Article first published on Payvand News on October 2, 2006
‘A nuclear accident anywhere is a nuclear accident everywhere’
On September 28, 2006, the House of Representatives passed
the ‘Iran Sanctions Bill’ HR6198.
Representative Tom Lantos, the
top Democrat on the House International Affairs Committee, said: "If we fail to use the economic and
diplomatic tools available to us, the world will face a nightmare that knows no
end: a despotic, fundamentalist regime wedded both to terrorism and to the most
terrifying weapons known to man,” ."In the meantime, we cannot shirk our responsibility to employ every
peaceful means possible to defeat Iran's reckless nuclear military
ambitions,".
Allegations have been made that Iran
is engaged in a clandestine operation to divert its civilian nuclear program
into a nuclear arms program, threatening the world [read Israel]. Igniting a fuse of suspicion, attention has
been diverted away from the real threat posed to the world by the imposition of
sanctions and threats of military actions. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has
not found Iran
to be in violation of its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
and no evidence of weaponization has
been found. However, Iran’s
nuclear energy program has been built in isolation, under sanctions. Sanctions and threat of war only exacerbate the situation.
It must be reiterated that all Parties to the NPT are
entitled to participate to the fullest possible exchange of scientific
information for, and to contribute alone or in cooperation with other States to
the further development of the applications of atomic energy for peaceful
purpose. Iran
is a party to this Treaty.
Contrary to their commitments under the NPT, the five
nuclear power states, Russia, Britain, France, China, and United States, have opted
to use this Treaty as a political tool, ‘doling out’ technical assistance to chosen
allies. Not only has the spirit of the
NPT become obsolete, but in an ever changing turning world, where friends and
enemies shift places, assistance based on policies rather than science must
surely prompt one to question the sanity of our current world order.
Given that fossil fuels are exhaustible, the nuclear
industry has proven itself to be a viable source of energy. An increasing number of countries are turning
to this source for their electrical needs, developing countries among them. Even environmentalists, who had once shunned
the industry, now hail it as a solution to global warming and there is growing
cooperation between them and the nuclear industry (Nuclear Power: 58-60)[i]. In spite of these developments, in the
anarchy of a politically charged world system, the spirit of collective
responsibility is being slighted by the dictates of irrational policies, rendering
the international safety of nuclear power plants unobtainable.
Regrettably, although the Chernobyl power plant tragedy reinforced the
need for international cooperation, politics dominate the arena of decision
making while the safety of nuclear power plants are placed in the hands of ambitious policy makers. This tragedy failed to impress upon us the
safety culture that is so pertinent in the safe operation of a nuclear power
plant. While the extend of human losses
from Chernobyl is still unknown, it has
been said that the accident caused up to 300,000 deaths (The Economist, April
27, 1991), or it may ultimately claim more victims than did World War II (Read,
1993)[ii]. Yet today, caution is thrown to the wind as
the rapid growth of the nuclear industry takes place under sanctions and
isolation.
Contrary to the fear instilled by politician to further
their sanctions and wars, nuclear bearing terrorists, or indeed, nuclear armed
hostile states are not the biggest threat facing the United States today. The problem of the safety and security of
Russian nuclear weapons and nuclear material has been called the most urgent
unmet national security threat to the United States today. This is the conclusion of a recent report by
a bipartisan task force that was organized to review and assess the U.S.
Department of Energy’s (DOE) nonproliferation programs in Russia and to make recommendations
for their improvement. The task force
was co-chaired by the former Senate majority leader, Howard Baker, and Lloyd
Cutler a former counsel to U.S.
presidents (Baker and Cutler, 2001).
Yet attention and resources are diverted towards ending a
nuclear program in Iran
alleged to be engaged in diverting a civilian program into bomb-making. The fiasco behind this is to affect regime
change and install a US
friendly regime who would sacrifice Iran’s sovereignty. This futile
rhetoric is a waste of resource as not only does it leave the international
community inadequately protected, but every effort is made to conceal the
dangers inherent with the lack of a diminishing “safety culture” resulting from
sanctions. History has shown economic
sanctions and political reprimands are ineffective in preventing nuclear
technology; North Korea and Iraq
are two cases in point. Even an Israeli
air strike against the Iraqi Osirak nuclear plant in 1981 did not curb their
ambitions. Given the determination of
countries to reach their goal to be on par with the West, one must therefore weigh
the consequences of isolation and sanctions.
In 1993 Martin Indyk,
the National Security Council's Senior Director for the Near East and South
Asia; portrayed Iran to be the world's foremost sponsor of
terrorism and assassinations, sounding alarm about Iran’s alleged attempt to
build weapons of mass destruction. According to Indyk,
Iran sought to undermine the
Arab-Israeli peace efforts, to subvert friendly Arab governments and to
intimidate the Persian Gulf region by military
means. Indyk proposed "dual containment" for Iran and its troublesome neighbor, Iraq.
President Bill Clinton signed two executive orders in 1995, banning commercial
interaction with Iran (Fairbanks)[iii].
The unfounded sanctions, put forward by Senator Alfonse
D’Amato (R-N.Y.) and heavily backed by American Israel Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC), had an immediate impact on Iran’s economy. After the Iran-Iraq war (1988), Iran’s
foreign debt of less than $5 jumped to about $30 billion in 1993. In May 1995, due to ban on oil sale to U.S.
firms, which forced Iran to accept a discount of 30-80 cents on the oil it
could sell, Iran suffered a loss of $100 million to $200 million, as well as
the collapse of the Iranian currency (Clawson, 89-93)[iv].
As history has shown, policies of restriction or containment
through foreign economic relations do not work.
In a porous world, sanctions are largely ineffective and coercion cannot
control the flow of nuclear technology among interested countries. What
sanctions do contribute to is an increase in the dangers arising from a poor
safety culture.
It has been demonstrated that in Britain,
the staffing crisis caused by the decision to close Montague’s Peel Park
headquarters in East Kilbride could put safety
at risk. Among factors contributing to potential risk, low morale of operators
was one for an inspectorate report had concluded that the British Energy had
failed to relocate its staff from and “the consequential impact has had an
adverse effect on the staff with respect to stress,
morale and uncertainty over their
future.” (Edwards)[v]. While in Britain failure to relocate had a
consequential impact, the Iranian worker deals with far graver personal risks
which affect his/her personal safety, imposing a crisis in the safety culture.
As the Peel
Park reactor
demonstrates, low morale among nuclear reactor operators is a critical factor
in safety. The threat to Iranian scientists and the stress in the ever present fear of an aerial attack by the United States or Israel lend themselves to an important crisis in safety culture. A military attack is rarely far from the
operators’ mind as driven home by The American Conservative (August 1, 2005)[vi] reports that the Bush
Administration is preparing a conventional and even nuclear air attack on
Iran’s strategic (translates nuclear and military) sites. Knowing that every day of their lives is a
risk, the operators of these facilities must surely have a low morale,
rendering the safety culture ineffective.
Indeed, it would be hard to imagine an operator thinking of the safety
culture of an industry when the industry is the daily topic of an attack by a
superpower.
Further, the nuclear plant operators risk the possibility of
an industrial sabotage as was suggested by Patrick Clawson, Deputy Director for
Washington Institute for Near East Policy declared in a gathering at the Woodrow Wilson
Center that an industrial accident the
scale of Three Mile Island should be put into
effect to sabotage the Iranian nuclear power plant. Broadcasted simultaneously
on C-Span on November 29, 2004 (Hoover Institution)[vii],
this horrific scenario must surely have had a chilly effect on the Iranian
power plant staff. This rhetoric is not
lost on the Iranian nuclear power plant staff, putting plant safety and safety
culture on the back-burner.
Aside from safety, in spite of years of operation at the
nuclear power plant in Britain,
British Energy’s Montague says that there are “reliability problems”, “with one
problem being that some of the thousands of graphite bricks that surround the
reactor cores cracking, threatening the safe running of the plants.” “[T]he unplanned loss of nuclear generation
in the UK was 12-perent in
2002, compared to under 2-per cent in the US.” (Murphy)[viii]
. Britain
is a member of the NPT, a democracy, and Western country with close ties to the
United States. This declared nuclear power is able to avail
itself of top of the line technology, including the know-how of a safety
culture, yet it has not succeeded to create efficient plants and optimum
conditions. It is hard to imagine Iran, under sanctions and in
isolation, accomplishing this.
The fact that the heads of the G-7 governments spent two
days in 1996 to discuss civil nuclear issues with Russian leaders, attests to
the fact that the world powers have are concerned with the safety of Soviet designed
nuclear reactors (and fissile material safety).
Many have sounded alarmed about the possibility of another Chernobyl-type
accident (The World Today)[ix]. Yet they are dooming a nation for pursuing
its inalienable right, and with it, they may be dooming untold others.
Antagonism has been seeded among nations as a result of irrational
policies, and along with it, the comradeship that is essential among scientists
to take us along the path of civilization has been eroded. In the words of Dr.
Homi J. Bhabha, father of India’s
atomic energy:
“Our first duty as scientists is to establish the truth, and in this
matter our responsibility to humanity transcends our allegiance to any state.” And: “[F]or
the continuation of our civilization and its further development, atomic energy
is not merely and aid; it is an absolute necessity.”(United Nations
Presidential Speech – 1956).
It would seem however, that when it comes to Iran, the United States was only too happy to
use the Shah of Iran as a poster boy for nuclear energy. Sitting on top of all that oil, he made a
handsome figure in his uniform selling nuclear power plants for Boston
Edison. The French and Germans all
cooperated. Perhaps the IR Iran is
not up to modeling. Today, it would seem that Senator Ros-Lehtinen who spends more time defending terrorists than
the interests of her adopted country, the United States, has her mind set on
war – for they inevitably follow sanctions.
Her heart set on the MEK as the future rulers of Iran, she declares: “This group loves the United States.
They’re assisting us in the war on terrorism; they’re pro-U.S.” . She champions them and along with like-minded
colleagues devotes her time to have them removed from the state list of
terrorists. If only she would serve America.
Perhaps those others who have ‘ordered’ the imposition of
sanctions, should also be reminded that ‘ a
nuclear accident anywhere, is a nuclear accident everywhere’.
Deleay,
Sam. “Rep. Ros.Lentinen Defends Iranian Group Labeled Terrorist Front for
Saddam Hossein”. The Hill. 8 April,
2003
[i] “Nuclear Power: The Shape of Things to Come?”. The Economist. July 9th-15th
2005: 58-60
[ii] Read, P.P. Ablaze: The Story of the Heroes and Victims
of Chernobyl. New
York: Random House 1993
[iii] Fairbanks, Stephen. “Iran: No Easy Answers”. Journal of International Affairs 54.2 (2001): 447-465
[iv]
Clawson, Patrick. “Iran”. Economic Sanctions and American Diplomacy. Ed. R. Haass. CFR. New York 1998
[viii] Murphy, Francois.
“Un Atomic Chief Says Supports U.S.-India Nuke Deal”. Reuters News. 20 July 2005
[ix]
“Nuclear Accidents Waiting to Happen”. The
World Today. April 1996: 93-95
