When the parties to the Treaty on Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons meet next month for the 2005 NPT Review Conference, you can be sure that John "Bonkers" Bolton will be there.
Why? Well, Bolton is the “point man” in the Bush administration’s campaign to sabotage and/or supersede the existing nuke proliferation-prevention regime.
At the 2000 NPT Review Conference, in spite of the fact that both India and Pakistan – neither country an NPT signatory – had recently detonated homegrown nukes, the conferees remained "convinced that universal adherence to the treaty and full compliance of all parties with its provisions are the best way to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and other nuclear explosive devices."
The conferees noted "that the overwhelming majority of states entered into legally binding commitments not to receive, manufacture, or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices in the context, inter alia, of the corresponding legally binding commitments by the nuclear-weapon states to nuclear disarmament in accordance with the treaty."
Legally binding commitment to disarm? You didn’t know that at the 2000 NPT Review Conference Bill Clinton somehow got the Brits, French, Chinese, and Russians to join with us in making “an unequivocal undertaking" to accomplish in the near future "the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals" as required by Article VI of the Treaty?
Clinton must have gone bonkers himself!
The conferees went on to reaffirm "that nothing in the treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the parties to the treaty" to the production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes: "The Conference recognizes that this right constitutes one of the fundamental objectives of the treaty."
Now, in his first State of the Union message, President Bush essentially accused North Korea, Iran, and Iraq of having clandestine nuclear weapons programs:
“States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.
“I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.”
Bush didn’t actually accuse North Korea, Iran, and Iraq of arming themselves with nukes. But when you think of a "weapon of mass destruction," do you think of Saddam Hussein’s biowarfare "Agent D" – also known as "wheat smut" – which imparts to wheat a foul, fishy odor?
Or do you think of Hiroshima, where approximately a quarter of the population was killed and a city of approximately 255,000 virtually destroyed by one nuke?
Obviously, Bush expected you to think "Hiroshima," not "stinky wheat."
But at the time Bush first made that accusation, North Korea, Iran, and Iraq were NPT signatories in good standing. All of their declared nuclear materials and associated facilities were subject to periodic inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Obviously, if Bush was to impose "regime change" on Iraq, Iran, and North Korea on the pretext that they had nuke programs undetected by the IAEA, the IAEA nuke proliferation-prevention regime had to be discredited or superseded.
So Bush announced his own National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction in late 2002, and Bolton developed from it the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) of 2003, whose stated objective was to create a web of international “counter-proliferation partnerships” to prevent “proliferators” from “carrying out their trade in WMD and missile-related technology.”
WMD? Including wheat smut?
You bet.
According to Bolton, the PSI was necessary because “proliferators and those facilitating the procurement of deadly capabilities are circumventing existing laws, treaties, and controls against WMD proliferation.”
Now, as Bolton must know, there are no existing laws, treaties, and controls against wheat-smut proliferation to circumvent.
So Bolton claims the Bush-Bolton PSI satisfies the implied requirement of Security Council Resolution 1540, which reaffirmed the UN Security Council President’s Statement of 1992, calling for such laws and controls.
But, Bolton to the contrary, that statement actually includes the following reaffirmation of the NPT and the role of the IAEA in preventing nuke proliferation:
“On nuclear proliferation, they [UNSC members] note the importance of the decision of many countries to adhere to the Nonproliferation Treaty and emphasize the integral role in the implementation of that treaty of fully effective IAEA safeguards, as well as the importance of effective export controls."
So keep an eye on Bonkers Bolton at the 2005 NPT Review Conference. He’ll be fun to watch.
