Fiddling While Iran Nuclearizes

By Joseph Klein
April 4, 2006
FrontPageMagazine.com
Original Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=21905

The UN Security Council punted on Iran’s nuclear threat. As the price for bringing China and Russia on board, the C\council decided to ignore the “elephant in the room”: that Iran’s resumption of its nuclear enrichment program, coupled with its menacing threats to incinerate Israel and its state sponsorship of terrorism, constitute a serious threat to international peace and security. In fact, there was no Security Council resolution at all. Instead the fifteen members of the council agreed on March 29, 2006, to a non-binding statement issued by the president of the council, asking Iran to suspend its enrichment activities and requesting that the International Atomic Energy Agency (“IAEA”) report back in thirty days as to the status of Iran’s compliance. That’s all there was, because China and Russia refused to back anything stronger. 
Iran has already given its answer. Iran's chief representative to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, told The Associated Press, it is impossible to go back to suspension…This enrichment matter is not reversible. In a press conference following the issuance of the Security Council statement, Ambassador Javad Zarif shamelessly accused Israel of being the aggressor country in the Middle East region and said that Iran had never threatened, nor did it intend to threaten, any United Nations member in reply to a question about his country’s intent towards Israel. This glaring lie flies in the face of the call last fall by Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for Israel to be “wiped off the map.” In case there were any doubts about how Iran intended to accomplish this, one of Iran’s most influential ruling clerics and former president, Hashemi-Rafsanjani, called on the Muslim states several years ago to use nuclear weapon against Israel, assuring them that while such an attack would annihilate Israel, it would cost them damages only. These are totally unprovoked threats to destroy a member state of the United Nations – a functioning democracy which had never issued any comparable threat to destroy Iran.
 
Iran’s leaders are pathological liars. Its current president is a psychopath, bent on world conquest under the banner of his brand of Islam. Under these circumstances, Iran is not entitled to the benefit of the doubt. Its leaders’ true aggressive intentions are as unambiguous as Hitler’s intentions were from one reading of Mein Kampf.
 
The Iranian regime had hidden its uranium enrichment program from the outside world until 2002, when the National Council of Resistance of Iran first revealed it. This was a military program under the control of the Revolutionary Guards and the Ministry of Defense. “Now that you have at the head of the executive branch a former commander of the Revolutionary Guards with a track record as the one Ahmadinejad has, the nuclear weapons programme will receive a great boost”, said a defector from Iran’s secretive nuclear establishment, Alireza Assar.
 
It is time, as this defector has said, “to make it clear that the world will not tolerate an Islamic fundamentalist regime and state sponsor of terrorism armed with nuclear weapons. The mullahs understand the language of force. The only way to stop them is to make the choice crystal clear to them. At the moment, they think the West is too divided and irresolute and interested in trade and oil to act with firmness.”
 
Iran should have no more than thirty days to change its mind and prove with concrete actions that they are on the path to complete suspension of all uranium enrichment activities and unconditional acceptance of unfettered international inspection, including unannounced visits and the use of real time monitoring equipment. However, we should not wait with our hands folded while yet another deadline passes without any results. During this thirty day period, the five permanent members of the Security Council should work day and night to come up with agreed upon text for a toughly worded resolution in case, as expected, Iran does not back down. Such a resolution must clearly state that Iran’s continued enrichment activities outside of the strict guidelines imposed by the IAEA constitutes a clear and present danger to international peace and security that may lead to serious consequences if Iran refuses to comply on a specified timetable.
 
Here is where things start to get interesting. From all indications, China and Russia will resist any such resolution because they fear that it will provide the basis for economic sanctions or even military action against Iran. Indeed, both countries reportedly rebuffed a suggestion by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that some sort of sanctions may be necessary. Their opposition is based on their desire to placate Iran so as not to interrupt the strong economic ties they have fostered with that rogue regime. Thus, no matter what Iran does, a stalemate at the Security Council is likely to continue with respect to formal approval of any effective action against Iran. Iran knows that delay works in its favor and is exploiting the stalemate to pursue its nuclear ambitions. Moreover, according to Amnesty International – certainly no friend of the United States in its war against terrorism and terrorist sponsoring regimes – Iran has threatened to execute some of its political prisoners if the Security Council does decide to take any action against it. 
 
We cannot continue to tolerate the game of footsie that China and Russia are playing with Iran to the detriment of international peace and security, nor succumb to Iran’s intimidation. Time is not on our side. The United States, United Kingdom and France should force a vote on the resolution suggested above, no later than the day that the IAEA reports back that it is unable to confirm Iran’s compliance. We should tell China and Russia that they will be better off working with us on a resolution with teeth, in which case they will have the opportunity to have their legitimate concerns recognized so long as the ultimate objective is not compromised. However, if they persist in running interference for Iran, we must tell them that two things will happen. First, the United States intends to move forward with our allies to take tough action against Iran based on the substance of resolution, regardless of any veto. We will start with an escalating series of economic sanctions and possible military measures if all else fails, which we are perfectly entitled to do under the UN Charter (more on this below). Iran must understand that it will be isolated in terms of foreign financing, investment and trade. In addition, joint action may have to include cutting off prohibited nuclear material or technology from moving into or out of Iran. Second, the United States will have no choice but to suspend the rights of any Russian or Chinese company or its affiliates to do business in the United States that provides financing, equipment, materials or services to Iran in connection with its military or nuclear programs.
 
Contrary to the misinformed opinions of those who say that only the Security Council body itself can affirmatively authorize the use of military force by any one or group of member states for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security, the UN Charter does not confer any exclusive powers to the Security Council in this regard. The member states are obligated simply to act consistently with the principles of the UN Charter, not to hand over to any United Nations body their exercise of their sovereign rights under their own constitutional processes. 
 
Moreover, under Article 106 of the UN Charter, the signatories of the Four-Nation Declaration signed at Moscow on October 30, 1943 (the United States, the United Kingdom, the former Soviet Union and China), along with France, are authorized to consult with each other and take joint action on behalf of the United Nations in order to maintain international peace and security. This specific authority continues until the UN’s member states have entered into special agreements with the Security Council to provide it with armed forces for use at its own disposal, pursuant to Article 43 of the Charter. As long as it remains in effect, Section 106 essentially places responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security by military action upon the permanent members of the Security Council themselves but does not require unanimous approval of all five parties to make a joint decision so long as there has been consultation. This necessarily includes the responsibility and power to determine what constitutes a threat to international peace and security in the first place. Joint action can be taken by a subset of the five. 
 
Article 106 still applies today because no special agreements are in effect between the member states and the Security Council under which the member states would be obligated to provide armed forces to the Security Council for use at its own disposal. In other words, sixty years after the UN’s founding, the Security Council still has no pre-committed forces from the member states on call for the Security Council to deploy as it sees fit, as envisioned by Article 43. Moreover, although the Special Committee on the Charter of the United Nations and on the Strengthening of the Role of the Organization has examined various proposals on the question of the maintenance of international peace and security, including a proposal to delete Article 106 from the UN Charter, no agreement has been reached on those proposals. Article 106 is still in the UN Charter, which reads as follows:
 
	“Pending the coming into force of such special agreements referred to in Article 43 as in the opinion of the Security Council enable it to begin the exercise of its responsibilities under Article 42, the parties to the Four-Nation Declaration, signed at Moscow, 30 October 1943, and France, shall, in accordance with the provisions of paragraph 5 of that Declaration, consult with one another and as occasion requires with other Members of the United Nations with a view to such joint action on behalf of the Organization as may be necessary for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security.” 
 
The clock is ticking. The United States and its allies must proceed, with or without the backing of China and Russia. Even Mohamed ElBaradei, the cautious head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has implied that Iran may be only months away from being able to develop a nuclear bomb. Other experts talk in terms of years. Whatever the state of Iran’s current nuclear capabilities, we know their extremist leaders’ end game. It is the use of nuclear blackmail against Israel and the ‘infidel’ West, as part of the realization of the fanatical Islamic vision of world domination led by Iran.
 
The notion of collective security embodied in the U.N. Charter was seen by the original architects of this principle - the alliance countries that defeated the Axis Powers - as the preferred means to deter Hitler-type aggression. The United Nations was intended to help coalesce the pressure of world opinion against clear-cut threats to world peace and to provide a framework to repel it. Its architects never contemplated being forced into a choice of either getting the Security Council to specifically permit action against such threats or standing by in the face of U.N. paralysis and doing nothing. Presidents Roosevelt and Truman made it very clear that the United States would join the United Nations only as a sovereign nation that remains in full control of its own destiny. Winston Churchill said that in order for the United Nations to work “it must be a force for action, and not merely a frothing of words…” Likewise, Harry Truman explained his decision to commit U.S. military forces against North Korea even before the UN Security Council passed a second resolution specifically authorizing the use of military force, and regardless of whether the Soviet Union would have vetoed such a resolution: “If a collective system under the UN can work, it must be made to work, and now is the time to call their bluff.”
 
We face a rogue terrorist sponsoring state today, run by a Hitler wannabe, with grandiose ambitions and plans for nuclear weapons to pursue them. By countering the threat to international peace and security posed by the Iranian regime now before it is too late, the United States and its allies will be acting consistently with the principles and purposes of the United Nations, irrespective of whether China and Russia block formal approval by the Security Council.