AND NOW...HEEERE’S JIMMY!

Erosion of the Nonproliferation Treaty (Jimmy Carter, International Herald Tribune, May 2nd, 2005)

Until recently, all American presidents since Dwight Eisenhower had striven to restrict and reduce nuclear arsenals - some more than others. As far as I know, there are no present efforts by any of the nuclear powers to accomplish these crucial goals.

The United States is the major culprit in this erosion of the NPT. While claiming to be protecting the world from proliferation threats in Iraq, Libya, Iran and North Korea, American leaders not only have abandoned existing treaty restraints but also have asserted plans to test and develop new weapons, including antiballistic missiles, the earth-penetrating "bunker buster" and perhaps some new "small" bombs. They also have abandoned past pledges and now threaten first use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states.

Some corrective actions are obvious:

The United States needs to address remaining nuclear issues with Russia, demanding the same standards of transparency and verification of past arms control agreements and dismantling and disposal of decommissioned weapons. With massive arsenals still on hair-trigger alert status, a global holocaust is just as possible now, through mistakes or misjudgments, as it was during the depths of the cold war. We could address perhaps the world's greatest proliferation threat by fully securing Russia's stockpiles.

While all nuclear weapons states should agree to no first use, the United States, as the sole superpower, should take the lead on this issue.

What strikes here is not the predictable content, but the tired, ponderous and detached tone, as does with this accompanying sniffy lecture from the foreign ministers of eight of the world’s most sanctimonious nations. These guys give the age-old dream of disarmament and world peace all the cachet of a pop bottle recycling program.