Libya disarms, but threat of nuclear proliferation remains

By STEPHEN ZUNES

In a world seemingly gone mad, it is ironic that one of most sane and reasonable actions to come out of the Middle East recently has emanated from the government of Muammar Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator long recognized as an international outlaw.

Libya’s stunning announcement that it is giving up its nascent biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs and accepting international assistance and verification of its disarmament efforts is a small but important positive step in the struggle to curb the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

It would be a big mistake, however, to accept claims by the Bush administration and its supporters that it was the invasion of Iraq and other threatened uses of force against so-called “rogue states” that pursue weapons of mass destruction programs that led to Libya’s decision to end its programs.

While Saddam Hussein was less than cooperative with United Nations Special Commission on Iraq efforts in the 1990s, it appears that UNSCOM was successful in ridding the country of its chemical and biological weapons and related facilities. The Iraqi regime was more cooperative during that period with the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), with the agency announcing in 1998 that Iraq’s nuclear program had been completely dismantled. When IAEA inspectors returned in the fall of 2002 as part of U.N. Security Council resolution 1441, they reported no signs that the program had been revived. Iraq also allowed the return of a revived and strengthened inspections regime for chemical and biological weapons systems (known as UNMOVIC) at that time. The inspections found no evidence of any proscribed weapons or weapons programs.

Despite this, the United States invaded Iraq and overthrew the government. As a result, Libya presumably knows that unilateral disarmament and allowing U.N. inspectors does not necessarily make you less safe from a possible U.S. invasion.

More likely, Libya simply recognized that it would not get anything worthwhile as a result of continuing with the expensive, dangerous and complex process of weapons development and would instead continue to face international isolation and difficulty in obtaining certain dual-use technologies that could enhance the country’s economic development.

Indeed, the agreement is a sign of the triumph of American and British diplomacy, not military threats.

That this breakthrough involved some diplomatic initiatives from the U.S. government doesn’t mean that the Bush administration has abandoned its unilateralist agenda. In a dispute that could potentially jeopardize Libya’s bold initiative, the United States is challenging Libya’s assumption that its disarmament process would be under the auspices of the IAEA and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The Bush administration insists that U.S. intelligence officials and experts from the U.S. Defense Department and U.S. Energy Department -- along with some British authorities to give it a multilateral veneer -- take charge of the disarmament process.

More serious is the position of successive administrations that the United States has the right to impose a kind of weapons of mass destruction apartheid on the Middle East, giving itself the right to say which countries can and cannot have nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

The United States has quietly supported Israel’s extensive chemical and biological weapons programs, as well as Israel’s nuclear program, which is believed to consist of more than 300 warheads along with sophisticated medium-range missiles. This comes despite U.N. Security Council resolution 487, which calls on Israel to turn its nuclear facilities over to the trusteeship of the IAEA.

In the post 9/11 era, the United States has dropped its opposition to the nuclear programs of India and Pakistan, eliminating sanctions imposed by the Clinton administration after both countries engaged in a series of underground nuclear tests in 1998 and ignored U.N. Security Council resolution 1172, which calls on Pakistan and India to dismantle their nuclear programs and ballistic missiles.

To the United States, U.N. Security Council resolutions calling for the elimination of a given country’s weapons of mass destruction should be enforced only when it comes to countries the U.S. government does not like, such as Iraq. By contrast, the United States has threatened to veto any efforts to enforce such resolutions against its allies.

Such a policy is doing little to enhance U.S. security interests. The evidence now points to Pakistan as the source of the key nuclear technology employed by Libya in its embryonic nuclear program, most of which ended up in Qaddafi’s hands in the two years since the United States relaxed its restrictions on Pakistan’s military government.

The unfortunate reality is that the United States is not interested in preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction per se but in preventing a challenge to its military domination in the post-Cold War world.

Countries ranging from U.S. allies such as Jordan and Egypt to adversaries such as Syria and Iran have all endorsed calls for the establishment of a weapons of mass destruction-free zone for the entire Middle East, similar to those already existing in Latin America and the South Pacific. Such proposals have been categorically rejected by the United States, however. A U.N. Security Council resolution calling for the establishment of a weapons of mass destruction-free zone in the Middle East was introduced last month, but is expected to be vetoed by the United States. In effect, the United States insists that such weapons in the Middle East should be the exclusive domain of itself and Israel.

Other Middle Eastern governments may therefore decide not to risk emulating Libya’s choice of unilateral disarmament. Indeed, U.S. policies will most likely lead not to greater acquiescence to American will but to a rush by other nations in the region to counter this perceived American-Israeli threat through the development of their own dangerous arsenals.

Stephen Zunes is an associate professor of politics and chair of the Peace & Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco. He serves as Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus project (www.fpif.org) and is the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism.

National Catholic Reporter, January 23, 2004