John Barry has written an blog entry/article(?) for Newsweek about how Iran is supposedly has shown "chutzpah" in trying to "short circuit" or make an "end-run" around the IAEA by seeking a UN Resolution banning attacks on nuclear facilities. In this blog entry/article, John Barry claims that since the Geneva Conventions already prohibit attacks on non-military nuclear sites and "presumably" related facilities, then obviously the only reason Iran has to fear is due to the fact that Iran's nuclear facilities must be for a military purpose.
As if we've been so scrupulous in observing the Geneva Conventions that any other prohibition is totally unnecessary. Need I remind John Barry that the same Conventions prohibited bombing water treatment and other totally civilian facilities -- but Iraq's water treatment facilities in addition to Iraq's electrical grid was quite specifically targetted by the US with the intent of making the lives of Iraqi citizens so miserable that they would hopefully overthrow Saddam themselves (but which instead contributed to the deaths of more than 500,000 Iraqi children from the sanctions, as a result of improper sanitation and lack of access to clearn drinking water --something then Secretary of State Albright said was "worth it".)
Barry nevertheless admits that Iran is not the only country seeking such a ban since efforts by other countries have been "stymied for years in the U.N. Committee on Disarmament in Geneva." Perhaps they're all trying to make nukes too, eh, Barry? Could it be that Iran isn't so much "short circuiting" the IAEA as it is seeking a way around being continuously "stymied"? In fact many countries support Iran's position -- the Final Document of the 2000 NPT Review Conference specifically adopted this conclusion:
The Conference considers that attacks or threats of attack on nuclear facilities devoted to peaceful purposes jeopardize nuclear safety, have dangerous political, economic and environmental implications and raise serious concerns regarding the application of international law on the use of force in such cases, which could warrant appropriate action in accordance with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations.
Barry claims -- falsely -- that these effort by other countries to ban attacks of nuclear facilities were stymied because the nations seeking the ban refuse "reasonable" Western demands to ban the production of radiological weapons, and to subject their nuclear facilities to IAEA inspections. Well, John Barry, I have some news for you. All of the members of the 2000 NPT Review Conference, including Iran (but not India) have nuclear facilities which are already under IAEA safeguards and they (along with Iran) have already signed a treaty banning the production of "radiological" weapons which is called the Non-Proliferation Treaty. So your "reasonable Western demands" turn out to be bullshit, don't they?
And after more than 7 years of intensive inspections by the IAEA, the IAEA has said repeatedly that there's no evidence of a nuclear weapons program in Iran. Indeed, Amano, the incoming head of the IAEA and the same Japanese nuclear expert who you claim has "stronger views on the need to stop proliferation" than his predecessor ElBaradei, had this to say about allegations of Iranian nuclear weapons programs:
"I don't see any evidence in IAEA official documents about this," Yukiya Amano told Reuters in his first direct comment on Iran's atomic program since his election, when asked whether he believed Tehran was seeking nuclear weapons capability.
Pwned!
More than any other country, Iran is experienced with the aerial bombing of nuclear facilities. In 1980, Iran's air force bombed a nuclear facility in Iraq, months before Israel attacked it again. And Iran's nuclear facility at Bushehr was bombed in kind by the Iraqi air force, later on, during the Imposed War.
Posted by: Pirouz | August 18, 2009 at 05:42 AM