http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0719-24.htm
Published on Tuesday, July 19, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
George W. Strangelove and the Triumph of Nuclear Faith
by Norman Solomon
The silver-spooned cowboy in the Oval Office just presented a fine
new saddle to the nuclear horseman of the apocalypse.
It was a gift worthy of hell. "President Bush agreed yesterday to
share civilian nuclear technology with India, reversing decades of
U.S. policies designed to discourage countries from developing
nuclear weapons," the Washington Post reported Tuesday. The lead was
more understated in the New York Times: "President Bush, bringing
India a step closer to acceptance in the club of nuclear-weapons
states, reached an agreement on Monday with Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh to let India secure international help for its civilian nuclear
reactors while retaining its nuclear arms."
No matter how the story was spun, it could only be read in the
world's capitals as further proof that U.S. nuclear policies are
grimly laughable -- thanks to policymakers in Washington who
simultaneously decry and promote nuclear proliferation. And nowhere
will the hypocrisy-laced ironies be more appreciated than in Tehran.
More than 50 years after the U.S. government launched its "atoms for
peace" program, faith in the peaceful atom is alive and well -- in
Iran. While a large proportion of the American public distrusts
nuclear power, Iranians routinely echo the positive themes that the
industry and its supporters have labored to promote ever since
President Dwight Eisenhower pledged "to help solve the fearful atomic
dilemma" by showing that "the miraculous inventiveness of man shall
not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life."
Touting the use of nuclear fission to generate electricity, American
presidents have strived to make sharp rhetorical distinctions between
atomic power and nuclear weapons technologies, despite their
extensive overlap. Such reassuring distinctions now have wide
credibility in Iran, as I found last month during conversations with
Iranian political campaigners, clerics, bazaar merchants, shoppers,
teachers and students. Almost all gave notably similar responses when
asked whether their country should acquire nuclear energy.
The replies -- often tinged with indignation that the atomic
prerogative would even be questioned -- reflected why nuclear
development was a non-issue in Iran's latest presidential campaign.
The Iranian public appears to believe what nuclear-power boosters
loudly proclaimed to the world for several decades -- that nuclear
energy can be safe and distinct from the capacity to build nuclear
weapons.
If nuclear power plants are good enough for the United States, the
prevailing logic goes, then Iran is certainly good enough for nuclear
power plants. Present-day Iran, with its eagerness to use nuclear
reactors to generate electricity, is a success story for generations
of pro-nuclear politicians in Washington.
A civil atomic pact, signed in 1957, initiated nuclear assistance
from the United States to Iran. In 1972, President Richard Nixon
urged the Shah to build nuclear power plants. The Shah fell in 1979,
but after many delays the Islamic Republic resumed work on the
nuclear plant near Bushehr, a project that is currently being
denounced in Washington.
In Tehran, no one I talked with seemed to have any doubt that such
projects should continue. At the city's bazaar -- where I could not
find any expression of support for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons --
there appeared to be something close to a consensus for building
nuclear power plants.
"It should be done," said a 26-year-old owner of a carpet shop who
gave his name as Nahdi. "If it's going to be dangerous, it's
dangerous for everyone in the world, not just for the Iranian people.
How come they all have access to that kind of energy and just talking
about Iran and Iranians?" In a baby supply shop, the man behind the
counter said: "It is Iran's right, like other countries."
Cleric Hassan Khomeini -- the most prominent grandson of Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini, founding leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran --
responded to my question in much the same way. He pointed back at the
country now pointing the finger at Iran: "The same thing happened in
the United States. You've got access to lots of oil and gas
resources, and what happened? The United States is producing nuclear
energy."
In a mid-June interview, shortly before the first round of the
presidential elections, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani told me that nuclear
weapons are antithetical to Islamic law and that Iran should never
try to acquire any. Yet, like every one of his opponents, Rafsanjani
(then seen as the frontrunner) expressed strong support for nuclear
power in Iran.
Given its vast untapped reserves of oil and natural gas, Iran's claim
of needing nuclear-generated electricity might seem farfetched. But
arguments about whether Iran really "needs" nuclear power may be
beside the point. For the Iranian government, the issue is a matter
of national sovereignty and basic prerogatives. In a region where
Israel, Pakistan, and India have atomic bombs (made possible by
nuclear technology exported from the West), Iran appears to want to
keep its nuclear options open.
Unwilling to forsake the myth of the peaceful atom, the United States
continues to proselytize for nuclear power while practicing what it
preaches. As long as that continues, Washington is in no position to
convincingly question the merits of nuclear fundamentalism in Iran or
anywhere else.
Norman Solomon is the author of the new book "War Made Easy: How
Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death." For information,
go to: www.WarMadeEasy.com
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