A US satellite has reportedly spotted intense activity — excavation and construction — at North Korea’s former nuclear site in Yongbyon. It will be recalled that a nuclear reactor’s cooling tower was torn down in 2008 at this site as part of an agreement with the government to scrap the nuclear program. Official North Korean press has been repeatedly and proudly announcing the continuation of work on the “deterrent weapons,” and once even reported that the country had already made a thermonuclear bomb. But all these threats and satellite photos failed to create much of an impression. There is an almost unanimous opinion that North Korea is thus signaling its intention to enter into talks and reap economic benefits for itself — first of all, by lifting the sanctions imposed after the country withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT) and conducted a series of tests. Incidentally, the sweeping accusations against Pyongyang about torpedoing a South Korean warship in a disputed sea area, which North Korea denied from the very beginning, have now been quietly “forgotten.” At the same time, very few believe in a military attack on North Korea under the guise of thwarting the nuclear program: firstly, nobody is sure that Pyongyang will not fulfill its threat in this case and, secondly, it is beyond a shadow of a doubt that the entire population of this reclusive country is determined to repulse the attackers — the national pride of North Koreans is being constantly hyped up by official propaganda and is based on the memory of humiliation and oppression during an almost 50-year-long Japanese occupation.
Meanwhile, in late September the 54th IAEA General Conference in Vienna voted down a draft resolution on Israel’s nuclear capabilities, which called upon Israel to join the NNPT.
Fifty one countries voted “for” and 46 “against,” with 23 abstaining. It was evident well before the vote that Israel and the US were trying to foil the adoption of this resolution. As early as in the spring the IAEA director-general sent out a letter with a request to express opinions on the draft resolution, in fact admitting his failure to prepare a proper report — he was simply rebuffed by Tel Aviv. The US and its allies were surprisingly unanimous in their argumentation to vote “against”: singling out Israel is inadvisable because it may undermine a sluggish “peace process.” If it were Iran, they would be glad to do so (by the way, Iran is a signatory to the NNPT). Tel Aviv’s blackmailing was based on this very point: this will hurt us so much that any negotiations with the Palestinians and extension of the moratorium on housing construction on the occupied territories will be out of the question. Incidentally, Ukraine also voted against the draft resolution. In a letter to the IAEA director-general, Foreign Minister Kostiantyn Hryshchenko showed all the wonders of Ukrainian diplomatic word juggling: “We are firmly convinced that Israel ought to join this Treaty [NNPT – Ed.] as a state that does not possess nuclear weapons and place its nuclear installations under the IAEA’s comprehensive guarantees.” I wonder how a state that possesses, according even to Israeli experts, an estimated 150-200 nuclear warheads and their carriers will become a state that does not have any. This remains a secret, as do the “comprehensive guarantees” for Israeli nuclear facilities, which replace the well-known control procedure. Nevertheless, the minister repeated a well-worn phrase about “inadvisable singling-out” and proposed debating on an entire nuclear-free Middle Eastern region. But this was exactly the intention of the Arab countries which were the main lobbyists of the resolution and, small wonder, were very much embittered over the fiasco.
Having thwarted the “anti-Israeli” resolution, the US and its allies lost the struggle for the souls of the Arab countries. It will be now next to impossible for them to convince even their allies among the so-called “moderate regimes” that only Iran poses a deadly threat to them.
Last summer was also marvelously hot in regards to the Iranian “nuclear question.” The US finally managed to impose the economic sanctions that could fulfill Hillary Clinton’s age-old dreams of crippling Iran. While the Obama administration had been blackmailing the world with announcements that it is desperately preventing Israel from attacking Iran, Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said bluntly on August 1 that plans of a military operation against Iran “remain on the table.” Experts immediately began to go over the likely scenarios, while the Cuban leader Fidel Castro openly urged Obama not to go crazy, and wrote a few articles that warn about the disastrous effects of the attack, also referring to the American scientists’ forecast of a “nuclear winter,” an apocalyptic climate change which would be the result of a nuclear war.
Bellicose statements and the imposition of sanctions on Teheran gave way to a lull presumably caused by more than simply respect for the holy Muslim month of Ramadan. However, further events do not dispel the fears that the war may break out locally (if you look at it from the outside) but will gradually draw in the main participants, allegedly by sheer coincidence of events. This may be, for example, the impoundment of an Iranian ship in the Gulf for examination, or an outbreak of violence in Lebanon caused by an International Tribunal ruling that blamed the assassination of ex-premier Hariri on the Hezbollah movement, or even the soon-to-be visit of Iran’s President Ahmadinejad to southern Lebanon.
What inspires at least some optimism is the report that Tehran is going to resume negotiations with “the six” (permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) later this month, as well as the position of Turkey whose premier was a star at the last UN General Assembly session, as a motive force for mutual peaceful understanding over the adopted plan of exchanging the Iranian reduced-enrichment fuel for nuclear power plants.
Another interesting thing that may be signaling a certain “thaw” is the appearance on US television of President Ahmadinejad during his visit to the General Assembly. By contrast with previous times, when an interview was either out of the question or could be shown distorted, with some fragments deleted, this time the CNN not only showed it fully but also made preliminary announcements that focused on the most important messages.
