Next Step for Nuclear Disarmament?

Let's imagine it on International Human Rights Day 12/10/24

I just got a message from Paul Magno at Nonviolence International. He reminded us that 12/10/24 is United Nations Human Rights Day, and how important it is to resume the struggle for nuclear disarmament.

In 2015, I was concerned by the opposition to the Iran Deal (JCPOA) from all the US chicken hawks. They had been so eager to attack Iraq earlier. They didn’t care that it produced the first ballistic missile attacks on Israel, and from a nation that supposedly had weapons of mass destruction! For all they knew, there could have been a chemical, biological, or nuclear attack on Israel. They didn’t care. True, it didn’t turn out to be true, and some of them knew that. In any case, I decided to publicly support the so called Iran Deal. Guess what? It is still in effect, but without the US.

The first mistake of the Biden administration was not to unconditionally resume participation and cancel the useless Trump sanctions, which only hurt the Iranian people. Biden never got it right about either Iraq or Iran.

On Iraq, he wanted to divide it into Shiite and Sunni territories, ignorant of the fact that huge numbers of marriages under Saddam Hussein were West Side Story romances between people of different religions, or between Sunni and Shia. The whole “ancient ethnic enmity” ruse is a falsehood and is contrary to human nature, which seems to unconsiously know that mating outside the immediate community is often the best way to maximize the health and vitality of offspring.

This is an opinion essay, not an academic piece, so let’s dispense with the citations! But human universals, about which I do know something from my work on human injustice, human needs, and human liberation, seem to me to suggest that we human beings know that we all bleed red! In any case, in one piece I did publish, I blame not ethnic enmity but Totalitarian Theocratice Patriarchy and its power brokers. They are the real source of not just nuclear madness but the manipulation of ethnic conflict to produce war and terrorism of the kind which keeps them in power. See my 2016 piece here: Reflections from the Editor. Reflections: Narratives of Professional Helping, 22(2), 1-8. https://tinyurl.com/ReflectionsV22N2.

Alas, in recent years the global far left and even, unfortunately, the global peace movement long ago decided that the next step in the movement for nuclear disarmament is a “Nuclear Free Middle East.” Did that mean Pakistan, or just Israel? Strictly speaking, Pakistan is in South Asia not the Middle East. And you can’t address nukes in Pakistan without addressing nukes in India. So we already have what I call a Sunni bomb (in Pakistan) and a Hindu bomb in India.

The worry about the Iran Deal was the need to prevent a Shia bomb. Yet, it has long seemed to me and to many knowledgeable observers that Iran’s main concern was its sovereign right to have nuclear power, which even an oil-rich nation may think it needs.

In any case, in 2015 I wrote this op-ed in favor of the Iran Deal, in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. It is linked to at the Op-Eds link at lower right of my home page, and here and can be found at this shortcut: https://tinyurl.com/NuclearDisarmamentNow.

One might think my call for two former colonitial powers, Britain and France, and two former colonized regions, now represented by India and Pakistan, to mulilaterally agree to disarm with full international inspections, is a completely impossible thing to do. But why?

The fall of Assad in Syria is surely a wake-up call to Iran that it must fully and truly agree to be a lawful nation, something which of course also applies to Israel and for that matter to the US, Russia and China.

When I sent this idea for a first step to the Executive Committee of one of the major global peace groups, they discussed it, but replied that as far as they were concerned, the next step was a Nuclear Free Middle East (which of course means Israel). I hope to once again send this idea to them and other peace groups and experts in peace and nuclear disarmament.

But as for the decades long failed strategy for a Nuclear Free Middle East, let’s drop it and think more globally! After all, Noam Chomsky himself has pointed out Israel won’t give up the bomb as long as Pakistan has one, due to the danger of nuclear terrorism. And he said that before the advent of India’s and Pakistan’s tactical nuclear weapons, which are even easier to steal, conceal, and use.

Imagine if by some miracle, Iran can rise to the occasion and make it very clear it only wants nuclear power. Imagine if the present JCPOA signatories can convince Trump’s Secretary of State to recommend the US come back into the Iran Deal, the JCPOA, which is still very much alive.

Imagine there were a Gaza ceasefire per UN SC #2735 and continued progress to truly enforce UN SC #1701 in Lebanon. And continued growth of diplomatic and trade relations with both Israel and Palestine by UN members. And that there is resumption of normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, accompanied by a truly feasible path to Palestinian statehood. Imagine! Cheb Khaled and Noa did. See my Social Justice Song List at this Substack’s Lagniappe link.

Now, that may be a lot to ask. But let’s remember it was under Nixon in the early 1970s that we extricated ourselves from Vietnam, established relations with China, and began to pursue detente with Russia? It was under Reagan the the movement to end apartheid and establish democracy in South Africa accelerated!

Why can’t we end the Russian invasion of Ukraine, perhaps with security guarantees to Ukraine and a Guantanomo-like guarantee for Russian access to the Crimean port? Why can’t we put global detente back on the agenda?

Let’s build a peace movement like we had in 1981, when the movement in the US filled Central Park and made demands on both the US and the Soviet Union? Why not do something like this in every major nation on the same day?

It seems to me that at that inflection point, the stage would be set for the logical next step towards nuclear disarmament, a four-party disarmament agreement. Such an agreement would put tremendous pressure on the three superpowers. Yes, I know, China denies it is a superpower: I am not buying that.

Such an agreement would leave only the US, Russia and China, plus North Korea and Israel, with nuclear weapons. Subsequent disarmament would require serious security guarantees to both North Korea—which is still faced with military and nuclear forces of the US in close proximity—and to Israel, which has actually been attacked twice now by Iran and would remain in fear of terrorist weapons being used against it. India may also require security guarantees, given its border conflicts with China.

Imagine if such global peace movement, originating perhaps and planned jointly by the peace forces in Britain, France, India and Pakistan, could demand exactly such a step towards nuclear disarmament.

I think it would be a very viable process and the best next step towards nuclear disarmament, other than the US, Russia and China making a joint no-first-use guarantee, which such a movement could also demand.

Now, how is this quicky essay, written by a non-expert, qualify for my Speaking From the Heart section? For one, one of my children is about to visit our home. When my first child was born we were in New Orleans. Our birth announcement contained words from the song Family Promise from Holly Near, later performed as well by her and Ronnie Gilberg. Both songs are on the Social Justice Song List found in my Lagniappe Section. Let’s enjoy, while we can. Nuff said.