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The dispute surrounding Iran’s nuclear program increased in early 2010, raising the level of objections, diplomatic pressure and threats of economic sanctions on Iran. There is, again, the possibility of “military conflict” with a possible U.S. attack, or even Israel, to the country.
It has been developed an aggressive international campaign, led by the U.S. and Israel, with the aim of pressuring the other world powers to accept tougher measures against Iran. The campaign also seeks to convince and prepare the international public opinion for this possible military attack or, more likely, to impose even harsher sanctions than the existing ones.
The goal is to “demonize” Iran, calling it a “dictatorship” that could “put humanity at risk”, if the country has access to nuclear technology. One of the latest moves in this campaign was a grotesque and shameful “open letter” signed by several Nobel Prize winners and other scientists, addressed to the highest authorities of world powers (USA, France, Russia, England and Germany), urging them to “react against the atrocities of the Iranian regime and its irresponsible and absurd nuclear ambitions, with tougher sanctions …”. This “open letter” was published in a full-page of the newspapers The New York Times (02/07/2010) and International Herald Tribune (02/09/2010) and its publication was paid by a Zionist organization. These distinguished writers and scientists have never been touched or moved against the nuclear arsenal of the US or Israel.
We make a clear defense of democratic and labor rights in Iran against the abuses of the reactionary regime of the ayatollahs, in solidarity with the mobilizations that have confronted the dictatorship. We also call the masses to overthrow it. But we warn that the current imperialist campaign seeks to use the character of the regime and its repression in a sense even more reactionary: preparing an attack against the country’s autonomy and a greater assault on democratic freedoms.
This campaign against Iran is not recent and its real reason is that imperialism does not accept that a country which is not fully subjected to its purposes, and has some independence, develops technology in an area so strategic and sensitive. In the case of Iran, in particular, the U.S. imperialism has not yet digested the defeat that he suffered 31 years ago, when a revolution overthrew the Shah Reza Pahlevi, who headed a corrupt dictatorship, puppet of the Americans. This revolution nationalized the oil and gas, expelling U.S. oil companies.
The imperialist “nuclear hypocrisy”
When the issue is about nuclear technology, what prevails are the lies and hypocrisy by the countries that possess such weapons, always working to create and perpetuate doubts, suspicions and insecurity in the population of the whole world. Sectors of the world left, under the pressure of pacifist positions, allegedly “progressive”, echoes this discourse, thus, in practice, they contribute with the perpetuation of the political, economic and military power of these “nuclear powers”. In the name of “preventing the nuclear danger”, they end up supporting, in practice, the imperialist policy of maintaining the monopoly on nuclear weapons in their hands and their allies or direct agents.
Besides the military field, an aspect to consider is that imperialism wants nuclear monopoly also in the trade of technology and its raw materials necessary for the peaceful production, so as to get greater profits of this energy sector.
The true is that the “nuclear threat” exists and is real since a long time, regardless of the Iranian nuclear program, or any other country that is developing it. The only country that used, until now, this kind of weapon against a population was the United States, who threw two atomic bombs on Japan (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) at the end of the 2nd World War in 1946. It was a criminal attack and militarily unnecessary because Japan was already virtually defeated (Germany and Italy had already surrendered) and would be unable to maintain the war. These bombings were a message to the world, showing the strength of the great power that emerged victorious. Today, the US maintains a nuclear arsenal capable of destroying the planet several times and its imperialist bourgeoisie has shown that, if necessary, it is willing to use it. This is indeed the real “nuclear threat” that threatens humanity, not Iran.
More shocking is the case of Israel: it is not secret that this country has 200 to 300 nuclear weapons, not submitted to any inspection or external control and that the development of its nuclear program is being supported by the US. Moreover, it has already used no nuclear banned weapons, provoking massacres of Palestinian civilians, as in Gaza, and lives permanently at war with its neighbors, threatening them with air strikes, as it now does with Iran.
Ideally, there shouldn’t be nuclear arsenals, but as long as imperialism, its nuclear arsenal, to which it does not renounce, and its armed forces with chemical and high technology weapons exist, we can not speak of “disarmament” in general, without stating first who will disarm the main arsenal, the US’ one. Finally, even with the end of the Cold War with the former USSR, which was the old American pretext for building its huge nuclear arsenal, it is still intact and has been modernized with its terrible power of destruction, threatening humanity.
The role of the IAEA and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was established in 1957 as an autonomous organization within the UN, with the supposed aim of “promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy and discourage its use for military weapons”. Of course, its performance has little to do with it. That’s an organ completely manipulated by the big imperialist powers, particularly the US.
The tool with which the IAEA acts selectively in order to prevent certain countries to advance in the development of nuclear technology is the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). This treaty was signed in 1968 and has begun in 1970. The main point was the freezing of the nuclear weapons production: the signatories that hadn’t developed them would renounce to do it, while countries that had already built them would compromise on reducing their nuclear arsenal (though it was not stipulated any time span or specific objectives for the “disarmament”). In practice, the technology for the manufacture of nuclear weapons would be restricted to only 5 nations which, at that moment, already dominated it (USA, France, Britain, Russia and China).
In contrast, the other signatory nations would receive support and encouragement for the development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes (power generation, radioisotopes and radio-pharmaceuticals, materials irradiation, food, etc.). The signatories of the NPT are committed to communicate and report to the IAEA all nuclear activities and allow his inspectors to monitor their installations. These obligations, however, do not need to be met by the 5 nations that already possess nuclear weapons. The NPT was signed by 187 of the 190 countries that are part of the UN, but has been ratified by less than half of these countries. And it was not signed by India, Pakistan and Israel.
As can be seen, the Treaty is extremely discriminatory, seeking to concentrate and consolidate military power in a few imperialist countries or a few allies. It is not coincidence that the main “nuclear powers” are the same nations that form the Security Council of the UN (US, Russia, China, Britain and France), reflecting the distribution of power after the end of World War 2. There is no doubt, however, that the possession of nuclear technology always meant and means a factor of power, domination and imposition of interests.
The other topic of this Treaty, the promise of the nuclear powers to reduce their nuclear arsenal, was only diplomatic statements of good intentions. In practice, in these years of the NPT, there was a significant increase of this arsenal. In addition to the five original nuclear powers, it is known that four more countries have built nuclear weapons: India, Pakistan and Israel – the countries that refused to accede to the NPT – and North Korea, which withdrew from it in 2003. But, because it is not an ally of imperialism, North Korea has also been pressured to halt its nuclear program.
The NPT has been increasingly questioned because it is not democratic and does not assure its original goals. On the contrary, the number of countries that dominate the technology of nuclear weapons increased and the nuclear powers don’t fulfill their part (disarmament). Furthermore, the IAEA is used to the interests defined by the largest imperialist power, the United States. In May 2010, there will be a new international conference to review the NPT (the last was 5 years ago), where the US and its allies will put pressure on countries to sign the Additional Protocol, which would allow the IAEA to promote unrestricted investigations, wider and detailed, without prior scheduling. The current protocol is from 1997 and was signed by only 93 of the original signatories of the NPT.
Furthermore, there is the US proposal to establish an “international bank of enriched uranium”, which supposedly would coordinate its distribution according to needs highlighted by the countries. This proposal is viewed with great circumspection, and it is difficult to accept because it would mean that member countries would give up capacitating themselves for the mastering of all stages of the uranium enrichmentprocess, turning totally dependent on the great powers. Currently there are few countries that dominate the entire cycle of enrichment of uranium (the 5 nuclear powers, Germany, Netherlands, Brazil and, partly, Argentina). But several others have been making efforts, such as Iran, which has just announced the complete mastery of technology. As the great powers would not offer anything in return, with respect to its own disarmament, it is easy to see that this conference tends to fail as the previous conference in 2005, which failed to even get to a minimum consensus to allow a document.
The other topic that will cross the conference is on the crisis generated by Iran’s nuclear program.
The Iranian nuclear program
Iran began its nuclear program in the mid-60s, still under the dictatorship of Shah Reza Pahlevi, with the support and encouragement of the US. In 1967, it was built Iran’s first nuclear plant, the Nuclear Research Center of Tehran, with a small research reactor of 5 megawatts of power. In 1968, Iran signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), ratified by its parliament in 1970.
In the mid-70s, based on a study by the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), the US persuaded the Shah to build several nuclear reactors to meet future demand for electricity because, according to studies of SRI, in 1990 Iran would need 20,000 megawatts. Thus, US companies could sell nuclear technology to Iran, or build these reactors, and the US would get back part of their costs with the purchase of Iranian oil.
In 1979, year of the revolution that overthrew the Shah, Iran was building two reactors to produce electricity under the responsibility of German firms: one with 90% and another with 50% of its installations built. Due to US pressure, no company or country has agreed to continue the construction of these reactors. Only recently, in February 2009, the first Iranian nuclear power plant was completed by Russian companies.
In 2003, it was revealed that Iran had nuclear installations at Natanz and Arak, where it would be theoretically possible to produce highly enriched uranium for use in nuclear weapons. Iran then signed the Additional Protocol to the NPT as a way to reduce international pressure, and President Khatami opened its facilities to IAEA inspectors, saying that Iran would produce its own nuclear fuel to meet the needs of its research reactor.
That is, since 2003 at least, it was no surprise that Iran and several other countries were trying to develop or acquire technology to enrich uranium, which is totally allowed to NPT signatories, which may have their nuclear program and enrich uranium to 20%, if they declare that it is for “peaceful purposes” and open its facilities to IAEA inspection. Therefore, Iran was not breaking any regulations of the NPT, which serves the interests of great powers.
Despite this, the US argued that Iran, because of its huge oil and reserves gas, did not need nuclear energy to generate electricity. Its interest would be, therefore, to build nuclear weapons. With this argument, US called for ending the Iranian nuclear program, forgetting that a few years ago they used the reverse argument to sell reactors to Iran, when the country was ruled by a puppet government. Here it is clear that imperialism is only concerned with the “proliferation” when it may mean that a country escapes from his absolute control of nuclear weapons.
The central issue is the nuclear monopoly by imperialism
During the Cold War years, when the USSR and other countries had already obtained the technology and produced nuclear weapons, the US should take into account the possibility of a comeback before reusing its powerful nuclear arsenal. That’s what got to be known as “deterrence”. What the US seeks to ensure today is to stop the achievement of this power by other countries, so that they cannot resist their orders and their policy of colonization and world ruling, ensuring, above all, an undisputed military hegemony.
Since 2003 Iran’s nuclear program, even in compliance with all articles of the NPT, has been a source of pressure and sanctions from the international powers, despite all the inspections conducted by the IAEA. Even after the former president of this agency, Mohamed El Baradei, has said he had no information or evidence that Iran could have a program to produce weapons.
Yet this same agency has changed its position under the political pressures of the great powers. As an example of the political activity of the IAEA, we can remember its posture when Egypt and South Korea have been caught after holding secret nuclear experiments for many years: at no time it has been speculated that these countries could build nuclear weapons; diplomacy was not mobilized; reprisals or economic sanctions were not demanded … The Agency was limited to a small rebuke to these US allies. Another example is the absurd case, already cited, of Israel. With hundreds of atomic bombs, it hasn’t neither been notified nor “harassed” by the IAEA.
For all the above, we defend the right of Iran to develop its nuclear technology and even the atomic bombs to defend itself against an imperialist or Israeli attack. In fact, its only possession would be a serious obstacle to these possible attacks. In this sense, it is necessary to dispute the conscience of workers and to warn them about these lies and the imperialist hypocrisy. Those who make a great show against Iran’s nuclear program should position themselves about the largest nuclear arsenal already installed and that no one controls: the one of the US, the only country that has already used them against the people. We also make a call to take a clear position against the sanctions of imperialist countries and organizations against Iran.
The danger of a nuclear disaster to humankind, we reaffirm, is not in Iran’s nuclear (or Brazilian, Argentine, North Korean, etc..) program, but in the existing arsenal, at disposal of the imperialist nations and their allies, which, all the time, violate the rules that they attempt to impose on others, and demonstrate their belligerent, imperialist and colonizer character.
