On May 17, 2010, in a joint declaration, Iran, Brazil, and Turkey announced they had reached an agreement on a fuel swap. Iran would send twelve hundred kilograms of LEU to Turkey, in a single shipment, to be held in escrow while Iran’s research reactor fuel was being fabricated. It was a leap forward—particularly because it signaled the willingness of new players, Turkey and Brazil, to take an active role in resolving the diplomatic impasse.
But the very next day, in a masterstroke of diplomatic futility, the P-5+1 announced that they had reached agreement on a fourth Security Council resolution to escalate sanctions on Iran for not bringing its enrichment program to a halt. Hillary Clinton called the fuel swap deal with Turkey and Brazil a “transparent ploy” on Iran’s part to avoid new sanctions.
I was dumbstruck and, to say the least, grievously disappointed. Once again, as I noted in an interview with Jornal do Brasil, the West had refused to take yes for an answer.[27] Brazil and Turkey were outraged. Ahmadinejad urged the United States to accept the fuel swap as a move toward openness and dialogue. At the Security Council, Brazil voted against the sanctions—to no avail. The Western powers once more had touched a solution with their fingertips, only to brush it away.
When I had first proposed the fuel swap, Iran had produced about fifteen hundred kilograms of enriched uranium, so the agreement would have removed most of Iran’s inventory from the country. By the time of the agreement with Turkey and Brazil, the stock had risen to about twenty-five hundred kilograms, which of course made the agreement less attractive to the Americans as a diplomatic point of entry, since Iran would be retaining a “significant quantity.” Iran also had not committed, in the agreement, to stop enriching to 20 percent, although Ahmadinejad had hinted that they would do so.
The Western powers were not happy about these aspects of the deal, but it was obvious to me that they could easily and successfully have addressed these issues in the early stages of negotiation. It was incomprehensible and somewhat naïve to ask Iran—or any country, for that matter—to give up everything before the start of talks and expect a positive response. But the pattern was familiar: nothing would satisfy, short of Iran coming to the table completely undressed.
CONCLUSION:
THE QUEST FOR HUMAN SECURITY
The yearning for security is a universal human quality. But for nations as for individuals, the definition of security and the strategies for how to attain it vary greatly, whether the quest is to secure food, water, health care, or freedom from want—or other basic human rights (freedom of expression, freedom of worship, freedom from fear). To nations, security might mean the achievement of economic, military, or ideological dominance, or the projection of power and influence. In too many regions of the world, long-standing tensions block the path to security, and the quest to attain it must begin with their resolution.
Despite this range, it would be a mistake to think of global insecurities as disconnected. Repeatedly, we see the links: poverty is often coupled with the abuse of human rights and a lack of good governance, which in turn begets injustice, rage, and humiliation—an ideal environment for breeding violence of multiple sorts: extremism, civil strife, wars. And it is in regions of long-standing conflict—irrespective of the nature of the regime in power—where countries are most frequently driven to undergird their defenses or enhance their status through the pursuit of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. Survival is central to every regime whether democratic or authoritarian.
In the era of globalization, it is more apparent than ever that these insecurities are threats without borders. We cannot comfort ourselves that a security menace half a world away will not affect us, whether in the form of a cyber attack, a financial meltdown, a pandemic, or a theft of nuclear material. Such threats cannot be countered effectively by any one country or organization; by their nature, they demand cooperative multinational, multidimensional responses.
In the case of nuclear weapons, if the danger is to be mitigated and ultimately eliminated, it must be seen in this broad context. The threat will persist as long as the international community continues to address only the symptoms of each new nuclear proliferation challenge: waging war against one country, making a deal with a second, issuing sanctions in a third, seeking regime change in still another. So long as nuclear weapons remain a security strategy for a limited few possessor countries, with umbrella arrangements that extend that security to a secondary circle of “allied” countries; so long as others are left out in the cold, the proliferation risk will be with us. With the emergence of sophisticated extremist groups, for whom the threat of retaliation is irrelevant, the nuclear deterrent has become no more than a temporary if not delusional security strategy. Security is indivisible.
Fundamentally, this means that the international community needs to develop an alternate system of collective security, one perceived not as a zero-sum game for a given country or group of countries, but as a universal imperative rooted in the notion of human security and solidarity broadly writ. This shift in thinking is not only a moral or ethical obligation, but also one of practical necessity: as the planet’s population grows and resources become more limited, human survival will depend on how effectively we manage our interdependence.
An alternate system of collective security must be, in every respect, equitable and inclusive. We must develop strategies to share the wealth of the planet more equally—recognizing that poverty, too, is a weapon of mass destruction. We must invest deliberately in advanced science and technology to meet development needs, rather than creating products that generate more wealth for the wealthy. Current investments in technology are overwhelmingly profit driven; greater emphasis should be placed on scientific discovery and technological innovation to address hunger and disease. Only when we begin to alleviate poverty will we be able to generate momentum, in affected regions, for effective governance. When basic human needs are met, the environment is conducive for citizens to turn their focus on gaining their political, civil, and social rights.
A multinational security paradigm must rest on strong, responsive multinational institutions. If nothing else, the crises and challenges of nuclear nonproliferation that the IAEA has dealt with in recent years have revealed both the flaws of our existing multinational institutions and the contours of how to fix them. The UN Security Council, the international body charged with keeping world peace, must redirect its attention to the root causes of conflict rather than only the symptoms of insecurity. This would mean far greater emphasis on peacekeeping and peacemaking; on the early identification and prevention of disputes; on agile, effective mediation and reconciliation; and on taking ownership for resolving conflicts. Correspondingly, the council, dominated as it currently is by one or a few members of the P-5, ought to lessen its emphasis on after-the-fact coercive measures, which invariably victimize vulnerable civilians, as occurred in Iraq before the second Gulf War. The council also needs to rebuild its credibility based on consistency and fairness, eliminating the double standards linked to geopolitics or moral relativism.
On the nuclear front especially, the multinational structures for preventing, detecting, and combating proliferation require strengthening. The IAEA, as the de facto custodian of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, can be more effective in verifying nuclear programs worldwide—including detecting clandestine nuclear activities—if it is given the necessary authority, technology, funding, and, where applicable, available intelligence and other information.
27
“ElBaradei Slams West’s Rejection of the Iran-Turkey-Brazil Deal,”