Make It Bigger

by Cheryl Rofer

I can’t recall where I’ve heard “If a problem is intractable, make it bigger.” UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown took a bold step to do just that with Iran’s nuclear program in a speech to the International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Conference this morning.

Maybe I’m reading more into this than is there. Certainly the Prime Minister’s news release and The Guardian present it as the same old same old. But I happened on the BBC as they happened on the speech this morning as I was preparing breakfast, and I thought what I heard was pretty remarkable. The BBC said they’d just do a few minutes, but they stayed with the speech for longer than I expected, so maybe they heard it too.

From the transcript:

A multilateralism born out of a commitment to the power of international cooperation - not confrontation - founded on a belief in collaboration not isolation - and driven forward by a conviction that what we achieve together will be greater than what we can achieve on our own. And it is this new spirit of progressive multilateralism that gives us hope that we can find within ourselves and together the moral courage and leadership the world now seeks.

Sir Michael Quinlan, who sadly died last month, and for whose work we will always be grateful, argued thirty years ago - that nuclear weapons cannot be disinvented. Our task now, he said,”is to devise a system for living in peace and freedom while ensuring that nuclear weapons are never used, either to destroy or blackmail”.

That pragmatism was right for the dark days of the Cold War. But I believe we can and should now aim higher the only way to guarantee that our children and grandchildren will be free from the threat of nuclear war is to create a world in which countries can, with confidence, refuse to take up nuclear weapons in the knowledge that they will never be required.

I know from President Obama and the new US administration that America shares with us the ultimate ambition of a world free from nuclear weapons.

But let me be clear this will be a difficult path that will be crossed in steps - not in one leap.

With each step we must aim to build confidence, confidence that action to prevent proliferation is working and that States with weapons are making strides to live up to their commitments.

And I believe that this is the time to act to take together the next step in building that confidence for we are at a decisive moment, facing risks of a new and dangerous nuclear era of new state and perhaps even non-state nuclear weapon holders.

Once there were five nuclear weapons powers. Now there are nearly twice as many, with the risk that there could be many more Proliferation is our most immediate concern. And for that reason alone it is time to act.

That’s the preamble. Yes, much of it is nice words we’ve heard before. But there are some differences. Brown met with President Obama a week or so ago. Now he is quoting him. Presumably they discussed this speech during their meeting. (“I know from President Obama and the new US administration…”)

I want us to renew and refresh for our times the grand global bargain, the covenant of hope between nations, at the heart of the [Nuclear Nonproliferation] treaty.

A bargain under which we reaffirm the rights and responsibilities for those countries which forgo nuclear weapons. But also a bargain under which there are tough responsibilities to be discharged by nuclear weapons states. For as possessor states we cannot expect to successfully exercise moral and political leadership in preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons if we ourselves do not demonstrate leadership on the question of disarmament of our weapons.

Under this bargain there is a right for all states to develop civil nuclear power. But there is a responsibility for these states to reject the development of nuclear weapons. And there is a responsibility too on nuclear weapons states to reduce their nuclear weapons.

Now this is different. The nuclear weapon states have typically referred to their responsibilities to work toward nuclear disarmament (in Article VI of the NPT) with a wink and a nudge. Brown is putting that requirement on a par with the non nuclear weapon states’ obligation to refrain from developing nuclear weapons. And he repeats later in the speech

Let me be clear.

We are not asking non-nuclear weapons states to refrain from proliferation while nuclear weapons states amass new weapons. We are asking them not to proliferate while nuclear weapon states take steps to reduce their own arsenals in line with the Non Proliferation Treaty’s requirements.

It is a fair and even-handed bargain that contains two central elements. That we enshrine the right for all nations to access civil nuclear power - safely, securely and subject to proper multilateral verification processes with tougher sanctions brought to bear on those who break the rules.

And, that nuclear weapons states must set out much more clearly the responsibilities that we too must discharge.

And then, specifically to Iran

Iran is a test case for this new philosophy of the right to civil nuclear power with sanctions for rule breakers. Let me be unequivocal. Iran has the same absolute right to a peaceful civil nuclear programme as any other country. Indeed the UK and international community stand ready to help Iran achieve it - as the opening of the Bushehr nuclear plant already shows. But let me be equally clear that Iran’s current nuclear programme is unacceptable. Iran has concealed nuclear activities, refused to co-operate with the IAEA, and flouted UN Security Council Resolutions. Its refusal to play by the rules leads us to view its nuclear programme as a critical proliferation threat.

Iran therefore faces a clear choice continue in this way and face further and tougher sanctions, or change to a UN overseen civil nuclear energy programme that will bring the greatest benefits to its citizens. I hope that Iran will make the right choice and take advantage of the international community’s willingness to negotiate, including President Obama’s offer of engagement, rather than face further sanctions and regional instability. So I urge Iran, once again, to work with us rather than against us on this. The opportunity to do so remains on the table, the choice is theirs to make.

Emphasis mine. I don’t believe that what Iran has been claiming as its right has been acknowledged this clearly by Europe or the US until today. The combination of this acknowledgement, President Obama’s willingness to negotiate with the Iranians, and Brown’s statement of equal responsiblities on the part of the NPT nuclear weapon states is quite different from previous stands.

Brown called for a conference of the nuclear weapon states and more work on the initiative Britain has in progress to develop verification methods that could eventually count nuclear weapons directly, begun after Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett’s speech to the Carnegie Nonproliferation Conference in 2007.

The news coverage seems to be quite different from my take. It’s much more tilted toward “let’s rattle something at Iran,” carrots and sticks (insulting; could we please give up this metaphor?), and misses the other nine-tenths of the speech. VOA repeats the “enough uranium for a bomb” canard. Reuters and The Telegraph come a bit closer, but none see the bigger context. Maybe that’s because the words about the nuclear weapon states’ compliance with their Article VI obligations have so often come with a wink and a nudge in the past. Maybe I wasn’t fully awake this morning. But the words are there, in the transcript. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if that Article VI business means anything this time. But the UK has followed up on Beckett’s speech.

The one exception: Julian Borger was present at Beckett’s speech and remembered it! Yay Julian! Way to go!