State Department Statement on Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT)

P-5 Non-Proliferation Treaty
Ian Kelly
Department Spokesman, Office of the Spokesman
Bureau of Public Affairs
Washington, DC
May 15, 2009

The Delegations of China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America affirm our collective support for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and welcome the progress and substantive discussion at this Preparatory Committee meeting for the 2010 NPT Review Conference.

Our Delegations reiterate our enduring and unequivocal commitment to work towards nuclear disarmament, an obligation shared by all NPT states parties. We welcome the decision by the U.S. and Russia to negotiate an agreement to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and the recent emphasis on further steps, including promotion of entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and negotiation at the CD of a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty within its agreed programme of work.

Our Delegations also agree that action is needed to reinforce the IAEA safeguards system and to ensure full compliance by states with their international obligations. The NPT reflects the right of all parties to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and also their obligations to safeguard against proliferation.

Our Delegations share the commitment to support the implementation of Article IV of the NPT and further develop proposals that promise to expand the peaceful use of nuclear energy in ways that reduce proliferation risk.

We note our commitment to use the opportunity of the 2010 Review Conference to preserve international confidence in the Treaty and to strengthen it in all its aspects. We urge all NPT states parties to share in this goal and join us working to ensure a successful and balanced review.

The Sounds of War in Washington

by Norman Markowitz

Many Americans fear that the Bush administration will launch a new war before the election in order to win the election for McCain with the usual appeals to "national unity" and "national security." While I am not nor have I ever been a "conspiracy theorist," meaning that I don't see history as a big conspiracy, even though as an historian I and every other student of history knows that "secret treaties," behind the scenes political maneuvers which have little to do with what the general public thinks they are about, are significant parts of history. To paraphrase a famous statement made by a nineteenth century Prussian general, war is politics by other means.

Yesterday, mass media was repeating intelligence reports about a Syrian nuclear reactor which the Israelis had previously destroyed. The reactor was seen as a direct step in developing nuclear weapons and the result of Syria using "North Korean" technology(since the Baath government of Syria was an active opponent of the Baath government of Iraq, it was not an original member of the "Axis of Evil," Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, although it may be on its way to replacing Iraq in that lineup). All sorts of questions were being raised about the "evidence" concerning these accusations, given the previous "photographic" evidence used to support the Iraq invasion, but my interest in it is as a trial balloon to prepare Americans to think in terms of new and/or wider wars.

Admiral Michael Mullen, new chairperson of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, launched a bigger and potentially more dangerous trial balloon when he accused the Iranian government and the special forces units of its Revolutionary Guards of using "malign and increasingly lethal influence" internationally, arming and manipulating insurgent groups. For those with short memories, alleged Iranian weapons found in Iraq were trotted out, along with suggestions that these weapons are being used to kill U.S. and Iraqi forces fighting against Shia militias in Basra and other Southern Iraqi regions.

Mullen didn't suggest any new war against Iran, but he did stress that Iran was seeking to establish a "weak Iraq" to advance its interests in the region (of course, one might ask what kind of Iraq is the U.S. seeking to establish as it works with and against Turkish outside forces, the Kurdish minority, Shia and Sunni populations). But Mullen went on to make a blanket condemnation of the Iranian government's support for all sorts of insurgent groups in the region, its training "Iraqis in Iran to come back and fight Americans and the coalition." He also, in a real blast from the recent discredited past, contended that "in fact we are seeing some evidence that they are supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan."

A little elemental history should be cited here. The clerical forces that came to power in Iran and established an "Islamic Republic" are of the Shia denomination. The Al Qaeda group and the Taliban in Afghanistan both represent ultra-right sectarian groupings within the Sunni denomination (which globally represents in its many groupings, which range from liberal to moderate to conservative, over 80 percent of the world's Muslims). Unlike the great majority of the world's Muslims, they are not only extremely intolerant of other religions and secular regimes in Muslim countries and non Muslim regimes everywhere, but they are specially intolerant of other Muslims. They have vilified and fought against Shia Muslims particularly and are sworn enemies of Iran, as they were sworn enemies of the Baath regime in Iraq.

The Bush administration, by its complete refusal to do anything but condemn and seek to economically harm a more liberal clerical regime in Iran in its early years, set the stage for the present rightist clerical regime, which is actively opposed by large numbers of Iranians
and whose adventurist demagogic President (a symbol but not the real power in the government) is in his crackpot embrace of pro Nazi Holocaust deniers and other stands in world politics is a perfect foil for the Bush administration, as was Saddam Hussein (whom the Reagan administration supported in its war against Iran in the 1980s, just as six U.S. presidents earlier supported the brutal reactionary regime of the Shah, which the CIA installed through a coup in 1953, in order to denationalize Iranian oil (which before nationalization had been controlled by British Oil interests) and split up the oil with the British.

Iran in 2008 is not Iraq in 2003. Its military power is significantly greater and a U.S. invasion (it is virtually impossible to think of any ally including Britain joining the U.S.) would have disastrous consequences for everyone, not the least of which would be large numbers
of Iranian and U.S. casualties far beyond anything that the U.S. has experienced to date in Iraq. U.S. bombing of Iran, which some interventionists have suggested short of invasion, would also be very different than the bombing interventions which the U.S. has since the Reagan administration carried out in many places, because the ability of the Iranians to retaliate and thus create a wider war is much greater.

Instead of preparing for a potential war against Iran or at the very least using Iran as an excuse to extend the U.S. occupation and operations in Iraq, we should be working to end that occupation and pursue a regional peace process that will not strengthen reactionary forces in power in Iran or be a pretext for reactionary forces in power in the United States to maintain their power.

Turns Out Hillary Agrees with Obama on Nukes

According to an Associated Press item published today, Sen. Hillary Clinton, despite having chastised Sen. Barack Obama for "naively" taking nuclear weapons off the table, last year made similar comments.

According to the news report, in August 2006, Sen. Clinton said:

"I would certainly take nuclear weapons off the table...[The Bush] administration has been very willing to talk about using nuclear weapons in a way we haven't seen since the dawn of a nuclear age. I think that's a terrible mistake."

In the past week or so, Sen. Clinton said, however:

"I don't believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or non-use of nuclear weapons."

I am glad that Sens. Clinton and Obama can actually say they agree on the sound policy of nuclear restraint.