September 26, 2009
Antiwar.com

The U.S. Is Violating the NPT -- Not Iran

by Gordon Prather

Before President Obama persuaded the UN Security Council to adopt his Resolution 1887, which prominently notes that "enjoyment of the benefits of the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons by a State Party can be assured only by its compliance with the obligations thereunder," someone should have reminded him of an old American proverb that says "Give a man enough rope and he'll hang himself." . . .

Because as they - and the vast majority of the heads of state of the Non-Aligned Movement, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the Arab League and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization - know, it is the United States which for decades has been in outrageous non-compliance with its NPT obligations.

In particular, Iran's principal NPT obligation is to not "manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons," and to conclude a Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), covering certain NPT-proscribed "nuclear materials" in Iran and all activities involving their chemical or physical transformation, "with a view to preventing diversion of nuclear energy from peaceful uses to nuclear weapons."

As a result of exhaustive on-the-ground inspections and on-site monitoring of Iranian Safeguarded activities, IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei continues to "verify" the non-diversion of all Iranian NPT-proscribed materials.

Furthermore, ElBaradei has - pursuant to requests made of him in several of the UN Security Council Resolutions cited in UNSCR 1887 - also conducted exhaustive inspections of Iran's import records, going back several decades, as well as inspections of certain military and commercial sites, alleged to have been somehow connected to an attempt by Iran to "manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons." As of this writing, ElBaradei has been unable to find any evidence of any such attempt.

In other words, according to USCR 1887, Iran continues to be assured of receiving all benefits available without discrimination to NPT-signatories in good standing.

On the other hand, the principal obligation undertaken by the United States under the NPT is 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."

Furthermore, the U.S. has undertaken to "cooperate" with "other States" in contributing to the "further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, especially in the territories of non-nuclear-weapons States Party to the Treaty," such as Iran, for example, and "without discrimination."

Clinton-Gore and Bush-Cheney - aided and abetted by The Best Congress Money Can Buy - have done nothing but "discriminate" against Iran in blatant violation of the NPT, the IAEA Statute and the UN Charter, itself.

Initially claiming that Iran had a secret nuclear weapons program, undetected by the IAEA, they have in recent years simply claimed that Iran's IAEA-Safeguarded program, in and of itself, constitutes "a threat to the peace of the region" and must be suspended, indefinitely. Or else. . . .

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Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr. Prather also served as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. - ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico.

Non-Proliferation Treaty (July 1, 1968)
- Forbids the five member states with nuclear weapons from transferring them to any other state
- Forbids member states without nuclear weapons from developing or aquiring them
- Provides assurance through the application of international safeguards that peaceful nuclear energy in NNWS will not be diverted to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices
- Facilitates access to peaceful uses of nuclear energy for all NNWS under international safeguards
- Commits all member states to pursue good faith negotiations toward ending the nuclear arms race and achieving nuclear disarmament.

Enver Masud, "U.S. Violating Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty," The Wisdom Fund, March 11, 2003

Jimmy Carter, "'The United States is the major culprit in this erosion of the NPT'," Washington Post, March 28, 2005

Enver Masud, "Iran Has an 'Inalienable Right' to Nuclear Energy," The Wisdom Fund, January 16, 2006

"U.N. Agency: 30 Countries Could Soon Have Nuclear Weapons," Fox News, October 16, 2006

"ElBaradei: NPT Tattering Because Big Boys Continue to Rely on Nuclear Weapons," campaigniran.org, June 4, 2007

"Iran-US Standoff Fact Sheet," campaigniran.org, December 1, 2007

[Several of the nine NYT "experts" had been demanding for years "regime change" in Iraq, by force, "if necessary." None of the nine had actually opposed invading Iraq.

So, you can guess how guilt-ridden they all are, upon reflection, now that Operation Iraqi Freedom has been revealed to be "the greatest strategic disaster" in our history.--Gordon Prather, "Scott Ritter: Reflections," antiwar.com, March 22, 2008]

"Are Iran Election Protests U.S. Orchestrated?," The Wisdom Fund, June 21, 2009

"U.S. Hypes Iran's Nuclear 'Threat', Ignores Israel's," The Wisdom Fund, September 10, 2009

[The IAEA only actually requires that it be informed six months before an enrichment facility comes online, and the new site is at least that far from completion. Nuclear material has not been added, and the IAEA says that the data they've been given suggests that as with the existing Nanatz facility, the new site is only designed to enrich uranium to 5%, useful for energy production at the nation's Bushehr power plant but not for military purposes.

Western leaders are now demanding that UN inspectors be given access to the new site. Such a demand would be seemingly reasonable, if Iran hadn't already promised to do so days ago to the IAEA and publicly said hours before the "demands" that they have every intention of doing so.--Jason Ditz, "As Required, Iran Informs IAEA About New Enrichment Site: Western Furore Over 'Secret' Facility Despite No Apparent Illegality," antiwar.com, September 25, 2009]

[Iran revealed the site's existence in a letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency on Monday, the agency confirmed Friday.--"Sources: U.S. was aware of 'new' Iranian nuke site for years," cnn.com, September 25, 2009]

[ . . . when Obama announced that "Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow", he is technically and legally wrong.--Scott Ritter, "Keeping Iran honest: Iran's secret nuclear plant will spark a new round of IAEA inspections and lead to a period of even greater transparency ," Guardian, September 25, 2009]

[Speaking in Tehran on Saturday, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country had in fact informed the IAEA a full year in advance of the deadline set by the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). "If you want to build the building, you can do that.

If you want to lay the pipes, you can do that. Six months before you start processing itself ... then you need to inform the IAEA so it is prepared to begin its inspection programme," Ahmadinejad said."--"Iran denies violating IAEA rules," aljazeera.net, September 26, 2009]

[The president of the United States and his European puppets are doing what they do best - lying through their teeth. The U.S. "mainstream media" repeats the lies as if they were facts.--Paul Craig Roberts--"Another War in the Works," antiwar.com, September 29, 2009]

Gareth Porter--"US Story on Iran Nuke Facility Doesn't Add Up," Inter Press Service, September 30, 2009

Julian Borger and Richard Norton-Taylor--"'No credible evidence' of Iranian nuclear weapons, says UN inspector," Guardian, September 30, 2009

[Obama's "showdown" with Iran has another agenda. On both sides of the Atlantic the media have been tasked with preparing the public for endless war. The US/Nato commander General Stanley McChrystal says 500,000 troops will be required in Afghanistan over five years, according to America's NBC. The goal is control of the "strategic prize" of the gas and oilfields of the Caspian Sea, central Asia, the Gulf and Iran - in other words, Eurasia.--John Pilger--"The lying game: how we are prepared for another war of aggression," johnpilger.com, September 30, 2009]

[Under the tentative deal, Iran would ship what a U.S. official said was "most" of its approximately 3,300 pounds of low-enriched uranium to Russia, where it would be further refined. French technicians then would fabricate it into fuel rods and return it to Tehran to power a nuclear research reactor that's used to make isotopes for nuclear medicine.--Warren P. Strobel and Margaret Talev--"Iran agrees to ship enriched uranium to Russia for refinement," mcclatchydc.com, October 1, 2009]

Juan Cole, "Top Things you Think You Know about Iran that are not True," juancole.com, October 1, 2009

"ElBaradei says nuclear Israel number one threat to Mideast: report," xinhuanet.com, October 4, 2009

[Israel is making preparations to carry out military attacks in Iran after December, . . . Israel was not planning to bomb Iran, but might send elite troops to conduct activities on the ground there.

These, according to the magazine, could involve the sabotage of nuclear facilities as well as assassinations of top Iranian nuclear scientists."'Israel may attack Iran after December'," jpost.com, October 15, 2009]

[The sequence of events surrounding the Iranian policy change and the subsequent beginning of construction on a second enrichment facility suggests that Iran was hedging its bets against a US air attack, while retaining the obligation to provide detailed information six months before the introduction of nuclear material - if the threat of an attack were to subside.--Gareth Porter, "US threats prompted Iran nuclear facility," Guardian, October 27, 2009]

[State Department condemned the Jundallah bombing . . . is someone trying to torpedo the talks and push Iran and the United States into military collision?--Patrick J. Buchanan, "The Fruits of Intervention," antiwar.com, October 30, 2009]

Gordon Prather, "On the Eve of WWIII?," antiwar.com, October 31, 2009

Julian Borger, "Iran tested advanced nuclear warhead design - secret report?," Guardian, November 5, 2009

"Putin: Russia has no evidence Iran trying to build nukes," Reuters, December 3, 2009

[There is definitely concern about Iran's future intentions, but as I've always said, I can't read future intentions. . . . There have been allegations that Iran has done some studies on weaponization - I emphasize these are alleged studies, not the manufacture of nuclear weapons - but even your own national intelligence estimate concluded that they stopped this in 2003. . . . Is there a risk? There is always a risk. But the approach should be "Yes, we are concerned, but we are not panicked." And then you try to find a solution that is not based on panic.--Joby Warrick, "A nuclear watchdog's parting shots: A conversation with Mohamed ElBaradei," Washington Post, December 6, 2009]

[Article V of the NPT states clearly that, "[n]othing 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." As Iran has never been found in violation of the NPT - has never been found to have diverted nuclear materials for non-peaceful purposes - this legislation seeking to deny Iran the right to enrichment even for peaceful purposes itself violates the NPT.--Ron Paul, "Sanctioning Iran a Dangerous, Illegal Move," antiwar.com, December 16, 2009]

[Iran says it can produce its own fuel, although that could provoke an international furor because it would need to enrich uranium to 19.75 percent - a level technologically closer to weapons-grade material.--Thomas Erdbrink and William Branigin, "In Iran, nuclear issue is also a medical one," Washington Post, December 20, 2009]

Norman Dombey, "This is no smoking gun, nor Iranian bomb: Nothing in the published 'intelligence documents' shows Iran is close to having nuclear weapons," Guardian, December 22, 2009

Gareth Porter, "US Intelligence admits Iran nuke document forged," Middle East Online, December 31, 2009

Aresu Eqbali, "Iran gives West ultimatum to accept uranium swap," AFP, January 2, 2010

[Former Central Intelligence Agency official Philip Giraldi has said U.S. intelligence judges the "nuclear trigger" document to be a forgery--Gareth Porter, "New Revelations Tear Holes in Nuclear Trigger Story," IPS, January 5, 2010]

[A general who was once in charge of Israel's nuclear weapons has claimed that Iran is a "very, very, very long way from building a nuclear capability".

Brigadier-General Uzi Eilam, 75, a war hero and pillar of the defence establishment, believes it will probably take Iran seven years to make nuclear weapons. --Uzi Mahnaimi, "Israeli general Brigadier-General Uzi Eilam denies Iran is nuclear threat," Sunday Times, January 10, 2010]

Jim Lobe, "Sanctions, regime change take center stage," Asia Times, January 29, 2010

Carol Driver, "'Nobel Peace Prize-winner Barack Obama ups spending on nuclear weapons to even more than George Bush'," Daily Mail, January 29, 2010

[President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he could agree to sending partially enriched uranium to foreign countries for processing into fuel rods that would then be returned to Iran. Thus he outlined more or less what the United Nations has asked of Iran in recent negotiations, but which it had previously rejected.--David Usborne, "'Iran 'will comply over uranium''," Independent, February 3, 2010]

[President Barack Obama gave a speech that many have interpreted as a commitment to significant nuclear disarmament.

Now, however, the White House is requesting one of the larger increases in warhead spending history. --Greg Mello, "The Obama disarmament paradox," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, February 4, 2010]

M J Rosenberg, "'Senate Passes AIPAC's Iran Sanctions Bill in Five Minutes'," Huffington Post, February 9, 2010

[Tehran has offered to swap its low-enriched uranium for fuel rods from Europe and Russia. But Iran says the swap must be simultaneous, while the US-led Western powers demand Iran hand over its 22 lbs of uranium first, then get the fuel rods at some later date - if it behaves.--Eric Margolis, "Iran's Ahmadinejad Strikes Again," ericmargolis.com, February 15, 2010]

[ . . . the Institute for Science and International Security . . . is saying Iran cannot make usable fuel for the nuclear power plant it is building, and Gibbs is saying Iran lacks the capability to make fuel rods for its research reactor.--Patrick J. Buchanan, "Is Iran Running a Bluff?," antiwar.com, February 16, 2010]

[Rigi is bound to spill the beans - he may already have begun - and much is going to surface about the covert activities by the US forces based in Afghanistan to subvert Iran by hobnobbing with Jundallah, which, incidentally, is also known to have links with al-Qaeda.--M K Bhadrakumar, "Jundallah arrest proves timely for Iran," atimes.com, February 26, 2010]

[You do not need a degree in nuclear physics or chemical engineering to see that the New York Times story is, quite simply, false. . . .

First, the story's lead attributes to the report statements of fact that the IAEA does not make - and has never made. Instead of stating that "Iran Worked on Warhead," the IAEA says that it is concerned about the possible existence of past or current activities related to the development of a nuclear payload. . . .

Second, the report does not state or claim that the IAEA has any new information about the possibility of a nuclear weapons program. The report contains no relevant new or different facts, evidence, conclusions, or "declarations." On the contrary, the IAEA (at paragraph 40) is emphatic that it is summarizing information about potential military application previously reported in detail--Peter Casey, "Read the IAEA Reports on Iran," antiwar.com, March 1, 2010]

[Finally, the report prominently mentions the Security Council Resolutions against Iran. As I have explained elsewhere, sending Iran's nuclear dossier to the Security Council, which was the basis for approving resolutions 1737, 1747, 1803, and 1835 against Iran, was completely illegal and against the IAEA Status. Thus, even the legality of the Security Council resolutions is questionable.--Muhammad Sahimi, "Politicizing the IAEA against Iran," antiwar.com, March 13, 2010]

[A recently published report by the Central Intelligence Agency says Iran is still working on building a nuclear weapon despite some technical setbacks and international resistance -- and the Pentagon say it's still concerned about Iran's ambitions.

But, as blogger George Maschke notes, that statement is categorically false. The actual report, to which the Fox article links and which the DNI was required by Congress to submit, says no such thing. Rather, this is its core finding:

"We continue to assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons though we do not know whether Tehran eventually will decide to produce nuclear weapons. Iran continues to develop a range of capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so."--Glenn Greenwald, "'Reporting' on Iran should seem familiar," salon.com, March 31, 2010]

Pepe Escobar, "Nuclear Obama," Asia Times, April 15, 2010

[ . . . we ought to keep this relatively minor "threat" in perspective, and not allow the usual threat-inflators to stampede us into another unnecessary war.Stephen M. Walt, "More hype about Iran?," foreignpolicy.com, April 20, 2010]

FACTBOX: "What is the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty," Reuters, April 29, 2010

"Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Remarks at the Review Conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty," voltairenet.org, May 3, 2010

Grant Smith, "How US Weapons Grade Uranium Was Diverted to Israel," Antiwar.com, May 10, 2010

[The White House noted the $80 billion in funding for the nuclear stockpile came on top of more than $100 billion in additional investments in nuclear delivery systems, like nuclear submarines.--Susan Cornwell and Phil Stewart, "Obama wants $80 billion to upgrade nuclear arms complex," Reuters, May 13, 2010]

[In 2009 all sixteen US intelligence agencies issued a unanimous report that Iran had abandoned its weapons program in 2003.--Paul Craig Roberts, "Hillary Clinton's Latest Lies," antiwar.com, July 10, 2010]

[Muddling on with the status quo is not a grown-up policy. The International Energy Agency says the world must invest $26 trillion (£16.7 trillion) over the next 20 years to avert an energy shock. The scramble for scarce fuel is already leading to friction between China, India, and the West.

There is no certain bet in nuclear physics but work by Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) on the use of thorium as a cheap, clean and safe alternative to uranium in reactors may be the magic bullet we have all been hoping for, though we have barely begun to crack the potential of solar power.--Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, "Obama could kill fossil fuels overnight with a nuclear dash for thorium," Telegraph, August 29, 2010]

["I have to question what the Prague speech was all about," Hosokawa said, referring to Obama's epoch-making 2009 speech in the Czech capital declaring that "the United States will take concrete steps toward a world without nuclear weapons."--"Japan alarmed at U.S. subcritical test," asahi.com, October 15, 2010]

[Plan to spend $10bn on updating nuclear bombs goes against 2010 pledge not to deploy new weapons, say critics--Julian Borger, "Obama accused of nuclear U-turn as guided weapons plan emerges," guardian.co.uk, April 21, 2013]

Muhammad Sahimi, "Iran Has a Right to Enrich -- And America Already Recognized It," nationalinterest.org, November 19, 2013

Julian Borger, "Marshall Islands sues nine nuclear powers over failure to disarm," theguardian.com, April 24, 2014

[This expansion comes under a president who campaigned for "a nuclear-free world" and made disarmament a main goal of American defense policy.--William J Broad and David E Sanger, "U.S. Ramping Up Major Renewal in Nuclear Arms," nytimes.com, April 24, 2014]

James Carroll, "How the President Who Pledged to Banish Nuclear Weapons Is Enabling Their Renewal," tomdispatch.com, April 24, 2014

"Myths and Facts Regarding the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and Regime," state.gov, 2015

Kris Osborn, "Pentagon Says It Needs $270 Billion to Upgrade Nuclear Arsenal," military.com, Jun 25, 2015

[How the B61-12 entered the U.S. arsenal of weapons is a tale of the extraordinary influence of the "nuclear enterprise," . . .

This enterprise encompasses defense contractors, including the subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corp. that runs the Sandia labs for the government, as well as the U.S. Department of Energy and the nuclear weapons-oriented wings of the U.S. military--Len Ackland and Burt Hubbard, "Obama pledged to reduce nuclear arsenal, then came this weapon," revealnews.org, July 14, 2015]

[the Pentagon plans to spend $1 trillion over 30 years on "an entire new generation of nuclear bombs, bombers, missiles and submarines," including a dozen submarines carrying more than 1,000 warheads, capable of decimating any country anywhere. In the meantime, President Obama has ordered 200 new nuclear bombs deployed in Europe.--Katrina vanden Heuvel, "The new nuclear arms race," washingtonpost.com, December 15, 2015]

[Nuclear powers including the United States have boycotted the negotiations for such a treaty--Rick Gladstone, "U.N. Panel Releases Draft of Treaty to Ban Nuclear Arms," nytimes.com, May 22, 2017]

"Nearly two-thirds of U.N. states agree treaty to ban nuclear weapons," reuters.com, July 7, 2017

[There is no historical example of an imperial power renouncing its interests in compliance with a paper agreement. It only abides with agreements when it has no other options.--James Petras, "Imperial Road to Conquest: Peace and Disarmament Agreements," informationclearinghouse.info, April 30, 2018]

This is the weapon that could make the previously "unthinkable" thinkable.--James Carroll, "The Most Dangerous Weapon Ever Rolls Off the Nuclear Assembly Line," reuters.com, February 14, 2019]

Joseph Trevithick, "New Low-Yield Nuclear Warheads Have Been Delivered," reuters.com, December 29, 2020