The Bush administration has taken a hard line against nations it believes to be engaged in the development and pursuit of nuclear weapons. The President has publicly stated that he will not allow "the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most dangerous weapons." To that end, he has leveled harsh rhetoric against North Korea and Iran, branding them as members of the "Axis of Evil," and more recently, as "outposts of tyranny" in the world. But while the President has repeatedly declared that the proliferation of nuclear weapons to despots and terrorists alike would be "intolerable," the policies promoted by his administration make such an outcome all but inevitable.
To be fair, since September 11, the Bush administration has implemented several new measures designed to combat the flow of nuclear weapons and nuclear technology. Most notably, in May 2003, the President announced his support for the Proliferation Security Initiative, a multilateral agreement between 11 nations that, in building on the back of existing counterproliferation agreements, will further police the trafficking of weapons of mass destruction over the oceans. And after initial skepticism, the administration has finally embraced the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program in an effort to secure the ailing Soviet nuclear arsenal. The President has even exacted a pledge from several nations in the G-8 group to match Washington's $1 billion annual commitment towards stabilizing and eventually eliminating Russia's vast nuclear stockpile. Unfortunately, in the fight against nuclear proliferation, the effects of these much-needed actions have been largely overshadowed by the effects of preventive war, U.S. double standards, and general negligence.
The Bush administration's current efforts to stem the tide of nuclear proliferation are invariably influenced by the war in Iraq. The case for war was built upon the now thoroughly discredited belief that Saddam Hussein was developing a clandestine weapons of mass destruction program with the intent of attacking the United States or supplying weapons to terrorist syndicates that shared the same end. The subsequent failure to find any evidence in support of this claim has seriously compromised the President's credibility on the subject of nuclear weapons.
More important though are the immediate effects of the Iraq war on America's place in the global community. The actions of the Bush administration have shown the world that possessing nuclear weapons (or at least the possibility of possessing nuclear weapons) is the only thing that can deter U.S. aggression. The lack of any substantial national defense emboldened Bush administration officials to pursue war with Iraq despite fierce popular resistance at home and abroad, and despite any evidence suggesting Iraq was an imminent threat to U.S. national security. In contrast, when North Korea expelled IAEA nuclear inspectors and boasted that it had the capability to develop a nuclear weapon, the Bush administration refused to even classify the situation as a "crisis." The message is clear: if you have or are suspected having nuclear weapons, the United States will not attack you. This underscores an important point, nuclear weapons are defensive in nature. Historically, they have been sought to stave off aggression, not to inflict it. The policy of preventive war fosters an atmosphere in which nuclear weapons are even more appealing to rogue states. Far from provoking the United States into war, the presence of nuclear weapons all but ensures that restraint and diplomacy will prevail over a military response.
In this context, we see the logic in Iran's efforts to acquire to nuclear weapons. As a member of the "axis of evil," Iran has been constantly threatened with regime change by the United States. With nearly 140,000 American soldiers in neighboring Iraq and the possibility of preventive action from Israel, it's little wonder that Iran sought the cheapest and most effective defense available. The Bush administration has pressed hard on Iran to dissuade them from acquiring nuclear weapons, but it has done so in a unilateral way that is often inconsistent with multilateral regimes like the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Our European allies, many of whom have substantial economic ties to Iran, favor the multilateral approach. The result has been a disjointed and disorganized attempt to negotiate, with the United States imposing one set of demands and the Europeans imposing another. This lack of a unified front for combating Iran reflects the Bush administration's disdain for the international agreements and institutions that are crucial in the fight against nuclear proliferation.
The downgrading of treaties and institutions in favor of proactive counterproliferation efforts adds to the perception that the United States is an aggressive superpower that cannot be constrained or contained, thereby strengthening the resolve of rogue states to acquire nuclear weapons as their only line of defense. Even while the administration speaks out frequently about the dangers of nuclear proliferation around the world, it has announced plans to spend millions of dollars to develop and test a new generation of American nuclear weapons and technology. These include new "bunker buster" bombs, anti-satellite weapons and anti-ballistic missiles as part of the national missile defense program. The President watered down yet another promise when he reneged on the United States' longstanding commitment not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear members of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. He has refused to ask the Senate to reconsider the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. President Clinton's promises to implement START II and preserve the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty were nullified when President Bush withdrew from the AMB Treaty. Talks to renew the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT, begin in May, but the Bush administration and other nuclear powers are reported to be unconcerned about its future. If the NPT is abandoned, its demise could pave the way for an unprecedented explosion of nuclear weapons proliferation across the globe.
We simply cannot with impunity tell other nations that they can't have nuclear weapons when we ourselves are building more, and have an arsenal of over 10,000. If America is ignoring its treaty commitments and continuing to develop nuclear weapons, what reason is there for states like North Korea and Iran not to do the same, especially when the Bush administration openly flouts its policy of preventive war?
