Nukes: Either you get them, or we get you!

Hich Yezza

February 2006

It has now been five years since the drum roll for the invasion/occupation of Iraq started, and how little change do five years bring! The same coarsening of the rhetoric, the same invocation of imminent threats to the very stability of the space-time continuum that we had heard in reference to Iraq are now being hastily reheated around Iran. Of course, certain things have changed. Bush & Co. have all but squandered the moral capital they had garnered post-911, which has meant the docile domestic consensus is now replaced by increasingly vocal opposition by the democrats as well as the wider anti-war movement. Militarily, the possibility of a full-scale US invasion is almost non-existent after the debacle in Iraq. No doubt, however, some form of military aggression is being considered (and planned, according to some analysts). Not only is this against international law (anyone remembers this?) but it would almost certainly result in the current Middle-Eastern chaos multiplying a thousand-fold. Iran has made its intentions very clear about retaliating if attacked and most military experts agree that it has the means to deliver on its word. The major issue, of course, when it comes to nuclear disarmament is the fact that the international treaties, signed with great fanfare since the seventies have little or no meaning to anyone but the very weak. The top nuclear nations have made a mockery of their commitment to engage in a worldwide effort to rid the planet of these catastrophes-in-waiting. For those nations queuing up to join the Nuclear VIP club, there is no better incentive to hurry in their efforts than to see the respect and regard accorded to those who have gone down that path: India, Pakistan, Israel are virtually immune to any form of military pressure and they know it. Even the tiny North Korea openly taunts Bush and his impotence to do anything remotely belligerent against the third member of the infamous “axis”. Indeed, at the time when Iraq was pleading with the world that they had no WMDs, North Korean officials were virtually screaming from the rooftops to anyone who’d listen that not only they possessed the fabled Nukes but were not afraid to use them. The US reaction to those two very different messages (Attacking the first, and pleading with China to reason with the second) has been a very eloquent lesson to all those third world nations worried about being bullied by the world’s sole super power. Nuclear disarmament might not be the cause of the moment, but it will not go away and though it’s not too late to do something about it, time is running out, fast.

Visit www.cnduk.org for more information.