Treaty with Iran: Superpower Pacts Provide Great Cause for Worry
(Le Monde, France)
"Military nuclear programs, having first become a topic of
international treaties in 1963, have also not been free of deceit and bad
intentions. If, indeed, we examine those signed not long ago between the United
States and the Soviet Union, but also those that extend to the international
community, one must admit that they have not always been motivated by good
intentions. Behind the media smoke screen of signatures, one finds every kind
of depravity."
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, after signing the Munich Agreement, infamous for appeasing a dictator for a temporarily delay to war. Will the Iran nuclear deal be similar?
After ten years of negotiations,
prevarications, advances, retreats, games of hide and seek between International
Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and the Iranian government, a nuclear agreement
has finally been reached between the P5+1 and Iran.
Remember that the fear of the international
community is that Iran is engaged in a uranium enrichment program and could
manage to build a bomb, although the country signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty
in 1968 and ratified it in 1970, albeit at the time of the Shah.
As always, after difficult talks, the ink of
the signatories is barely dry before the parties show their satisfaction, optimism,
and congratulate themselves. If, in some cases, this optimism is justified in
the medium- or long- term, in others, it has had more disastrous consequences.
The Munich Agreement
of September 1938 is a reminder of this. It sought to preserve peace but a
fool's bargain delivered war just a few months later. The treachery of one [Adolph
Hitler] and naive optimism of the other [Neville Chamberlain] cost the world
dearly. Remember, too, that the 1919 Treaty of Versailles
forbade Germany from building submarines, which didn't prevent Hitler from
having a large number of them just a few years later. So treaties only appear
to bind those who respect them.
A
DIPLOMATIC MUNICH?
Military nuclear programs, having first become
a topic of international treaties in 1963, have also not been free of deceit or
bad intentions. If, indeed, we examine those signed not long ago between the
United States and the Soviet Union, but also those that extend to the
international community, one must admit that they have not always been motivated
by good intentions. Behind the media smoke screen of signatures, one finds
every kind of depravity.
There are, of course, treaties for which states
have not been stakeholders, others that have been signed but later denounced,
others signed but not ratified, others circumvented, and still others signed and
ratified but without the means of control to judge whether they were properly
executed.
The history of nuclear weapons programs
illustrates all the above cases. Let us pay honor where honor is due: the NPT, or Non-Proliferation Treaty, signed in 1968. India,
Pakistan, and Israel have never adhered to it, which allowed them to become
nuclear powers. As for North Korea, it went back on its signature in 2003 and
developed its bombs.
In 1967, a treaty was signed prohibiting
the deployment of weapons of mass destruction in space, which was soon circumvented
by the USSR. Not being able to deploy an orbital nuclear bomb, the Soviets deployed
a "semi-orbital" one. In 1969, the U.S. and USSR agreed to limit the numbers
of offensive weapons (the SALT Agreement - for Strategic
Arms Limitation Talks). A few months later, however, the United States
replaced its single-warhead-tipped missiles with those with multiple warheads, thus
considerably increasing its number of nuclear weapons.
ARE
SIGNATURES RESPECTED?
The Comprehensive
Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, or CNBT, was concluded
in 1996. India, Pakistan and North Korea have not signed. Meanwhile, the United
States, Egypt, China, Iran and Israel have not ratified it. In 2001, the U.S.
withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty signed with the USSR in 1972. Finally, the 2010 New START agreement between
the two superpowers only covered operational nuclear weapons, ignoring the
significant reserves of such weapons.
So what will become of this treaty signed
between the P5+1 and Iran? Nobody knows. What respect will be paid to the
speeches and signatures? Will the control mechanisms be sufficiently effective
to confirm that the agreement is truly respected by Iran? The success of the deal
depends on it. And when we know that up to now, the two superpowers have been
rather deficient on this point, one may well wonder.
Posted
By Worldmeets.US
But beyond that, Israel and some Sunni
countries in the Gulf, such as Saudi Arabia, believe this agreement resolves nothing
and will fail to prevent Iran from pursuing its goal of obtaining The Bomb. It
is true that the statements of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on his country's
right to enrichment and on the destruction of Israel offer little confidence
that such an agreement will be truly adhered to.
So should we be optimistic and reject what
could be considered naivety on the part of the Western world? Alas, only time
will tell. But it is not without risk. What is certain is that the shadow of
the Munich Agreement, the ineffectiveness of the Maginot Line, and as a
general rule, the breaching of treaties, all hover and will
continue to hover, over such an agreement.
