Council for a Livable World

The Obama administration will take part directly in international negotiations with Iran aimed at ending Teheran’s nuclear program. It is the latest move in a shift in U. S. policy toward Iran, a very positive step toward direct engagement with Iran th…

John just had another great article published by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, this time on a strategy for Senate approval of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). One of the major priorities for the arms control community in the upcoming yea…

Scott Murphy’s special election race in New York still has months to go before it could compete with the long drawn out Senate race in Minnesota, but as of yet, neither have been decided. Minnesota’s progressive Al Franken has not yet been seated after…

What a week for arms control.

Amid the cacophony of voices out there on arms control discussing issues from North Korea’s recent missile test to allegations against Iran, and just days after his joint announcement with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev to pursue a successor to START, President Obama’s voice rang loud and clear this weekend in Prague when he gave what could be the most significant speech of the nuclear age.

Just one highlight?

“As the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act. We cannot succeed in this endeavor alone, but we can lead it, we can start it…I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”

Not only did he call for a world free of nuclear weapons, but he explicitly outlined steps that reverse the Bush administration policy that made nuclear weapons a central tenet of American national security.  

These steps included:

–A new treaty with Russia this year to reduce nuclear warheads and stockpiles – and then to move to further cuts with the other nuclear powers;
— “Immediately and aggressively” pursuing ratification of a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty;
–Ending the production of fissile materials that can be used in nuclear weapons;
–Strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty;
–Expanding international inspections to detect treaty violations;
–Securing all vulnerable nuclear material around the world within four years;
–Hosting a Global Summit on Nuclear Security within the next year.

Want to write a letter to your members of Congress, asking them to support this plan? Click here.

To read the entire speech, click here.

 

It is difficult, even impossible, to accept President Obama’s “New strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan” as described by him in a formal speech on March 27. It fails by imperial and non-imperial standards.

First the imperial: Chalmers Johnson, a former CIA agent, reports in his book Nemesis: “The Carter administration deliberately provoked the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan…In his 1996 memoir, former CIA Director Robert Gates acknowledges that the American intelligence services began to aid the anti-Soviet mujahideen guerillas not after the Russian invasion but six months before it…President Carter’s purpose was to provoke a full-scale Soviet military intervention…to tie…down the USSR.” Will an expanded military effort in Afghanistan tie down the U.S. as it did the USSR?

Obama plans a U.S. military effort in Afghanistan lasting at least five years in a country 50% larger than Iraq in area and population. The NATO allied forces are token in size and commitment and rarely leave their base camps. A serious U.S. military effort will require at least 250,000 troops tied down in Afghanistan/Pakistan. Will America be unable to react to other challenges as they arise especially its obligations, to protect Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Israel, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Iraq, to deter Iran from a nuclear program, to support Pakistan from collapse; etc..

The invasion of Iraq could be justified on imperial grounds because it is strategically situated in the heart of the largest concentration of oil in the world. Afghanistan has no comparable resource, one of the poorest countries, no industry, little farming, rugged terrain, a land of banditry and bribery.

The adventure fails from a non- imperial perspective. Obama says “That country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can.” None of the 19 people who perpetrated the September 11 criminal tragedy were Afghan or Taliban. Fifteen of them were Saudi. There are no Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan any longer. Osama bin Laden and what is left of his crew is in hiding somewhere in the wilderness of Pakistan. The Al Qaeda operation is scattered and disorganized. Yes, another 19 thugs could infiltrate the U.S. and kill Americans, but sending an army into Afghanistan is not going to prevent another such criminal act. In fact, the hyped war in Afghanistan is more likely to divert us from protecting ourselves against another September 11.

This post originally appeared on Relentless Liberal on March 29, 2009.