This is one of those scenarios that’s almost too scary to even think about, but it’s so serious, it can’t be overlooked.
In his 2002 SOTU, Bush seemed to have his priorities straight. “The United States of America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the worlds’ most destructive weapons,” he said.
Last week, however, Bush seems to have changed his mind. Over the weekend, the Washington Post ran an item on its front page that explained that the Bush administration is effectively no longer concerned with nuclear proliferation.
In a significant shift in U.S. policy, the Bush administration announced this week that it will oppose provisions for inspections and verification as part of an international treaty that would ban production of nuclear weapons materials.
For several years the United States and other nations have pursued the treaty, which would ban new production by any state of highly enriched uranium and plutonium for weapons. At an arms-control meeting this week in Geneva, the Bush administration told other nations it still supported a treaty, but not verification.
It’s hard to say how insane this is, but the Post hinted, in a rather understated way, why this is such a disaster.
Arms-control specialists reacted negatively, saying the change in U.S. position will dramatically weaken any treaty and make it harder to prevent nuclear materials from falling into the hands of terrorists. The announcement, they said, also virtually kills a 10-year international effort to lure countries such as Pakistan, India and Israel into accepting some oversight of their nuclear production programs.
The announcement at the U.N.-sponsored Conference on Disarmament comes several months after President Bush declared it a top priority of his administration to prevent the production and trafficking in nuclear materials, and as the administration works to blunt criticism by Democrats and others that it has failed to work effectively with the United Nations and other international bodies on such vital global concerns.
“The president has said his priority is to block the spread of nuclear materials to rogue states and terrorists, and a verifiable ban on the production of such materials is an essential part of any such strategy,” said Daryl Kimball, director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association. “Which is why it is so surprising and baffling that the administration is not supporting a meaningful treaty.”
All my faves summarized their concerns nicely. Digby called the move “shocking” and “totally bizarre.” Kevin Drum said the policy “makes no sense.” Matt Yglesias said he saw the Post story and “was so shocked I didn’t know what to say.” Laura Rozen was probably the most astute, concluding, “This administration is insane. I have no words.”
But taking a broader look at the nuclear threat, the National Journal’s Stuart Taylor, who could hardly be described as a liberal, wrote a tremendous item for The Atlantic detailing how Bush has taken a series of steps that have increased the threat of nuclear terrorism.
Two and a half years [after the 2002 SOTU], one member of the “axis of evil” that Bush denounced in the same speech, North Korea, may have as many as eight nuclear bombs and be on its way to making about a dozen a year, with every intention of selling them to terrorists and other willing bidders.
A second member of the axis of evil, Iran’s terrorist-sponsoring Islamic regime, is racing toward a bomb-making capability while thumbing its nose at Europe and the United States. The third member, Iraq, turns out to have had no substantial nuclear weapons program when Bush invaded, contrary to the prewar Bush-Cheney hype and the more measured, but also mistaken, suspicions of the world’s major intelligence agencies.
Our unstable, nuclear-armed ally Pakistan, caught last year running a black market in weapons designs and equipment, is crawling with Qaeda sympathizers. And the 178-nation Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty regime is at risk of collapsing into a chain reaction of regimes going nuclear.
“On the current course, if everybody just keeps doing what we’re doing, a nuclear terrorist attack is inevitable,” Graham Allison, perhaps the nation’s leading expert on nuclear terrorism, told several hundred people in his June 22 closing address at a two-day conference on nuclear nonproliferation sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “If the U.S. government and others just keep doing what we’re doing, a nuclear 9/11 is more likely than not in the decade ahead.”
It’s probably not a good idea for Bush to raise the whole “are you better off than you were four years ago” question.
Would John Kerry do better? Allison thinks so. “Bush has had his turn at bat, and you can see the results,” he said, “and John Kerry is eager to show that he can hit this ball.” Allison expressed confidence that Kerry would make nonproliferation a “real presidential priority” and “do everything physically and technically possible on the fastest possible timetable to prevent” proliferation and nuclear terrorism.
90 days until the election…