by CKR
One of the things that gets me down at times is that we seem to be smackdab back in the middle of all sorts of problems relating to nuclear weapons. Back when the Soviet Union broke up, I thought that we could be finished with all that. But Clinton dithered, and too much of the bureaucracy had too much invested in continuing something like the Cold War, and then we got a president who seems to like the things, or at least doesn’t have enough of a gut understanding of their destruction to get serious about minimizing them in the world. Here’s today’s news on a variety of nuclear problems.
The Guardian, continuing its recent sensational approach to any statements relating to treaties, trumpets that Iran said it might pull out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, as North Korea did. However, if you read the story carefully, you’ll find that that threat was ‘way down the list of planned actions. While Iran continues to be committed to its uranium enrichment program, it is also preparing to allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors into its Arak reactor, now under construction and potentially capable of producing plutonium for a weapons program. In both of the news articles I’ve linked, the Iranians once again say that their program is not intended to produce nuclear weapons. Russia says that the Bushehr nuclear power plant will not be completed until 2008, which may be just the exigencies of engineering or foot-dragging related to the other negotiations.
Jeffrey Lewis tells us that Vice President Cheney appears to have instructed Nicholas Burns to yeah, give the Indians everything they want in the 123 agreement, which will be the basis of trading nuclear technology with one of the three non-signers of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Congress will have a role in the continuing saga; contrary to what we sometimes read in the news stories, the legislation they’ve passed on the India deal merely opens the way to approving an agreement. They did that rather perfunctively and supinely, but they may have grown some reproductive organs since then. (Links to Arms Control Wonk are dicey these days. The relevant news articles are here and here. Jeffrey, you need to bug your ISP!)
Hans Kristensen explains why President Bush’s plans to locate missile defense emplacements in Poland and the Czech Republic is causing such a strong reaction from Russia. The Cold War is not over.
Howard C. Berkowitz argues that the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty needs to be modified to include India, Pakistan and Israel, the nuclear weapons states outside it. I don’t have time to fully analyze his article now, but it’s thoughtful, worth reading, and the issue of bringing those three states into something like compliance with the NPT is an important one.
Finally, a little ray of hope, or just the usual media misunderstanding? Ria Novosti seems to report that the US and Russia have agreed to talks to continue the START I treaty, which is the means by which the Moscow Treaty is being verified. The Moscow Treaty is to reach its goals by 2012, but START I runs out in December 2009. Until now, the United States has refused such talks, apparently part of the Bush administration’s dislike of verification. (Trust but verify, Ronald Reagan said, but not for Bush.) I guess I’ll put this one down to media misunderstanding, but I’ll be happy if I see the confirmation I can’t find just now.