As the International Atomic Energy Agency convenes a series of
high-level conferences in September, reports have indicated
President Obama is considering imposing “crippling
sanctions” against Iran in an attempt to curb that country’s
development of nuclear weapons. But if President Obama continues
to make the UN-affiliated IAEA part of the equation in
determining the course of action on Iran, it is unlikely that we
will see the emergence of any sort of effective strategy to
address what is arguably the greatest threat to our national
security.
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
John Bolton made a persuasive case recently in the Wall
Street Journal as to why sanctions, at this advanced stage,
are unlikely to prevent the realization of a nuclear Iran. The
presence of Russia and China on the Security Council, the likely
lack of resolve from the European Union or the newly elected
government of Japan, Iran’s augmentation (with China’s help) of
its domestic oil refining capacity — these combined factors,
Bolton notes, would serve to render sanctions a futile exercise,
no matter how “crippling” their intent.
Equally problematic is that the IAEA remains the gatekeeper of
the evidence against Iran. The Obama administration and much of
the international community will continue to look to the IAEA’s
views of the Iranian program to provide the requisite, ostensibly
impartial seal of approval and political cover necessary to
justify sanctions or other courses of action.
But the IAEA is itself a serious problem.
The IAEA is tasked with serving as the verification authority for
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Iran’s status as a
party to the NPT — and the revelations of Iran’s long-running
violations of its NPT obligations through its undisclosed pursuit
of nuclear energy and strongly suspected pursuit of nuclear
weapons capability — is the nexus for IAEA involvement. But the
IAEA’s performance under the leadership of its current director,
Mohamed ElBaradei, casts substantial doubt on the Agency’s
ability to function effectively as a nuclear proliferation
watchdog — particularly when it insists on giving the benefit of
the doubt to regimes that could care less about the notion of
honoring international commitments.
Take Syria. Last year, the IAEA clashed publicly with the United
States and other western nations over the question of whether
Syria should receive aid for a civilian nuclear power program.
The U.S. took the position that Syria should not receive such aid
in the midst of the IAEA’s own investigation into whether a
facility bombed there in a 2007 Israeli air raid was in fact a
covert nuclear reactor being built with North Korean assistance.
ElBaradei’s response:
“There are claims against Syria, which we’re looking at. There
were claims against Iraq, which were proven bonkers (mad), and
after, the result was a terrible war.” A year later, according to
Reuters,
when ElBaradei was confronted with American and Israeli
accusations of being “soft” on Syria, “ElBaradei denied [that]
and suggested Israel’s atomic might has added to Middle East
instability by spurring others, like Iran…to seek nuclear weapons
capability.”
The IAEA record and rhetoric on Iran is equally discouraging, due
in no small measure to ElBaradei’s schizophrenic approach to
Tehran’s activities. On the one hand, ElBaradei in his late
August report to the Security Council
stated that Iran has not been forthcoming on the “possible
military dimensions” of its nuclear program. More recently,
ElBaradei stated
during the IAEA Board of Governors meeting: “…Iran has not
cooperated with the Agency in connection with the remaining
issues…need to be clarified in order to exclude the possibility
of there being military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program.”
Yet, ElBaradei also
said in a recent Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:
“In many ways, I think the threat has been hyped….Iran needs to
be more transparent with the IAEA and the international
community…But the idea that we’ll wake up tomorrow and Iran will
have a nuclear weapon is an idea that isn’t supported by the
facts as we have seen them so far.”
While there have periodically been encouraging signs, the IAEA is
apparently willing, on the whole, to err on the side of the Iran
threat being “hype” — so much so that it saw nothing wrong with
providing Iran with a total $15 million for nuclear research
between 1997 and 2007 through the Agency’s Technical Cooperation
program. Syria received $14 million, and Sudan and Cuba each
received $11 million from the IAEA during that same period.
Incredibly, according to the Government Accountability Office
(GAO) which reported these findings, the U.S. State Department
gave the green light for the funding, despite the fact that all
four countries are on the Department’s own list of
terror-sponsoring nations, and therefore subject to sanctions
under U.S. law. The IAEA, for its part, was happy to oblige. In
explaining this decision, the IAEA stated to the GAO: “There
are no good countries and no bad countries.”
In what is perhaps the greatest punchline to the IAEA’s sorry
conduct, at the Agency’s 14 ongoing general conference, Iran
intends to offer — with the support of over 100 nation
members of the Non-Aligned Movement — a resolution banning
military attacks on nuclear facilities. In a universe that was
right-side-up, one could imagine that a terrorism-sponsoring
nation that has violated its own treaty obligations in pursuit of
military nuclear capabilities would not be allowed to use a major
meeting convened under the auspices of the so-called nuclear
“watchdog” as the venue for such a stunt. But this is the IAEA,
where there are no good countries or bad countries — that is,
unless we’re talking about Israel.
Although Mohamed ElBaradei will be stepping down as IAEA Director
General in November, there is so far little reason for optimism.
His replacement, Yukiya Amano, in response
to a press question on Iran, said: “I don’t see any evidence in
IAEA official documents about [Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons
capability.]” He added that when it comes to Iran and Syria, he
would not be a “soft” or “tough” Director General. Clearly the
United States can no longer afford to make this agency a decisive
voice on how to identify and hold accountable the world’s
ascendant nuclear outlaws.
