Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Buon senso. Astenersi deboli di cuore.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0619-28.htm
Published on Monday, June 19, 2006 by the Guardian/UK
A Negotiated Solution to the Iranian Nuclear Crisis is Within Reach
The US must take three basic steps to defuse this confrontation. The
consequences of not doing so could be grim
by Noam Chomsky
The urgency of halting the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and moving
toward their elimination, could hardly be greater. Failure to do so is
almost certain to lead to grim consequences, even the end of biology's only
experiment with higher intelligence. As threatening as the crisis is, the
means exist to defuse it.
A near-meltdown seems to be imminent over Iran and its nuclear programmes.
Before 1979, when the Shah was in power, Washington strongly supported these
programmes. Today the standard claim is that Iran has no need for nuclear
power, and therefore must be pursuing a secret weapons programme. "For a
major oil producer such as Iran, nuclear energy is a wasteful use of
resources," Henry Kissinger wrote in the Washington Post last year.
Thirty years ago, however, when Kissinger was secretary of state for
President Gerald Ford, he held that "introduction of nuclear power will both
provide for the growing needs of Iran's economy and free remaining oil
reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals".
Last year Dafna Linzer of the Washington Post asked Kissinger about his
reversal of opinion. Kissinger responded with his usual engaging frankness:
"They were an allied country."
In 1976 the Ford administration "endorsed Iranian plans to build a massive
nuclear energy industry, but also worked hard to complete a
multibillion-dollar deal that would have given Tehran control of large
quantities of plutonium and enriched uranium - the two pathways to a nuclear
bomb", Linzer wrote. The top planners of the Bush administration, who are
now denouncing these programmes, were then in key national security posts:
Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz.
Iranians are surely not as willing as the west to discard history to the
rubbish heap. They know that the United States, along with its allies, has
been tormenting Iranians for more than 50 years, ever since a US-UK military
coup overthrew the parliamentary government and installed the Shah, who
ruled with an iron hand until a popular uprising expelled him in 1979.
The Reagan administration then supported Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran,
providing him with military and other aid that helped him slaughter hundreds
of thousands of Iranians (along with Iraqi Kurds). Then came President
Clinton's harsh sanctions, followed by Bush's threats to attack Iran -
themselves a serious breach of the UN charter.
Last month the Bush administration conditionally agreed to join its European
allies in direct talks with Iran, but refused to withdraw the threat of
attack, rendering virtually meaningless any negotiations offer that comes,
in effect, at gunpoint. Recent history provides further reason for
scepticism about Washington's intentions.
In May 2003, according to Flynt Leverett, then a senior official in Bush's
National Security Council, the reformist government of Mohammad Khatami
proposed "an agenda for a diplomatic process that was intended to resolve on
a comprehensive basis all of the bilateral differences between the United
States and Iran".
Included were "weapons of mass destruction, a two-state solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the future of Lebanon's Hizbullah organisation
and cooperation with the UN nuclear safeguards agency", the Financial Times
reported last month. The Bush administration refused, and reprimanded the
Swiss diplomat who conveyed the offer.
A year later the European Union and Iran struck a bargain: Iran would
temporarily suspend uranium enrichment, and in return Europe would provide
assurances that the United States and Israel would not attack Iran. Under US
pressure, Europe backed off, and Iran renewed its enrichment processes.
Iran's nuclear programmes, as far as is known, fall within its rights under
article four of the non-proliferation treaty (NPT), which grants non-nuclear
states the right to produce fuel for nuclear energy. The Bush administration
argues that article four should be strengthened, and I think that makes
sense.
When the NPT came into force in 1970 there was a considerable gap between
producing fuel for energy and for nuclear weapons. But advances in
technology have narrowed the gap. However, any such revision of article four
would have to ensure unimpeded access for non-military use, in accord with
the initial NPT bargain between declared nuclear powers and the non-nuclear
states.
In 2003 a reasonable proposal to this end was put forward by Mohamed
ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency: that all
production and processing of weapon-usable material be under international
control, with "assurance that legitimate would-be users could get their
supplies". That should be the first step, he proposed, toward fully
implementing the 1993 UN resolution for a fissile material cutoff treaty (or
Fissban).
ElBaradei's proposal has to date been accepted by only one state, to my
knowledge: Iran, in February, in an interview with Ali Larijani, Iran's
chief nuclear negotiator. The Bush administration rejects a verifiable
Fissban - and stands nearly alone. In November 2004 the UN committee on
disarmament voted in favour of a verifiable Fissban. The vote was 147 to one
(United States), with two abstentions: Israel and Britain. Last year a vote
in the full general assembly was 179 to two, Israel and Britain again
abstaining. The United States was joined by Palau.
There are ways to mitigate and probably end these crises. The first is to
call off the very credible US and Israeli threats that virtually urge Iran
to develop nuclear weapons as a deterrent.
A second step would be to join the rest of the world in accepting a
verifiable Fissban treaty, as well as ElBaradei's proposal, or something
similar.
A third step would be to live up to article six of the NPT, which obligates
the nuclear states to take "good-faith" efforts to eliminate nuclear
weapons, a binding legal obligation, as the world court determined. None of
the nuclear states has lived up to that obligation, but the United States is
far in the lead in violating it.
Even steps in these directions would mitigate the upcoming crisis with Iran.
Above all, it is important to heed the words of Mohamed ElBaradei: "There is
no military solution to this situation. It is inconceivable. The only
durable solution is a negotiated solution." And it is within reach.

 by Noam Chomsky
Il 90% di cio' che scrive NC e', in pratica, buon senso.
Sara' per questo che e' cosi' "controverso".
 
GT

 Sara' per questo che e' cosi' "controverso".
O forse perché è contrario al "senso comune" :)
Namib

 
Ogni tanto mi chiedo se NC parli sul serio o ci stia tutti prendendo per 
i fondelli. Oramai il copione e' sempre e irrimediabilmente lo stesso: 
se qualcuno si comporta male o fa lo stronzo, sicuramente e' colpa egli 
USA oo di Israele che un giorno in passato si sono comportati da bastardi.
Se l'Iran ha progetti egemonici nell'area e gli serve l'atomica per 
supportarli e' solo perche' i cattivoni israeliani minacciano il regime 
degli ayatollah. Poveracci. Loro sono dei miti pezzi di pane e i 
bastardi imperialisti li obbligano a giocare duro.
E ad uno stato che dice di fottersene di quello che pensa l'Onu e il 
resto del mondo, dobbiamo proporre un bel trattato internazionale che 
sancisca la buona fede di tutti, anche se il nostro NC voleva dire "di 
Israele e degli USA".
Adesso che ci penso, ho trovato la risposta che cercavo: NC ci prende 
tutti per i fondelli.
andrea

 resto del mondo,
*Cough!*   *Cough!*
GT