(Speech given on May 11, 2006 at Code Pink Mothers Day for Peace program)
The New York Times reported on May 10, 2006, "U.S. and Europe plan new offer to entice Iran away from arms", and that Ms. Rice had said that negotiations would take several weeks to design an offer that would allow the Iranians to have a civil nuclear program.
Meanwhile we hear rants on radio and TV about how Iran has violated the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and saying that if the UN is not ready to do something, the U.S. has to take the matter into its hands.
The reason that the U.S. and its European allies (UK, France and Germany, called "E3") are coming up with incentives, is that Iran has not violated any of the NPT regulations. If it were in violation, a resolution could be passed against it.
No UN Security Council resolution exists against Iran. So, Iran has not violated any UN Security Council resolution. On February 4th, 2006, the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), under pressure from the U.S., and to deflect its threat of war, agreed to report to the Security Council on its findings on Iran. In March, the Security Council received a report on Iran, which included no violation, but which requested that Iran stop its enrichment program. Iran was given a month to comply with this request.
Iran's response was negative. The U. S. has increased its threat, but at the same time, in the absence of any international legal basis for an attack on Iran, this negotiation about offering Iran incentives is going on.
This point is extremely important because it has to be made clear to the American public that the crisis on hand is an invention of the US government for another excuse to carry on its long-term plan for regime change in Iran.
There is definitely an international crisis and that is the possibility of another U.S. war in the Middle East based on more lies. And this time there is the threat of the use of tactical nuclear bombs.
The American public is hearing these lies about Iran's possible violation of some regulations and about Iran's "ambitions", while it is the Bush administration that has clearly violated many international laws, including the NPT.
At a time when the Bush administration is accusing Iran, Bush travels to India to discuss trade of nuclear technology with India. This is an absolute violation of the NPT. The United States is one of the original signatories of the NPT, which went into force in March of 1970. The NPT requires the Nuclear-weapon States to follow all the safeguard agreements of the NPT in trading or dealing in nuclear technology and equipment with any other state, even for peaceful purposes.
Since India is not a signatory to the NPT and is not subject to any safeguards and IAEA inspection, and since India has developed nuclear weapons in disregard for international law, the U.S. agreement to transfer nuclear technology to India puts the U.S. in violation of the NPT.
This is the real danger to destroying the existing laws and regulations for control of nuclear expansion. It should also be pointed out that although the existence of the NPT and of the IAEA serves some minimal control over nuclear expansion globally, it has its internal inconsistencies. Countries that are not signatories to the NPT sit on the board of IAEA. At this time India is a member of the governing board of the IAEA. So, in effect a country that has never agreed to abide by the international law, decides the future of a country like Iran, which has signed on to this code of honor and has gone to great lengths to follow it.
At the same time, Article IV of the NPT states, "Nothing in this treaty will be interpreted to affecting the inalienable right of all the parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Article I and II of this treaty."
This is the language that Iran refers to when it says that development of nuclear technology and production of nuclear energy is its inalienable right and it is discrimination when the U.S. and some other countries try to deny it this right. This same article and other articles give Iran, as a signatory to NPT and to a Safeguard Agreement, the right to enrich its own uranium for peaceful purposes.
The U.S. and British governments assert that Iran may be hiding something and that it may have the ambition to develop weapons in the future. These statements do not rely on any legal international precedent. And Ron Paul, a Republican congressman from Texas, who opposes war on Iran, says that the Bush administration wants Iran to prove a negative, prove that it does not intend to develop nuclear weapons, and that that is not a possible task.
In fact as we have seen in the case of North Korea, the U.S. threats induced North Korea to leave the NPT and then develop its weapon. The only way to reduce the likelihood of a country to develop a nuclear weapon is to make sure they stay within the NPT safeguards. These safeguard agreements provide the IAEA the right to inspect the nuclear-energy activities of the country. Iran has consistently stated that it is not interested in developing nuclear weapons, and all the IAEA inspections have not revealed the smallest evidence to the contrary.
The only possible scenario for Iran to decide to change its course would be a repeat of the case of North Korea. North Korea had requested that the U.S. have direct negotiations with them, that the U.S. remove sanctions against them, and that the U. S. agree to a non-aggression promise. The U.S. refused, and North Korea, having a well supported concern that it could be attacked by the U.S., left the NPT and began its weapon program.
Iran has the same problems vis-à-vis the U.S. Since the unfortunate and decidedly unacceptable hostage taking by radical Islamic students in Iran, the U.S. has frozen Iranian assets and imposed sanctions on Iran.
It has not been advertised to the American public that in 1981 an agreement was signed between the Iranian government and the Carter administration in Cairo (the "Cairo agreement"). Since the U.S. had carried out a CIA coup against the legitimate government of Iran in 1953, and since the coup had been carried out from within the American embassy in Teheran (This was reported years later in books published by CIA operatives), the Iranians had taken over the embassy to prevent another coup.
This agreement signed by the American president, which lead to the release of American hostages, states that the U.S. would not, in the future, intervene in the domestic affairs of Iran. Furthermore, the U.S. government agreed that the American hostages would not have the right to sue Iran for damages.
This is the reason that American courts have rejected the hostage's suits against Iran for damages. Now President Bush has developed the preemptive policy and violates all previous international and bilateral agreements, asserting that the September 11, 2001 attacks have changed the world. That is why the Iranian government has demanded another non-intervention agreement from the US if it is expected to end its enrichment of uranium.
For more than two years, the Iranian government voluntarily suspended its uranium enrichment program in the interest of negotiations that would result in Iranians fears being alleviated and the U.S. concern being answered as well. At the time, the solution suggested by the Russians was for Iran to send its uranium to Russia for enrichment.
However, just as the case of North Korea, the U.S. has refused to directly deal with Iran, has refused to accept non-aggression towards Iran, and has tried to get its way by increasing its level of threat, which has resulted in the Iranian government deciding to restart its uranium enrichment for nuclear energy development.
One may guess that this is what the Bush administration and its allies in the congress were hoping for. A break in the negotiations, so Iran could be reported to the Security Council.
However, the U.S. is not all-powerful, and is faced with the lack of any tangible evidence against Iran, and with the international community (including the Europeans) opposing military action against Iran. In addition, Russia and China, which are trade partners with Iran and in economic competition with the U.S., are not ready to forgo their own interest and accept the further chaos in the world that an attack on Iran would produce.
The important task of the anti-war Americans is to expose the lies of this government and its allies in the form of neo-con specialists and to prevent another war based on these lies.