The agitations in Jaitapur and Kudankulam have shown that mere assurances of safety of nuclear plants are not enough for the people. After Fukushima, unless the Government creates a credible regulator, the resistance to nuclear plants is only likely to grow.

Any nuclear legislation today gets enmeshed in Manmohan Singh Government's nuclear deal with the US. As we all know, the Liability Act watered down the liability of the nuclear suppliers, which has been weakened even further by a set of Rules that the former Attorney General, Soli Sorabjee has termed as “.. ultra vires the said Act and is invalid ”. As a part of the India-US nuclear deal, the Manmohan Singh Government had given assurances to the US that it would buy 10,00 MW of nuclear plants from the US. It had also given similar assurances to the French and the Russians. For Manmohan Singh and his Government, fulfilling these assurances appear to be more important than the safety of the Indian people. That is why we see a concerted attempt to remove liability of the US and other suppliers and now a proposal for a toothless regulator.

The basic principle for regulation is that there should be regulatory independence, transparency in regulations and the regulator should have teeth to enforce the decisions taken. Unfortunately, the proposed Bill is lacking on all these counts.

There are three provisions in the Bill that makes the regulator subservient to the Government of the day. The first is that the provision of a Council of Nuclear Safety, headed by the PM, some central ministers, and the Head of the Atomic Energy Commission. This body will “oversee and review policies with respect to radiation safety and other matters connected therewith and incidental thereto”. Clearly, by this provision, the Head of Atomic Energy Commission, the body that runs all nuclear facilities has been placed above the body that is supposed to regulate it!

One of the problems with the earlier regulatory body was precisely this – the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) was reporting to the Atomic Energy Commission. By this clause, the hierarchy of regulation – the regulator is above the body that he is regulating has been again reversed. As per this Bill, the head of the body that is being regulated will have oversight over the regulator and will also decide on its policies. If such a Council is required – and frankly I do not see its purpose – then both the Heads of the Regulatory Body and the Atomic Energy Commission should be ex officio members of the Council.

The second provision that goes against the independence of the regulator is in Clause 42 – by virtue of this clause, the Central Government has kept to itself the right to issue any directive it may deem necessary and the Authority is bound by such directions. It is important to note that this clause is not restricted to policy alone but applies to all matters and is final. Under this clause, the Central Government, for example, may direct the Authority not to look at safety aspects of Areva or Westinghouse reactors and the Authority is bound by this directive.

We are all aware that the Liability Act and the Rules were drafted in consultations with the US authorities and suppliers. It is this that fuels the suspicion that such provisions may be there to remove from the regulator's jurisdiction for actions that the Manmohan Singh has already committed in its deals with the US.

The Central Government can also dissolve the regulatory body whenever it wants. Clause 48 (d) gives it the right to supersede the authority at any time for a period of up to 6 months. Again such rights appear to be unfettered and would seriously impair the independence of the regulator.

Apart from these aspects, the other part where the Bill has serious problems is with respect to a provision it calls “Other Regulatory Bodies”. While what the regulator will do and what it will make public has been clearly spelt out for the main regulatory body, nothing has been specified for these “other Regulatory Bodies” It is clear that from other provisions in the Bill, that defence installations will not come under the proposed regulator and “Other Regulatory Bodies” is meant to cover such facilities. The problem here is that some of these facilities are identical to civilian nuclear facilities – a nuclear reactor that is kept outside the civilian sector may be identical to a reactor that for instance produces fissile material for the nuclear weapons program. What will be the safety standards for such a reactor – will it be different from that of this identical civilian reactor? Are the people of these area to be kept in the dark and will the authorities running these facilities have no responsibility to inform the people in case of accidents?

While one can accept that the demand for transparency in defence related installations are different from that of civilian facilities, the standards for safety and reporting after an accident involving release of nuclear materials to the atmosphere cannot be different. In fact the Liability Act makes clear that all its provisions apply also to defence facilities, with the exception of nuclear submarines. However, by this provision, the Government is putting safety of such nuclear installations beyond any serious safety scrutiny.

The other measures that are weak in the Bill relate to what the Authority is supposed to do before passing an order. It should be clear today – after Jaitapur and Kudankulam – that people need to be involved in the decisions relating to nuclear plants. Public hearings are not just for some tamasha but an important mechanism of allaying peoples doubts on the safety of nuclear plants. Therefore, the Bill should spell out that before any order of the regulatory authority, there should be mandatory public hearings.

The other serious problem is with the Appellate Authority that the Bill seeks to create. Regulating safety of the nuclear facilities is a technical issue requiring highest technical competence. The Bill has spelt out in details the need for knowledge of nuclear safety and its various aspects for the members of the regulatory body. While the chairperson and the member of the regulatory body would have the necessary competence, the chairperson and members of the appellate body would have no such competence. Why there is a need for such an appellate body is not clear, when the Bill does not even propose to have a permanent appellate body. It is to be created as and when it is required. If we recognise that this body is only required in exceptional circumstances, what is the need for such a body at all? Why cant the courts address such disputes? In any case, if there is a dispute r between the regulator and the authorities running nuclear plants egarding what constitutes safety of a nuclear installation, should this be indeed be subject to a quasi judicial procedure with an appellate body who does not have the necessary competence?

If such an Appellate body is indeed required, then it certainly should have its powers and terms defined properly and not as an afterthought as it appears to be in the Bill.

The central problem with the Regulatory Bill as drawn up by the Government that it does not seem to understand that Safety is not just another regulatory subject – such as electricity or telecom tariffs. An accident can kill thousands of people and create enormous damages. The Fukushima accident has created damages worth more than $50 billion already and the bill is still growing. In such an area, the regulator has to be have much more powers than a tariff regulator and be seen to be far more independent than he is currently or is proposed in the Bill. Without such a regulator, an ambitious nuclear energy program will not be credible to the people. If we are asking the people of an area to bear the risk of a nuclear plant close to where they live, it is necessary that we give them guarantees that we are making all efforts that we can in ensuring its safety. It is the attempt to manipulate public opinion, disregard the will of the people and even that of the Parliament that that is damaging the prospects of nuclear energy in the country. The Government and the atomic energy establishment can either have an expanded nuclear program in which they take the people along or they can continue on their current course of extreme secrecy and lack of accountability. Unfortunately, the current Bill show that neither the Manmohan Singh Government nor the nuclear establishment is willing to learn from recent events. That is the real tragedy.

D. Raghunandan
9th January 2012

Records, they say, are meant to be beaten. Those who had characterized India’s acquisition of 126 combat aircraft for around $10 billion, billed as the largest ever single military purchase, as the “mother of all arms deals” will have to change terminology. Last week, the US announced it had clinched a deal with Saudi Arabia for sale of F-15 fighters and upgradation of the current Saudi F-15 fleet for a combined value of about $30 billion. Clearly the grandmother of all deals!

Almost simultaneously, the US also announced the first-ever overseas sale of its THAAD (Terminal formerly Theatre High Altitude Area Defence) ballistic missile defence system to the UAE. The $3.5 billion value is dwarfed by the Saudi deal but is no less weighty given the advanced technology involved and the strategic significance of the US-UAE arrangement.

Media commentary, primed by US Defence Department and Pentagon briefings and dominated by Western press agency releases, carried an almost uniform narrative. These deals were aimed squarely at sending a strong message to Iran, the timing being especially apt against the background of Iranian naval and missile exercises in the Persian Gulf and supposed threats to close the Straits of Hormuz, and at equipping other states in the littoral who were increasingly anxious about growing Iranian missile and nascent nuclear capability. A deeper analysis would, however, show that while this story line has been spun to resonate with contemporary issues, the real picture is a more complex one of a long-standing US security calculus unfolding in the context of recent developments, not only in the Persian Gulf and wider West Asia region but also domestically in the US. The US press statements have also pointedly underlined the commercial value of the deals and the boost they would give to US manufacturing industry and employment, a resonance avidly promoted by a beleaguered Obama administration 

The F-15SAs come bristling with advanced weaponry. For aerial combat, the aircraft will have AIM 9X Sidewinder short-range heat-seeking air-to-air missiles and AIM 120 C7 “AMRAAM” (advanced medium range air to air missile) “fire-and-forget” missiles deigned to target beyond-visual-range targets. For ground attack, the F-15SAs will carry 500 pound laser-guided munitions, 2000 pound Paveway III laser-guided bombs, wind-corrected munitions dispensers, AGM-88B high-speed anti-radiation missiles to detect and strike ground-based radars and transmitters such as on anti-aircraft or missile batteries, as well as well as AGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missiles. Apart from the AESA radars, the F-15SAs would be equipped with LANTIRN (Low Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared for Night) combined navigation and targeting pods enabling low-altitude, night-flight ground attack with precision-guided weapons, and with Sniper Advanced Targeting Pods for the precision-guided weapons.

With this acquisition, Saudi Arabia will have arguably the most advanced and well-equipped air force in the region other than Israel. The RSAF already operates the third largest fleet of F-15s after the US and Japan. Apart from the Tornados of the British-led consortium inducted in the mid-eighties, the Saudis in an obvious effort to diversify from over-dependence on the US and also spread its petro-dollars around other Western suppliers, had acquired 72 Eurofighters a few years ago, a deal which earned a great deal of notoriety for the kickbacks and slush money involved, and which had also embroiled the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Strategic imperatives For the past few years, there had been speculation about whether the Saudis, known to be in the market, would once again buy European rather than US combat aircraft, either as a deliberate choice or as a result of a growing unease in Washington with the Saudi regime. The US had been unhappy with what it perceived as inadequate Saudi efforts to tackle jihadist radicalism both within its country and in other countries receiving generous support from Saudi patrons. On its part, the Saudis were upset with increasingly vocal US criticism of conservative regimes in West Asia and shrill support for democracy movements. Then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had famously remarked in 2005 that the US had for over 50 years favoured stability over democracy in the region, and had achieved neither. Saudi Arabia was particularly disturbed by the US abandonment of its faithful ally of over three decades, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.

However, several developments seem to have prompted somewhat of a reversal of this trend. The winding down of the US military presence in Iraq and the perceived strengthening of forces in the region that Saudi Arabia considered inimical to its interests, such as in Lebanon and Syria with support from Iran, caused anxiety in Saudi ruling circles. The “Arab spring” uprisings in several North African and West Asian countries were also viewed with considerable dismay by Saudi Arabia which supported a vicious crack-down by US ally Bahrain which was watched with studied silence by the US. And there was always the Saudi disquiet with Iranian efforts at spreading its regional influence and acquiring greater military and strategic clout through missile and nuclear technology. All these factors including equally impelled the US into once again warming up its strategic relations with Saudi Arabia and with other allies in the region. The economic woes of the US and its dire need to bolster its economy especially with elections approaching only added to the impetus.

When Saudi Arabia had requested a new set of military hardware from the US Defence Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) in December 2010, there was considerable doubt if the deals would go through and many questions were raised in Congress. But go through it did, and in a big way.

The F-15 deal is part of a much larger shopping list worth around $60 billion. Saudi Arabia is looking to buy Apache attack helicopters, other helicopters, a major upgrade of its Patriot anti-missile system, armoured vehicles and so on.

US security presence enhanced The US has also ramped up its arms sales to other countries in the region. An Iraqi deal worth around $4 billion to buy F-16s, aerial defence systems and other hardware is in the pipeline, as is a deal to sell additional F-16s to Egypt.

Another major recent deal has been the sale of anti-missile systems to the UAE. The UAE deal follows a $1.7 billion contract earlier in the year to upgrade Saudi Arabia's Patriot anti-missile system, and the sale of over 200 advanced Patriot missiles to Kuwait for around $1 billion.

The UAE sale is however strategically more significant. It is the first export sale of the THAAD anti-missile batteries system and underlines the importance Washington attaches to this Gulf ally and to US security interests in the region. The THAAD system enables interception of medium-range missiles towards the latter part of their trajectory wither inside or outside the atmosphere, and therefore have a far greater defensive potential than the Patriot type systems which seek to counter shorter-range missiles. West Asia is one of the regions where the US has been able to place its land-based anti-missile systems, whereas Japan and South Korea have acquired more advanced ship-based systems and the US has faced problems in Europe due to unease in those countries with hosting missiles and inviting Russian ire. Whereas the systems sold to the UAE are independent land-based systems, they are also compatible with and will be fully supported by the US Aegis ship-based anti-missile systems now permanently stationed in the Persian Gulf. The UAE deal is thus more than a sale: it physically ties up regional security installations with the US security infrastructure and provides greater strategic reach to US forces in the Gulf. For all the specifics of the current situation vis-à-vis Iran, these recent US arms deals are thus solid pointers to the US security presence seeking greater depth and more permanence in the wider West Asia region.

Prabir Purkayastha

24th December 2011

THE Civil Liability for Nuclear Damages Rules notified on November 11, 2011 does what the US government has been demanding of India – completely dilute the liability of the nuclear suppliers. This is in complete violation of all basic jurisprudence. No rule can override the basic act itself: this is precisely what these Rules are doing.

The timing of it is also equally important. Hillary Clinton came in July 2011 and ticked off the Indian government that if they wanted to continue with the special relations with the US, they would have to pay the price of allowing GE and Westinghouse to sell reactors in India. And the only way the US companies would sell equipment in India is if they have zero liability. This is the gift that Manmohan Singh carried with him in the form of Rules to the ASEAN meeting where he was meeting Obama.

KEY ELEMENTS NULLIFIED

What are the key elements in the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damages Act that have now been virtually nullified by the Rules? The Act clearly laid down the provision of a right to recourse by the nuclear operator in the article 17 of the Act. If there was an accident and the operator was held liable for damages, he could recover the damages from the supplier provided he could show that the accident was due to defective supplies or services. This is what the nuclear suppliers from the US were not willing to accept. According to them, irrespective of defective supplies, they should have no liability whatsoever – the liability should be borne entirely by the operator, in this case the government owned Nuclear Power Corporation.

What has now been done is to nullify Article 17 of the Act in THREE different ways. One is what has already been high-lighted in the media reports – the right to recourse has been restricted to either the period of granting of initial license or the product liability period, whichever is longer. Normally, a product liability period is a standard warranty period, generally of 12 months after commissioning of the plant. The initial license period is again generally of five years duration.

Normally, an operator will have to secure a license before he can start construction. Since the plant construction takes more than five years, the initial license period would have expired even before a nuclear plant is commissioned. So with this clause, the government has effectively limited the period of recourse only to the warranty period. If an accident takes place after 12 months, the supplier will then have no liability.

The other three clauses all limit the amount of liability. The clause 24 of the Rules state that the amount of liability in the right to recourse will be up to the operator's liability if this is provided explicitly in the contract or the value of the contract, whichever is less. As the contractor will not agree – given this choice – of including such a liability in his contract, this effectively limits the liability only to the value of the contract.

The key issue here is that all liability regimes carry what are known as consequential damages. This is the position in Indian law as well. If by your action you have caused damage to persons or the environment, you are liable for the full value of the damages. There is no restriction that the damages are limited only to the value of your contract or investment. By limiting the amount to the value of the contract, all consequential liability as exists under the current liability regime and even under the original Liability Act is being removed.

The third way that liability is being diluted is vide explanation 2 to Clause 24 of the Rules, the operator's claim shall in no case exceed the actual amount of compensation paid by him up to the date of filing such claim. This is quite preposterous as a rule. By this clause, the accident has to take place, the compensation claim would have to be filed by the victims, should be settled and paid by the operator, all within the first 12 months of the operation of the plant, if the operator has to exercise his right to recourse. This is as good as no recourse at all!

In any case, the total claim of the operator under this right to recourse in the original Act would not have exceeded Rs 1500 crore as this is the limit of the operator's liability. Any damages beyond this are to be borne by the government – this is the weakness in the Liability Act itself. We had pointed out when the law was passed that this was a very weak liability regime as the damages from a nuclear accident are in billions. The bill for the Fukushima disaster is already over $52 billion!  A nuclear reactor supply contract in itself will be in billions of dollars. That while collecting billions of dollars for supplying a nuclear reactor, the nuclear suppliers are not willing to take on a liability of mere $300 million, speaks volumes about the confidence they have about their technology.

Why is liability important in supply of all products? The simple issue is that if there is no liability regime, companies can supply sub-standard material with impunity. The liability regime that has evolved in law is precisely to prevent such behaviour by rapacious private capital. By limiting liability in this way, the Indian government is giving a carte blanche to nuclear suppliers to play with the safety of the Indian people.

When the Liability Act was being discussed in the standing committee of the parliament, all these clauses were examined in details. A number of attempts were made by the ruling party MP's including the chairman of the committee, Subirami Reddy to water down the  right to recourse and limit it to the warranty period or only if it was explicitly included in the contract. Both these were rejected by the parliament. So the legislative intent has been clearly violated by the UPA government – the Rules notified are substantive changes to the content of the legislation and are clearly illegal.

TOO CLEVER BY HALF

The viability of nuclear energy is closely connected to its cost. And one of the costs is the hazard it poses. Amongst all hazardous industries, the nuclear equipment industry is the only one that argues that it should carry no liability for hazards. This is because it perceives the risk to be too high of such an accident, while claiming in public that the risks of a nuclear accident are very low.

I do not believe unlike some of my friends that nuclear energy cannot be made reasonably safe. However, there is a cost associated with making nuclear energy reasonably safe. It is this cost that the nuclear industry does not want to pay. This is why the chorus of the US nuclear suppliers that they must have no liability for any accident that takes place, even if it is due to faulty or substandard equipment. They can cut corners and reduce costs with impunity – the risks are going to be borne by the people. Reducing liability is therefore nothing but hidden subsidy to nuclear suppliers using tax payers money with Indian people carrying all the risks.

The costs of nuclear energy have risen continuously. Contrary to public opinion, nuclear energy did not get killed in the west due to accidents such as Three Mile Island or Chernobyl. The real reason it collapsed was due to its very high time and cost overruns. And both these occurred when the regulatory authorities had to take action to reduce risk of accidents. In most technologies, cost reduces as the technology matures. Nuclear technology is the only one where the cost has risen as the technology has matured.

The reactors being built today, the two Areva reactors – one in Olkiluoto, Finland and Flamanville, France – both are having huge cost and time overruns. So this aspect of nuclear industry has not changed. The nuclear renaissance much hyped by the US and the nuclear industry felt a nuclear chill even before  Fukushima, due to high cost and project delays.

This UPA government has now a well-earned reputation of being too clever by half. It believes that as it has a clever bunch of lawyers within the union cabinet, they can draft things in legalese which people are too dumb to understand. The problem is that fooling the people is not possible all the time – it finally catches up. And this is what is increasingly happening to the UPA.

Even the very limited liability that the Liability Act passed by the Parliament has been virtually thrown away to please the US and its nuclear industry, even though the US has reneged on its own commitments – fuel enrichment and other dual use technology will not be available to India. That even after Fukushima, the Indian government with its own memories of Bhopal would play with safety of nuclear plants is criminal.  The Indian parliament should assert its will and reject this violation of the Liability Act through this travesty of Rules.

14th November 2011

Prabir Purkayastha

WITH the new IAEA report on Iran, the international media is abuzz with reports of its gravity and the possibility of air strikes by the US, UK and Israel. The pitch has been raised further with reports emanating from Israeli media that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been trying to muster a majority in the Israeli cabinet for even a unilateral attack. This has been accompanied by news about air drills being conducted by Israeli Air Force in a NATO base in Sardinia, Italy, and long-range missile tests. Obviously, the temperature on Iran is being raised for something, if not a military strike.

PREDICTABLE PATTERN

The Iran issue had fallen into a predictable pattern: every time there is a new IAEA report on Iran, a flurry of newspaper reports are planted about the gravity of the nuclear threat and the need for military strikes to stop Iran. The end result of all this is to turn the screws further on for UN sanctions, and if unsuccessful, at least increased sanctions by the US and its allies.

The media campaign starts even before a report is published; unnamed western sources leak “new evidence” of Iran's nuclear weapons programme. Once the report is public as it is now, very few people actually check up to see what the IAEA is actually saying – what sticks in public mind is that the IAEA has unearthed new evidence on Iran's nuclear weapons programme.

Recently, a similar exercise was done regarding Syria and the Basher Al Assad regime there. An IAEA investigation was quoted by unnamed western sources, claiming that the Al Hasakah textile factory in Syria was the cover for a uranium fuel processing facility. The “proof” using satellite imagery of the plant “showed” that it matched the blueprint of a uranium reprocessing plant, which AQ Khan had provided Libya. It needed only two individuals – Jeffrey Lewis from ArmsControlWonk (ArmsControlWonk.com) and German journalist Paul-Anton Krueger to debunk this claim. They found incontrovertible evidence that it is, and always was, a textile plant, even locating the 62-year old German engineer who had built this plant in the early 1980s.

Once the story is shown to be false, that news is however buried in some small corner of the papers, if it is published at all. Remember Niger yellow cake story which was paraded as proof of Saddam's nuclear programme? New York Times did print the refutation of its earlier front-page stories, but it was buried so deep in the paper that hardly anybody noticed it.

This time also the same game seems to be in progress. As I go through all the reports that are appearing in the international media, from the more strident ones to the more apparently reasonable ones, the orchestra is the same. IAEA has found “new evidence” and this will be disclosed shortly – this is the song that unnamed western sources who have “seen” the report are singing. So what is allegedly “new” in this IAEA report?

DUBIOUS CLAIM, DUBIOUS REPORTS

The major claim is that Iran is developing a nuclear trigger and IAEA has undeniable proof of this. I went through various IAEA reports from 2008; all of them have referred to Iran's possible development of high explosive testing and have referred to dubious member states’ intelligence reports. In May 2008, the DG IAEA had submitted a 9-page report and in the Annex, it talked of documents in its possession:

1) A “Exploding Bridgewire (EBW) Detonator Test Results,”

2) A “schematic diagram for an underground testing arrangement,”

3) A “five page document in English describing experimentation undertaken with a complex multipoint initiation system to detonate a substantial amount of high explosive in hemispherical geometry.”

This was repeated in subsequent IAEA reports. In the current report, the only new evidence is satellite imagery of a “bus-sized container” in Parchin, a military base near Tehran, which IAEA believes could be used in tests for such explosive testing. Why Iranians should use an overground container for this when they have schematic for an underground testing arrangement, when they have buried much of their nuclear facilities underground, beats me completely. The Syrian fiasco clearly shows how misleading such satellite imagery can be. The proof that Iran is building nuclear bombs because there is a large container in Parchin must strain the credulity of the most gullible.

Individually taken, all the elements that IAEA believes is a part of Iran's nuclear weapons programme have also other uses. For example, such multipoint ignition systems and coordinated explosions are used for making industrial grade nano diamonds. The Ukrainian scientist, Vyacheslav Danilenko, a nuclear scientist according to western media, who is supposed to have parted with this technology when he was teaching in Iran, is a part of a Czech establishment which does precisely this. And he never was a nuclear expert – all his work has been on production of nano diamonds by coordinated explosions.

If we look at the stories that are being planted by the so-called “western sources,” clearly a part of a massive media operation by western countries, none of it is neither new nor does it provide any smoking gun. The key issue would be a breach of NPT provisions if Iran proceeded to withdraw fissile material out of safeguards and reprocess it to weapons grade. This, IAEA admits, Iran has not done. The report says there is no evidence that Iran has made a strategic decision to actually build a nuclear bomb.

GLOBAL ISSUE HOSTAGE TO US

The question of identifying what is nuclear weapons technology and what is not is not easy, nor is there physically a clear defining line. A missile system that can carry conventional warheads can also carry a nuclear warhead. Each of the items described above can be used for different purposes. The issue is: how do we then say whether a country is in breach of Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT)?

The western campaign on Iran and NPT seeks to cloud whether Iran's fuel cycle violates NPT provisions. It does not if the fuel cycle is for nuclear energy, which Iran has always claimed it is. The problem for the west is that the same fuel enrichment technology – centrifuging – that can enrich uranium to fuel level – 3.5 per cent or medical imaging level –19.75 per cent or weapons level of 90 per cent. The western arguments on denying Iran the fuel cycle crucially hinges on the two IAEA Board resolutions – the ones on which that India broke ranks with the non-aligned nations on and voted with the US – that pronounced Iran in breach of NPT and referred it to the UN Security Council. The legal position of US and other western powers is that by this breach, Iran has forfeited its rights under NPT and must get them back by only by “satisfactorily” resolving this breach. And as we know, a satisfactory resolution will only take place if there is a regime change in Iran – a regime that the US “likes.” That is why the two IAEA resolutions were so dangerous – it has made global policy on Iran now a hostage to the US.

The second issue of NPT violations is regarding the other steps that Iran is taking, e.g. the high explosive hemispherical testing and missile capability. Here again, the NPT explicitly bars only “manufacture of nuclear weapons.” Does research on high explosive testing come under manufacture? Does computer simulation? The western spin doctors are fully aware that, individually, none of these can be held in breach of NPT provisions. Particularly, all of these are also dual use technologies – they have other non-nuclear weapon uses. Therefore, the argument that all of these must be taken together and if a country is developing breakout capability, then it should be held to be in breach of nuclear weapons manufacture clause of NPT, even though it is not manufacturing any nuclear weapon.

Both these are very flimsy arguments. However, as we have seen in the past, a tenuous legal argument does not inhibit the western powers. We have seen in Libya how a right-to-protect civilians mandate in Libya was converted to a mission of regime change. The barbaric killing of Gaddafi was done with the full participation of NATO forces – they were the ones that struck Gaddafi's convoy when it had broken out of Sirte, the so-called National Transitional Council forces only performing the final act of lynching.

The gameplan on Iran is clear. First, use the IAEA to prepare a report reiterating various things it has said in the past regarding Iran's nuclear programme. IAEA, under the current director, General Yukiya Amano, is far more willing to bend to the US demands and do what the US wants. While it will not contain any smoking gun regarding Iran's nuclear weapon ambitions, it can be dressed up through a media blitz as a new threat. A campaign on the need for a military strike and how Israel may do it unilaterally can then be used to stampede the international community to impose much harsher sanctions. The extremely dubious US claims on the Iranian plot for assassinating the Saudi ambassador also falls into place as a precursor to the current media hype.

TIME FOR TOTAL DISARMAMENT

Why does not Iran give up working on any technology that may be construed as constituting breakout capability? The problem is: Gaddafi did precisely that in 2003 and had assurances that the west would not seek a regime change in Libya as a quid pro quo. We have seen how much such assurances are worth. Does anybody doubt that Libya would have reinforced the position in Iran that having nuclear weapons capability can be a possible deterrent to the US, giving it up achieves nothing?

Avner Cohen, an expert on Israel's nuclear arsenal and a professor at the Monterey Institute of International Studies has said that no one in Israel seriously believes that Iran would use a nuclear weapon against Israel, but they believe it might be necessary to go to war to preserve its relative power in the Middle East. "Ultimately this is a fight over the Israeli nuclear monopoly in the region," Cohen said (Iran Working on Advanced Nuclear Warhead, Guardian, November 7, 2011). A country of six million should have a sole nuclear monopoly over a region containing 400 million people. This is what Israel wants and the US and western powers back. This is the crux of the issue.

It is time we put not only Iran's nuclear disarmament but global nuclear disarmament back on the agenda. A state that has some states with nuclear weapon and the vast majority without them, can last only when the technology for developing nuclear weapons is difficult. Once this is seen to be easy – and it increasingly will be – such a disequilibrium cannot last. One cannot use NPT provisions against Iran while wilfully flouting NPT's other provision calling for universal nuclear disarmament and good faith negotiations.