Global Issues: WMD and Rogue States - IRAN

Iran, our favourite ‘rogue state, has just announced that it now the capabilty to produce weapons grade uranium and has plans for 10 new nuclear sites. As Iran is a key case in point of how the international community aims to limit nuclear proliferation and curb ‘rogue’ states this story is worth tracking with all its twists and turns.

‘Hundreds of thousands of government supporters massed in central Tehran to mark the anniversary of the revolution that created Iran’s Islamic republic - while president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad chose the day to proclaim his nation is now a “nuclear state”’. The Independent carries the story. Also an earlier article entitled ‘Iran condemned as it reveals nuclear plans’ assesses Iran’s ability to pose a nuclear threat.

A recommended article which appeared a few months ago in the Newstatesman entitled ‘How Iran went nuclear’ tells the remarkable story of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme, which began as an expression of western modernity but has now hardened into a statement of reaction, isolation and rage.

For a really rado pinko lefty slant John Pilger argues that the Iranian nuclear threat is a lie! He argues that Obama’s “showdown” with Iran has another agenda. The media have been tasked with preparing the public for endless war. Read here for the conspiracy!

Also, here is some general stuff on what is a ‘rogue state’...

DEFINITION OF A ‘ROGUE STATE’

The Cold War eliminated any significant risk of nuclear war through mutually assured destruction – that states (mainly the USA and USSR) would not attack other nuclear states for fear of reprisals and the consequences that an attack would bring. However, today, much of the concern over a possible nuclear attack comes not from superpowers but from ‘rogue states’ and terrorism.

The phrase ‘rogue states’ was originally used in the USA as a label of stigmatisation to generate domestic and international support for remedial policies against states whose behaviour has been deemed unacceptable. This would be because it violates international law and established norms, undermines the status quo and threatens American security interests. The term has thus been applied to a diverse array of states and regimes and is therefore of limited analytical utility, especially as it oversimplifies the problems associated with successfully correcting their potentially destabilizing behavior.

ROGUE CRITERIA

The principal states singled out for displaying varying degrees of ‘roguishness’ are an obvious bunch – Iran, Iraq, Libya, and North Korea. Generally speaking, two conditions had to be met before regimes in these states were labeled rogue.

First, they had to behave in ways deemed unacceptable under international law and accepted norms as enshrined most notably in the United Nations (UN) Charter.

Types of behavior that fulfilled this condition include: the threat or use of force against other states in pursuit of aggressive ends; state sponsorship of terrorism either internally against specific minorities or externally against other states; internal repression of individual, especially minority, rights; the development, sale and use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in contravention of international treaties and norms; and the subversion of peaceful governments.

This first condition included a relatively objective yardstick for assessing rogue behavior. However, the second condition was far less objective and involved the perception that these regimes were anti-American or anti-Western in character, and that their policies and actions posed a direct threat to American security interests. Thus, the likes of Iran and Iraq were labeled ‘rogue’ because they fulfilled both conditions, while states including Israel, India and Pakistan were not because they only fulfilled aspects of the first criteria, primarily the possession of nuclear weapons in contravention of non-proliferation norms.