Selasa, 24 Januari 2012

Iran nuclear weapons threat escalates


Iran nuclear weapons threat escalates
Colin Rubenstein, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF AUSTRALIA/ISRAEL AND JEWISH AFFAIRS COUNCIL (AIJAC)
Sumber : JAKARTA POST, 24 Januari 2012


Iran claims that it has a right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. However, an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report released in November, provides strong evidence that Iran has undertaken research and experiments geared toward developing nuclear weaponry.

Following the release of the report, there can no longer be any doubt that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. The report documents that since 2002, the IAEA has become increasingly concerned about “the possible existence in Iran of undisclosed nuclear-related activities involving military-related organizations, including activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.” It includes unprecedented detail on Iran’s nuclear program, including a historical overview chronicling the IAEA’s concerns since 2002.

The report also outlines that its evidence includes information from more than 10-member states, satellite imagery, open source research and material provided by Iranians during the IAEA’s routine work. The IAEA reported that Iran refused to cooperate with the agency, and that its behavior has “tended to increase the agency’s concerns, rather than dispel them”.

While Iran maintains it can enrich uranium for peaceful purposes as a signatory of the NPT, Iran was found to have breached the NPT for failing to report aspects of its enrichment program. In November 2003, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei reported that Iran had repeatedly, and over an extended period, failed to meet its safeguard obligations, including the failure to declare its uranium enrichment program.

In 2005, the IAEA Board of Governors found that these failures constituted non-compliance with the IAEA safeguards agreement. In response, the UN Security Council in 2006 passed a resolution demanding that Iran suspend its enrichment, Iran however, resumed its enrichment program.

The Iranian regime’s desire for regional dominance and its ideology, based on fundamentalist ideas, makes its quest for nuclear weapons all the more frightening. This includes a vision of the end of days, which will follow a catastrophic apocalypse, as well as a belief system that places a high value on martyrdom.

This does not mean that Iran will necessarily use its nuclear capabilities to bring about such a catastrophe, but it makes this more likely — too likely to risk in the hope that strategies of deterrence or containment will be effective.

Since the end of the Cold War, there have been efforts towards nuclear disarmament, especially by the US and Russia. However, if Iran were to obtain nuclear weapons it would accelerate nuclear proliferation and increase the prospect of a nuclear confrontation. A nuclear-armed Iran would shift the balance of power in the region and compel regional rivals to attain the same nuclear capabilities.

Saudi Arabia has indicated that they have plans to obtain a nuclear arsenal the moment Iran tests its first nuclear warhead. It would be surprising if the other powerful regional players — like Egypt, Turkey, Algeria and the Gulf Emirates — did not also follow suit. If Iran were to obtain nuclear weapons it would dramatically accelerate nuclear proliferation and alarmingly increase the prospect of a nuclear confrontation.

Many officials warn that Iran may only be months away from acquiring nuclear weapons technology, and if it were to succeed it may be impossible to contain or deter. Saddam Hussein and Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi (who relinquished his nuclear arms program) were both overthrown thanks to Western military intervention, while nuclear-armed rogue states like North Korea appear to be safe from any such foreign interference.

Iran is well aware of these precedents as they race to build nuclear weapons and become both invulnerable to military intervention and positioned to dominate the region in the name of both their religious ideology and Persian nationalism.

There is no easy way to stop or delay Iran’s nuclear program and some of the options are indeed risky and dangerous. But it is not too late to hope the issue can be resolved without a choice between the catastrophe of a nuclear Iran or the grave risks of an Israeli or American military strike on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.

But this possibility only exists with immediate implementation of the most severe sanctions possible, genuinely threatening Iran’s clerical rulers’ ability to hang on to power, and backed up by a credible threat of military action. Moreover, the sanctions will have to be implemented outside the UN framework, given determined Russian and Chinese obstructionism in the UN Security Council.

On Nov. 21, French President Nicolas Sarkozy outlined the sort of sanctions needed: “willing countries” must “immediately freeze the assets of Iran’s central bank,” which would prevent Iran from operating on the world market, and suspend purchases of Iranian oil. Since his statement, the EU, the US and Canada have imposed tough sanctions on Iran. Australia has also announced its plans for additional sanctions on Iran.

It may only be a matter of months before Iran obtains nuclear weapons. The time for international cooperation on Iran is now. Effective sanctions require international cooperation in order to have a real effect. It is critical that nuclear weapons not proliferate and that world heads back towards a path of nuclear disarmament. An Iran with nuclear weapons poses a threat not only to the Middle East but to global peace and security and it must be curtailed before it is too late to stop.

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