Don’t Nuke the SCO!

It is more than conceivable that the principal reason Harry Truman – who had unexpectedly ascended unto the Presidency barely four months, previously – dropped the only two "atomic" bombs then in our arsenal on absolutely defenseless Japanese civilians, was to scare-off Stalin and the all-victorious Red Army, to prevent their invading and occupying any more territory in Europe and in Asia, especially the rest of the Korean peninsula.

And who knows, maybe the scare tactics worked.

After all, Stalin didn’t invade and occupy any more territory, and, as far as we know, Stalin didn’t know we didn’t have any more nukes in our arsenal.

But that was way back then, when no other country had any nukes in their arsenals, either.

Now the all-victorious Red Army is no more, the Soviet Union is no more, and it is we who seem determined to ‘occupy’ what’s left of it.

So, what are the Russkis – who now have thousands of thermonukes and the means of delivering them accurately, anywhere on the planet, upon a few moments notice – up to?

Why are the thermonuke-armed Russkis facilitating – if not encouraging – the further entanglement of Obama-Biden-Clinton in the Af-Pak briar-patch?

Why are the thermonuke-armed Russkis facilitating – if not encouraging – the further endangerment by Obama-Biden-Clinton and the Likudniks of the nuclear power plant they have built at Bushehr, Iran (scheduled to begin operation next month) in defiance of more than a decade of threats by Clinton-Gore-Albright, Bush-Cheney-Rice and the Likudniks?

Why, this past April Fool’s Day [.pdf], did the thermonuke-armed Russkis sign-on to a Obama-Biden-Clinton joint statement on Iran’s IAEA-safeguarded nuclear programs wherein they all "call upon Iran to meet without delay the requirements of the IAEA Board of Governors and to implement the resolutions of the UN Security Council"?

Surely the thermonuke-armed Russkis realize that Bonkers Bolton strong-armed the IAEA Board into repeatedly violating the IAEA Statute, beginning in 2005, illegally "requiring" Iran to indefinitely "suspend" all its IAEA Safeguarded programs, and to submit to "transparency" demands, going far beyond even the un-ratified Additional Protocol with which Iran had been voluntarily complying.

Surely the thermonuke-armed Russkis realize that Bonkers Bolton strong-armed the IAEA Board into repeatedly violating the IAEA Statue, beginning in 2006, illegally "referring" the Iranian refusal to meet the Board’s illegal demands with respect to Iran’s IAEA Safeguarded activities to the UN Security Council to be adjudged a "threat to the peace."

Surely the thermonuke-armed Russkis realize that Bonkers Bolton strong-armed the UN Security Council into repeatedly violating the terms and conditions of the UN Charter, beginning in 2006, illegally "calling upon," "urging," even "demanding" that Iran comply with the IAEA Board’s illegal requirements.

Surely the thermonuke-armed Russkis realize the significance of the IAEA Board’s illegal resolutions, the Security Council illegal resolutions, and now the US-sponsored April Fool’s Day joint statement, all of which "call upon Iran to implement and ratify promptly the Additional Protocol and to implement all measures required by the Agency [IAEA] in order to build confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program."

Surely the thermonuke-armed Russkis realize that Clinton-Gore-Albright, Bush-Cheney-Rice and Obama-Biden-Clinton have virtually destroyed the nuclear-weapon proliferation-prevention regime, formerly associated with the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, implemented by the voluntary export regulations of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, and the NSG requirement that those exports be subjected, upon importation, to IAEA Safeguards agreements for verification of peaceful use.

Surely the thermonuke-armed Russkis realize that the Iranians are serious about their refusal – strongly officially supported by the Non-Aligned Movement, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Arab League – to give up their "inalienable right" to the fullest possible use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes.

Surely the thermonuke-armed Russkis realize, as well, that Bonkers Bolton and the Likudniks are deadly serious.

According to Bolton, "Israel’s attack [on Iran’s IAEA Safeguarded facilities], if it comes [this year], will have followed enormously difficult deliberation over terrible imponderables, and years of patiently waiting on innumerable failed diplomatic efforts. Absent Israeli action, prepare for a nuclear [weapon-armed] Iran."

Surely!

So, what are those fiendishly clever thermonuke-armed Russkis up to?

And what are those inscrutable thermonuke-armed Chinese up to?

(After all, they, too, signed-on to that April Fool’s Day joint statement.)

Maybe it has something to do with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a permanent regional security institution, established in 2001 by China, the Russian Federation and the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, to promote "effective cooperation in politics, trade and economy, science and technology," as well as to make "joint efforts to maintain and ensure peace, security and stability in the region."

Iran has enjoyed official "observer" SCO status since 2005, and would like SCO member status. China would reportedly like to have Iran as a SCO member (largely because of China’s interest and ongoing investment in developing Iran’s oil and gas deposits), but is unlikely to extend an invitation so long as Obama-Biden-Clinton and the Likudniks profess an "existential" need to put an end to Iran’s IAEA Safeguarded programs.

So, it’s not – as Bonkers Bolton would have it – "crunch time" for Israel as much as it’s crunch time for Barack Obama.

Iran will start up its 1000 MWe IAEA-Safeguarded Russian-built Russian-fueled nuclear power plant next month, will continue to operate its IAEA-Safeguarded Chinese-designed Iranian-built Uranium Conversion Facility, will continue to make impressive additions to its second-generation Iranian-designed Iranian-built IAEA-Safeguarded gas-centrifuge uranium-enrichment plant, and will soon start up its 40 MWt heavy-water moderated IAEA-Safeguarded Iranian-built research reactor.

Iran will continue to be a NPT member in good standing, with the IAEA Secretariat continuing to monitor and verify quarterly that there has been no diversion of NPT-proscribed materials to a military purpose.

Thermonuke-armed China, thermonuke-armed Russia will continue to treat Iran as a SCO quasi-member, preventing any meaningful sanctions from being imposed on Iran, cooperating with other SCO members and observers in the production of energy (gas, oil, uranium), all the while insisting before the IAEA Board and the UN Security Council that the concerns of the IAEA Director-General – soon to be Yukiya Amano – about the peaceful nature of Iran’s IAEA Safeguarded programs ought to be satisfied, peacefully.

Of course, Bonkers Bolton and the Likudniks will never be satisfied, even if Amano is. Those paranoids consider Iran’s IAEA Safeguarded programs – continually monitored and verified to be perfectly peaceful – to be an existential threat to the Zionist regime.

And perhaps, in a way, the Iranian mastery of the uranium-fission fuel cycle for peaceful purposes, despite determined intervention by the United States and the Likudniks, does constitute an existential threat to that paranoid war-mongering regime.

All the more reason for Obama to prevent Israel from being the second nation-state to nuke thousands of innocent unarmed civilians, just to make a point.

Author: Gordon Prather

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.