Antinuclear

WikiLeaks cables show how Australia works with the US to get Iran  , September 5, 2012 Green Left By Linda Pearson  WikiLeaks cables show Australian officials have colluded with the US to get the IAEA to declare Iran in breach of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Barely 10 years after false claims about weapons of mass destruction were used to justify the invasion of Iraq, a similar narrative is being used by politicians in the US and Israel to push the case for war with Iran. You might not know it from mainstream media reports, but Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program  and, as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT ), has an inalienable right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes.

It’s thought that Israel has up to 400 active warheads but, unlike NPT signatories, the country has never agreed to open up its nuclear program to inspection. The US has about 2000 active warheads and is arguably in violation of the NPT itself for its failure to meet the disarmament requirement enshrined in Article VI of the treaty .

US President Barack Obama’s “Global Zero” initiative  to rid the world of nuclear weapons has amounted to little more than rhetoric . A 2011 report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said the US spends more money on nuclear weapons than the rest of the world combined.

In effect, two countries with a combined nuclear arsenal probably greater than any other are threatening war with another country because it may have the capacity to develop nuclear weapons in the future. This would be yet another illegal war of aggression, the “supreme international crime” as defined at Nuremberg.

WikiLeaks has given us unprecedented access to information with which to challenge the self-conferred moral authority of the US and its allies to decide which states can and cannot have nuclear weapons. Diplomatic cables from the US Embassy in Canberra published by WikiLeaks suggest Australia’s role in US relations with Iran is shaped by its slavish support for the US alliance and Israel, and its position as the world’s second biggest seller of uranium.

A “slippery slope” of accountability

Several cables during the build-up to the May 2005, five-yearly NPT Review Conference (RevCon), describe the measures the US and Australia were prepared to take to ensure that the focus, both inside and outside the conference, remained on “non-compliance issues: the bad guys”.

Both countries wanted to use the conference to push for Iran to be reported to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for alleged violations of its IAEA safeguards agreements, whilst avoiding any criticism for the US’s own potential violation of the NPT.

One cable reported that DFAT Deputy Secretary Nick Warner said maintaining this double-standard would require a “carefully orchestrated process”.  The US (which did not hold the UNCS Presidency) was “working on a UNSC Presidential Statement on the 35th Anniversary of the NPT” which would hopefully “serve to remind NPT parties not to lose the (security) forest for the (disarmament) trees”.

Discussion over one of the US and Australian official conference “talking points” in another cable show the precariousness of the US position: “The United States will underscore and seek recognition that NPT parties are responsible for exercising independent judgment in assessing compliance with the Treaty’s nonproliferation obligations and for holding violators accountable for their actions and enforcing compliance.”

This approach could reduce the decision-making power of unhelpful officials — such as International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Mohamad ElBaradei — and give the US more scope to use its political weight to influence the decisions of NPT member states.

However, Australia was concerned about potential unintended consequences. David Mason, Director of Australia’s Arms Control Office, said Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) states at the conference might want to “apply the same ‘exercising independent judgment’ rubric under Article VI against the Nuclear Weapons States”.

Article VI of the NPT obliges signatories “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”. Mason worried the US’s approach could“‘open up a slippery slope’ of independent judgments that neither the US nor Australia wanted to see”. …..http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/52146