Sara Nasrallah
Owning nuclear weapons seems to be controlled by the elite countries of the world: the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom (England), France, and China.
The power structure of the Middle East, and the “peace process” in general, are controlled by the United States. The U.S. tacitly supports the lone superpower of the region who house between 100-300 nuclear warheads. All this while bullying Iran about its peaceful, lawful, nuclear program.
Several key facts must be noted off the bat. Iran is trying to create nuclear energy, so they can provide an alternative energy source for its booming population.
The U.S., however, feels that if Iran does create nuclear energy, the peace process and power structure in the Middle East will fall apart.
In 1967 the United States helped Iran fund the Tehran Nuclear Research Center, which uses a 5-megawatt nuclear research reactor. Also in 1976, President Gerald Ford offered Iran a nuclear reprocessing facility to extract plutonium from nuclear reactor fuel. This would enable a full nuclear fuel cycle. Other people who helped support Iran’s nuclear capability: Dick Cheney, then White House chief of staff, and Donald Rumsfeld, then secretary of defense.
When the Shah was in power, Iran was on good terms with the U.S. and nuclear weapons were OK to have. Now that Iran tries to help its people and not support American oil companies, the U.S. feels that Iran is a danger to the world.
In 1967 Israel was also building nuclear weapons. Every U.S. administration since Lyndon Johnsons knew about Israel’s weapon capability. Since then, the “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” policy protects Israel from any outside criticism.
Also around that time, Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that to this day has not been signed by Israel.
Iran has not broken any parts of the treaty at any point. They even signed an additional protocol with the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2003. And today there are no visible signs that Iran is planning anything but a peaceful energy program.
“If you’re really serious about a deal with Iran, Israel has to come out of the closet,” said Bruce Riedel the senior fellow on Middle East policy “A policy based on fiction and double standards is bound to fail sooner or later. What’s remarkable is that it’s lasted so long.”
The fear is that the “Islamic Republic” might become more powerful than Israel, since Israel is the only Middle Eastern country that owns nuclear weapons.
India and Pakistan are the two other countries that publicly affirmed that they possess nuclear energy and are not signatories in the treaty. Earlier this year the U.S. made a $20 billion deal with India and sold them more nuclear weapons.
Not only that, Ronald Reagan also helped Pakistan create nuclear capability in the 1960’s. And recently the Bush administration secretly spent about $100 million to help Pakistan guard its nuclear arms.
The U.S. likes to choose who they want to give nuclear arms to, and whoever is not their friend is not allowed. The only country in the world that tests its nuclear weapons gets to choose who can possess them.
The U.S. wants to keep nuclear technology out of Iran, not for national security, nor for Israel’s. It is about keeping the nuclear monopoly in the region and keeping Israel as the only owner of any nuclear capability.
