
January 16, 2006
Iran Has an 'Inalienable Right' to Nuclear Energy
Is Iran's plan for an oil exchange trading in Euros the real issue? Or is it Israel?
And why haven't the nuclear powers fulfilled their treaty obligations?
By Enver Masud
Iran has an "inalienable right" to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes such as
the production of electric energy, and the enrichment of uranium for its nuclear
reactors. Could it be that Iran's plan for an oil exchange trading in Euros is the
real issue? Or is it Israel?
Article IV of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(http://www.un.org/events/npt2005/npttreaty.html), which entered into force on March
5, 1970, states:
1. Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of
all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear
energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I
and II of this Treaty.
2. All the Parties to the Treaty undertake to facilitate, and 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. Parties to the
Treaty in a position to do so shall also cooperate in contributing alone or together
with other States or international organizations to the further development of the
applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, especially in the territories
of non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty, with due consideration for the
needs of the developing areas of the world.
Thus, not only does Iran have an "inalienable right" to use nuclear energy for
electricity, the NPT obligates the nuclear powers to "further development of the
applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes." Iran has gone beyond its
obligations under the NPT to assure others of it's peaceful intentions.
According to Dr. Gordon Prather, a nuclear physicist who was the top scientist for
the army in the Reagan years, in December, 2003, Iran signed an Additional Protocol
(http://tinyurl.com/7lfyv) to its Safeguards Agreement and had volunteered to
cooperate with the IAEA - pending ratification by the Iranian Parliament - as if the
Additional Protocol were actually "in force".
Iran also offered (http://tinyurl.com/bdf9r), says Dr. Prather, "to voluntarily
forego a complete fuel cycle . . . if the Europeans would get the United States to
reverse the campaign of denial, obstruction, intervention, and misinformation."
Iran had already offered on March 23, 2005 a package of "objective guarantees"
(developed by an international panel of experts) that met most of the demands later
made by the conservative, Washington based Heritage foundation says Dr. Prather.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has found no "smoking gun" in Iran that would
indicate a nuclear weapons program, says Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general
of the IAEA.
Thirty years ago, Iran developing a nuclear capacity "caused no problems for the
Americans because, at that time, the Shah was seen as a strong ally, and had indeed
been put on the throne with American help", says Tony Benn, Britain's secretary of
state for energy from 1975-79. "There could hardly be a clearer example of double
standards (http://tinyurl.com/94mua) than this, and it fits in with the arming of
Saddam to attack Iran after the Shah had been toppled, and the complete silence over
Israel's huge nuclear armoury", he says.
With world oil production expected to peak in 5 to 25 years, and demand to exceed
supply sometime after that, it makes sense for Iran to look toward alternative means
for generating electricity, and to reserve its oil supply for other purposes
including increasing revenues from export.
A major reason for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, says William R. Clark - author of
"Petrodollar Warfare: Oil, Iraq and the Future of the Dollar"
(http://tinyurl.com/9u7ef), was "to install a pro-U.S. government in Iraq, establish
multiple U.S. military bases before the onset of global Peak Oil
(http://tinyurl.com/dacgo), and to reconvert Iraq back to petrodollars while hoping
to thwart further OPEC momentum towards the euro as an alternative oil transaction
currency".
Iran is about to commit a far greater "offense" (http://tinyurl.com/8rz5o) than
Saddam's conversion to the euro for Iraq's oil exports in the fall of 2000. Beginning
in March 2006, the Tehran government has plans to begin competing with New York's
NYMEX and London's IPE with respect to international oil trades - using a euro-based
international oil-trading mechanism", Clark says.
According to Toni Straka, a Vienna, Austria-based financial analyst who runs a blog,
The Prudent Investor, Iran's "proposal to set up a petroleum bourse
(http://tinyurl.com/8q95q) was first voiced in Iran's development plan for 2000-2005.
Cheaper nuclear energy and increases in oil exports from the current level of roughly
2.5 million barrels a day will result in a profitable equation for Iran.
"Only one major actor stands to lose from a change in the current status quo: the
U.S." says Toni Straka, "which with less than 5% of the global population, consumes
roughly one third of global oil production".
Yes, given the technology and knowledge Iran could develop a nuclear weapon, but so
could 35 to 40 other countries (http://tinyurl.com/dc6mm). And "under the current
regime, there is nothing illicit for a non-nuclear state to conduct uranium-enriching
activities, or even to possess military-grade nuclear material", says ElBaradei.
http://tinyurl.com/br4lc
Israel - not a signatory to the NPT - has had this capability for years, is believed
to have more than 200 nuclear weapons (http://tinyurl.com/85ppc), the missiles to
deliver them to Iran, and it is no secret that it has been threatening strikes on
Iran's Bushehr nuclear electric power plant - just as it launched an unprovoked and
illegal attack on Iraq's, Osirak nuclear electric power plant in 1981
(http://tinyurl.com/769qr).
U.S. news media's timidity (http://tinyurl.com/dueg2), and the Israeli lobby
(http://tinyurl.com/d8zaq), helped launch the illegal, U.S. invasion of Iraq
(http://tinyurl.com/7h7tf).
This invasion has claimed the lives of over 2000 U.S. soldiers, and over 180,000
Iraqis (http://tinyurl.com/7djhj). It has left uncounted others wounded and maimed.
It has destroyed much of Iraq's - indeed the world's - cultural heritage
(http://tinyurl.com/a245m).
And it is estimated to cost U.S. taxpayers "between $1 trillion and $2 trillion, up
to 10 times more than previously thought", according to a report written by Joseph
Stiglitz - recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics. http://tinyurl.com/99bpt
The U.S. news media is showing the same timidity that it displayed before and during
the Iraq war in investigating U.S. allegations against Iran.
John Ward Anderson of the Washington Post wrote: "The foreign ministers of Britain,
Germany and France called Thursday for Iran to be referred to the UN Security Council
for violating its nuclear treaty obligations". http://tinyurl.com/7j22d
Neither he, nor the editors, nor the ombudsman at the Washington Post have responded
to our request to identify which "nuclear treaty obligations" is Iran violating .
http://tinyurl.com/849sq
In fact it is the U.S. and other nuclear powers that have not fulfilled their
obligations under the NPT, including those stated in "Article VI" also known as the
"13 steps":
Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good
faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an
early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete
disarmament under strict and effective international control.
http://tinyurl.com/ch95w
In 1996, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) unanimously held that "Article VI"
obligates states to "bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear
disarmament in all its aspects". http://tinyurl.com/96sck
And Robert S. McNamara, U.S. Secretary of Defense from 1961 until 1968, has written:
"I have never seen a piece of paper that outlined a plan for the United States or
NATO to initiate the use of nuclear weapons with any benefit for the United States or
NATO". http://tinyurl.com/8yzjt
Despite the ICJ decision, the questionable utility of a nuclear arsenal, and 37 years
after agreeing to "pursue negotiations" toward "complete disarmament", Russia and the
U.S. maintain a stockpile of about 10,000 nuclear weapons each
(http://tinyurl.com/85ppc), and the Guardian has reported that the U.S. is
considering "the construction of a new generation of nuclear weapons, including
'mini-nukes', 'bunker-busters' and neutron bombs designed to destroy chemical or
biological agents, according to a leaked Pentagon document". http://tinyurl.com/631a
Writing in the November/December 2005 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
(http://tinyurl.com/dmzvn), Jack Boureston and Charles D. Ferguson say, "In pursuing
a civilian nuclear program, Iran has international law on its side. The best way to
know the full extent of Iran's nuclear doings is to offer it help".
* Enver Masud is founder and CEO of The Wisdom Fund, and the recipient of the 2002
Gold Award from the Human Rights Foundation for his book The War on Islam. He has
been interviewed on radio and television, and his commentary on major events
affecting the Muslim world has been published in newspapers and magazines including
The Washington Post, Eastern Times, Islamic Horizons, The Minaret, Jordan Times,
Nation and the World (India), Impact International (UK), New Dawn (Australia), Sunday
Times (S. Africa). Mr. Masud has worked as an engineering management consultant for
the World Bank, EBRD and USAID in Albania, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Indonesia, Latvia,
Pakistan, Russia, Tanzania. He was at the forefront of innovation in the electric
power industry, and managed the U.S. Department of Energy's National Power Grid
Study. For his efforts to expose waste in the electricity sector he was the subject
of TV, radio, newspaper reports including one by nationally syndicated columnist Jack
Anderson. He has BS and MS degrees from the University of Oklahoma, a BS from St.
Stephens College in New Delhi, India, and has been on the Advisory Panel of the
international journal Electric Power Systems Research.
http://www.twf.org/bio/EMasud.html
http://www.twf.org/News/Y2006/0116-Iran.html