Iraq, North Korea and Nuclear Weapons by Paolo Cotta-Ramusino and Jeffrey Boutwell

Iraq, North Korea and Nuclear Weapons

10 January 2003

Paolo Cotta-Ramusino and Jeffrey Boutwell

As the year 2003 begins, the world is perched precariously on the knife edge of the nuclear dilemma. In the Middle East, the United States is poised to launch a preventive war against Iraq in an action President Bush maintains is necessary to block attempts by Saddam Hussein to acquire nuclear weapons. Half a world away, North Korea has declared its intent to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Regarding Iraq, we do not yet know if war will be the outcome of the Bush administration's massive mobilization and deployment of US forces into the Gulf area, but there are grave concerns about the motivations, the decision making process and the immediate and long term consequences of such a war, should it come.

While acknowledging the violent nature of Saddam Hussein's regime, and less than forthcoming Iraqi disclosure about its weapons of mass destruction, it remains true that the work of UN inspectors has not been obstructed by Iraqi officials and no concrete evidence of Iraqi non-compliance with UN resolutions has thus far been uncovered. Accordingly, there seems little current justification, in terms of UN resolution 1441, for military intervention now against Iraq.

The need for pre-emptive military action against Iraq has also been presented by President Bush as necessary for stopping terrorism and particularly for preventing terrorism with weapons of mass destruction. While connections have been suggested between Saddam Hussein and international terrorist groups like al-Qaeda, this connection has been far from proven.

One must ask, moreover, whether regime change justifies a military intervention in Iraq and, just as important, who is entitled to decide such intervention? In principle, international institutions could promote regime change to alleviate the suffering of the population and to improve human rights where these are being grossly violated, such as Iraq. In such cases, a significant international consensus, expressed unequivocally by the United Nations, should be obtained before proceeding to military action aimed at regime change. To be sure, reaching consensus on regime change will be difficult, given the differing priorities, standards, and interests of the international community. All the more reason that such decisions should be reached transparently, encompassing the widest possible consensus. Unfortunately, too often do we hear at present the argument that the most powerful nation on earth has not only a right, but an obligation, to act independently and unilaterally, if need be, when it perceives the international community as lacking the will to act.

If such unilateralism is carried to the extreme, it will render international institutions, and particularly the United Nations, less and less relevant, at the same time concentrating more and more power, and responsibility for world order, into the hands of one nation. The US will find itself, as Michael Ignatieff wrote recently in the New York Times, "laying down the rules America wants (on everything from markets to weapons of mass destructions)", while "exempting itself from other rules that go against its interest". Increasingly, the US will face this formidable task with decreasing support from the rest of the world. It is not too difficult to imagine scenarios where conflict and hostility towards the world's lone superpower increase, fueling additional international terrorism. The likely outcome is that motivations for regime change will focus more on the need for "stability", as judged by the dominant power, than on the need to improve democracy and human rights.

Returning to the specific situation of Iraq, if regime change is de facto the only remaining motivation for war, then the UN Security Council will face great difficulty in authorizing or supporting a military intervention. Such a war will appear to much of the outside world, including especially the Arab and Muslim countries, as an act of aggression by the US (supported by the UK and perhaps a few other countries), and proof that the 'West' is far from being even-handed. Comparison with the support given to Israel and the lack of political will in finding a just solution to the Palestinian problem will contribute to the definition of a picture in which Arabs and Muslims see themselves on the weakest and oppressed side, are denied respect, fairness and are kept in a state of political humiliation. This resentment may be the source of a further deterioration of the international climate, as well as a renewed source of international terrorism.

Military intervention in Iraq could well be more difficult than expected for US forces (see the insightful analysis by Steve Miller in his Pugwash paper for the Como workshop on terrorism, on the Pugwash website), resulting in the widespread death and injury of Iraqi civilians and massive destruction of Iraq's infrastructure. Post-war reconstruction will be, as elsewhere, a long and expensive process. Iraq will join the queue with the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and other countries recently subjected to military action aimed at regime change that now require tremendous amounts of money for reconstruction. Without going into detail, it is sufficient to say that, even if the western powers have a genuine commitment to reconstruction, multiple, expensive commitments can hardly be sustained, leading as we see now in Afghanistan and Kosovo to mounting disappointment, resentment and the re-emergence of civil strife and human rights violations.

While the world's attention was focused on Iraq, a serious new crisis erupted in Northeast Asia. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) reportedly admitted to secretly pursuing uranium enrichment facilities. Soon after, it removed the IAEA seals and monitoring systems from its nuclear power plants, expelled the IAEA inspectors, and declared its withdrawal from the NPT.

It is a source of serious concern that one member state of NPT withdraws from the treaty and, while we sincerely hope that the DPRK may return to IAEA safeguards and the NPT, several instructive points can be made.

First, the difference in Washington's attitudes towards Iraq and the DPRK demonstrate clearly that blocking nuclear proliferation is not an absolute priority for US policy, that other factors shape the American management of world affairs, revealing a gap between declaratory policy and actual US decisions.

Second, and more importantly, are the major challenges to the Non Proliferation regime, not just from North Korea's renunciation of the NPT. Unlike a brief period in the 1990s, nuclear disarmament is no longer a priority for the major nuclear weapons powers, nor are their obligations under Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In South Asia, India and Pakistan continue to refine and augment their nuclear weapons capabilities, with little significant reaction from international public opinion and international institutions. Israel continues to get a free ride as an undeclared nuclear weapons state. The nuclear strategy of the US now emphasizes the possibility of using nuclear weapons, not just to retaliate, but perhaps be used pre-emptively, against chemical, biological or nuclear weapons threats. There is little interest in No First Use policies while more and more emphasis is placed on the role of nuclear weapons as an essential component of military forces and doctrine. The oft-stated prophecy that the non-proliferation regime could no longer tolerate prolonged discrimination between the nuclear haves and have-nots is becoming reality. The Pugwash objective since 1957 of eliminating all nuclear weapons is more important than ever before.

Thirdly, the possibility of the DPRK becoming a nuclear power could seriously aggravate the security conditions of Northeast Asia. In this framework it is difficult to understand how the economic development of the DPRK and economic and social cooperation in Northeast Asia can improve. It is thus in the interest of every country in and outside the region that negotiations and talks start as soon as possible with the aim of a total denuclearization process that can open the way to new modes of economic and social cooperation.

Almost sixty years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the nuclear danger has again occupied center stage in global politics. Pugwash and the scientific community must seek to mobilize the international community to find the means to reverse this danger in the direction of totally eliminating nuclear weapons.

Paolo Cotta-Ramusino is Secretary General, and Jeffrey Boutwell is Executive Director, of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. This commentary represents their views, and not those of the Pugwash Council or the Pugwash Conferences.