Re: @Iran has an Inalienable righ to Nuclear Energy@
- From: All Bad <All_BadNOT_REALLY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 10 May 2006 21:44:20 -0400
You are OT in TRB.
- All Bad
Azal wrote:
Released January 16, 2006 (Rev. Jan 21)
The Wisdom Fund, P. O. Box 2723, Arlington, VA 22202
Article and Source Links: http://www.twf.org/News/Y2006/0116-Iran.html
Iran Has an 'Inalienable Right' to Nuclear Energy
Is Iran's plan for an oil exchange trading in Euros the real issue? Or
is it Israel? And why haven't the nuclear powers fulfilled their treaty
obligations?
by Enver Masud
Iran has an "inalienable right" to use nuclear energy for peaceful
purposes such as the production of electric energy, and the enrichment
of uranium for its nuclear reactors. Could it be that Iran's plan for
an oil exchange trading in Euros is the real issue? Or is it Israel?
Article IV of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which
entered into force on March 5, 1970, states:
1. Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as 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 Articles I and II of this Treaty.
2. All the Parties to the Treaty undertake to facilitate, and have
the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of
equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for
the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Parties to the Treaty in a
position to do so shall also cooperate in contributing alone or
together with other States or international organizations to the
further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful
purposes, especially in the territories of non-nuclear-weapon States
Party to the Treaty, with due consideration for the needs of the
developing areas of the world.
Thus, not only does Iran have an "inalienable right" to use nuclear
energy for electricity, the NPT obligates the nuclear powers to
"further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful
purposes." Iran has gone beyond its obligations under the NPT to
assure
others of it's peaceful intentions.
According to Dr. Gordon Prather, a nuclear physicist who was the top
scientist for the army in the Reagan years, in December, 2003, Iran
signed an Additional Protocol to its Safeguards Agreement and had
volunteered to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) - pending ratification by the Iranian Parliament - as if the
Additional Protocol were actually "in force."
The IAEA Safeguards Statement for 2004 states: "As of the end of 2004,
40 non-nuclear-weapon States party to the NPT had not yet brought
comprehensive safeguards agreements with the Agency into force."
Iran also offered, says Dr. Prather, "to voluntarily forego a complete
fuel cycle . . . if the Europeans would get the United States to
reverse the campaign of denial, obstruction, intervention, and
misinformation."
Iran had already offered on March 23, 2005 a package of "objective
guarantees" (developed by an international panel of experts) that met
most of the demands later made by the conservative, Washington based
Heritage foundation says Dr. Prather.
The IAEA has found no "smoking gun" in Iran that would indicate a
nuclear weapons program, says Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, the
director-general of the IAEA.
To further ease U.S. fears, "America can take part in international
bidding for the construction of Iran's nuclear power plant if they
observe the basic standards and quality," said Foreign Ministry
spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi at a news conference on December 11, 2005.
Thirty years ago, Iran developing a nuclear capacity "caused no
problems
for the Americans because, at that time, the Shah was seen as a strong
ally, and had indeed been put on the throne with American help", says
Tony Benn, Britain's secretary of state for energy from 1975-79.
"There
could hardly be a clearer example of double standards than this, and
it fits in with the arming of Saddam to attack Iran after the Shah had
been toppled, and the complete silence over Israel's huge nuclear
armoury" he says.
With world oil production expected to peak in 5 to 25 years, and
demand
to exceed supply sometime after that, it makes sense for Iran to look
toward alternative means for generating electricity, and to reserve
its
oil for other purposes including increasing revenues from export.
Iran is about to commit a far greater "offense" than Saddam Hussein's
conversion to the euro for Iraq's oil exports in the fall of 2000.
Beginning in March 2006, the Tehran government has plans to begin
competing with New York's NYMEX and London's IPE with respect to
international oil trades - using a euro-based international
oil-trading
mechanism," says William R. Clark - author of Petrodollar Warfare:
Oil,
Iraq and the Future of the Dollar
According to Toni Straka, a Vienna, Austria-based financial analyst who
runs a blog, The Prudent Investor, Iran's "proposal to set up a
petroleum bourse was first voiced in Iran's development plan for
2000-2005. . . . Cheaper nuclear energy and increases in oil exports
from the current level of roughly 2.5 million barrels a day will
result
in a profitable equation for Iran.
"Only one major actor stands to lose from a change in the current
status
quo: the US" says Toni Straka, "which with less than 5% of the global
population, consumes roughly one third of global oil production."
Yes, given the technology and knowledge Iran could develop a nuclear
weapon, but so could 35 to 40 other countries. And "under the current
regime, there is nothing illicit for a non-nuclear state to conduct
uranium-enriching activities . . . or even to possess military-grade
nuclear material," says ElBaradei.
Israel - not a signatory to the NPT - has had this capability for
years,
is believed to have more than 200 nuclear weapons, the missiles to
deliver them to Iran, and it is no secret that it has been threatening
strikes on Iran's Bushehr nuclear electric power plant - just as it
launched an unprovoked and illegal attack on Iraq's, Osirak nuclear
electric power plant in 1981.
U.S. news media's timidity, and the Israeli lobby, helped launch the
illegal, U.S. invasion of Iraq.
This invasion has claimed the lives of over 2000 U.S. soldiers, and
over
180,000 Iraqis. It has left uncounted others wounded and maimed. It
has
destroyed much of Iraq's - indeed the world's - cultural heritage.
And it is estimated to cost U.S. taxpayers "between $1 trillion and $2
trillion, up to 10 times more than previously thought," according to
Linda Bilmes - former assistant secretary of Commerce, and Joseph
Stiglitz - recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics.
The U.S. news media is showing the same timidity that it displayed
before and during the Iraq war in investigating U.S. allegations
against Iran, and again Israel is pushing the U.S. to attack.
John Ward Anderson of the Washington Post wrote: "The foreign ministers
of Britain, Germany and France called Thursday for Iran to be referred
to the UN Security Council for violating its nuclear treaty
obligations." Neither he, nor the editors, nor the ombudsman at the
Post have responded to our request to identify which "nuclear treaty
obligations" is Iran violating.
In fact it is the U.S. and other nuclear powers that have not fulfilled
their obligations under the NPT, including those stated in Article VI:
Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations
in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the
nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on
a
Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective
international control.
In 1996, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) unanimously held that
Article VI obligates states to "bring to a conclusion negotiations
leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects."
And Robert S. McNamara, U.S. Secretary of Defense from 1961 until 1968,
has written: "I have never seen a piece of paper that outlined a plan
for the United States or NATO to initiate the use of nuclear weapons
with any benefit for the United States or NATO."
Despite the ICJ decision, the questionable utility of a nuclear
arsenal,
and 37 years after agreeing to "pursue negotiations" toward "complete
disarmament," Russia and the U.S. maintain a stockpile of about 10,000
nuclear weapons each, and the Guardian has reported that the U.S. is
considering "the construction of a new generation of nuclear weapons,
including 'mini-nukes', 'bunker-busters' and neutron bombs designed to
destroy chemical or biological agents, according to a leaked Pentagon
document."
Writing in the November/December 2005 issue of the Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists, Jack Boureston and Charles D. Ferguson say, "In
pursuing a civilian nuclear program, Iran has international law on its
side. . . . The best way to know the full extent of Iran's nuclear
doings is to offer it help."
--- The Wisdom Fund www.twf.org
.
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