Antiwar.com Blog

According to the US and Israel, it does.

In a rare vote, the UN General Assembly passed a UN atomic watchdog resolution calling on all Middle East nations to renounce atomic weapons. Since the US and the West have been pushing to stop nuclear proliferation in the region, especially Iran, you would think they would have supported and applauded the vote.

Not so. The US, Israel, and most of the EU either opposed or abstained on the vote. On the other hand, most Arab nations and Iran supported it.

So what’s the problem?

One clause urged all nations in the Middle East, pending creation of a nuclear weapons-free zone (NWFZ) there, not to make or test nuclear arms or let them be deployed on their soil. The other urged big nuclear arms powers not to foil such a step. “The new language threatened to bring new political issues into the IAEA that would ultimately detract from the technical role the IAEA plays in safeguarding nuclear material,” said a Western diplomat whose delegation abstained.

That argument is not only faulty, it is empty. The only nation in the Mideast to possess a nuclear arsenal is Israel. And the nation with the largest nuclear arsenal in the world that is not subject to IAEA inspection is, again, Israel. That is because Israel has refused to sign any international nuclear treaties.

I don’t understand the double standard. I am Jewish, but I don’t believe that Israel has special rights to possess Weapons of Mass Destruction while at the same time threatening to attack nations that may desire the same.

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/07_09_19_clemons.mp3]

MP3 here. (44:54)

Steve Clemons, director of the Strategies Program at the New America Foundation and author of the influential blog TheWashingtonNote, discusses his view that the president is seeking a “third option” and is not yet on board with Dick Cheney’s plan to bomb Iran.

Clemons also breaks the story that in a personal discussion with former South Korean President Kim De-Jung on Tuesday he was told that the current South Korean Foreign Minister has informed him that their government believes there is no merit at all to the recent claims that the North Koreans have been working with Syria on nuclear technology and that this is an effort by the neoconservatives to derail the six-party talks.

Steven Clemons directs the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, which aims to promote a new American internationalism that combines a tough-minded realism about America’s interests in the world with a pragmatic idealism about the kind of world order best suited to America’s democratic way of life. He is also a Senior Fellow at New America, and previously served as Executive Vice President.

Publisher of the popular political blog The Washington Note, Mr. Clemons is a long-term policy practitioner and entrepreneur in Washington, D.C. He has served as Executive Vice President of the Economic Strategy Institute, Senior Policy Advisor on Economic and International Affairs to Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and was the first Executive Director of the Nixon Center.

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/charles/aw20070918aneeshramen.mp3]

Aneesh Raman, CNN’s Middle East correspondent, from Baghdad, discusses Blackwater’s and other mercenaries’ impunity in Iraq and the farce of Iraqi and for that matter American sovereignty over their behavior and the possibility of war with Iran and why it’s a bad idea.

MP3 here. (14:00)

Aneesh Raman is CNN’s Middle East correspondent, based in the network’s Cairo Bureau, a position he has held since November 2006. Prior to moving to Cairo, Raman was based in Baghdad as a correspondent from June 2005. While there, Raman extensively covered the on-going conflict in the region, including the political process, the trial, verdict and sentencing of Saddam Hussein. He was also embedded with US forces and reported on the impact on the Iraqi people of the nation’s on-going struggle.

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/07_09_17_porter.mp3]

Historian and reporter Gareth Porter discusses the lack of evidence for the Cheney regime’s accusations about Iran engaging in a “proxy war” against the U.S. in Iraq, Centcom commander Admiral Fallon’s distaste for the “chickensh*t” General Petraeus and opposition to war with Iran, Badr-Sadr and the Maliki government, Rice’s capitulation to Cheney and the lack of any real organized opposition to the next war.

MP3 here. (54:43)

Gareth Porter is an independent historian and foreign policy analyst. He is also a Foreign Policy In Focus scholar. His book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, is published in May 2005 by University of California Press.

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/07_09_17_eisenberg2.mp3]

Carolyn Eisenberg of Historians Against the War and United for Peace and Justice discusses the state of the current American antiwar movement and how best to pressure the Congress.

MP3 here. (38:24)

Carolyn Eisenberg is a professor of history at Hofstra University and a visiting professor at Dartmouth College. She is the author of Drawing the Line: The American Decision to Divide Germany.

It’s always about the war with you, isn’t it, Charles?