Expert: New US nuclear policy “not a step toward pacifism”

London, April 20, IRNA – A senior non-proliferation expert denies new US nuclear policy is a “threat” to Iran, however, admitting that new Nuclear Posture Review “clearly is not a step toward pacifism”.

Mark Fitzpatrick, from the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London, told IRNA in an exclusive interview that the new nuclear policy of the United States “does not make Iran any more of a nuclear target now than it ever has been”.

According to the Nuclear Posture Review, done by the Obama administration, Iran has been singled out as a potential target of the US atomic attack. The document justifies the use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state for the first time since the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Fitzpatrick, however, claims that the exception in the new review just means that “Iran, and any other state in non-compliance with its NPT-required non-proliferation obligations, still does not receive the benefit of the “negative security assurance”--the promise not to employ nuclear weapons against non-nuclear armed states”.

Fitzpatrick’s comments come just a day after authorities and experts from 60 countries gathered in Tehran, despite travel restrictions created by the volcanic ash across the European airspace, to voice their support for Iran’s commitments to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regulations including the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

They also called for the nuclear disarmament of Israel and an end to Western double-standards towards independent states seeking nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

“Regardless of what the nuclear posture review says, there is absolutely no way the United States would use nuclear weapons today except if American security were directly threatened by a nuclear exchange,” Fitzpatrick said.

He moreover said that the American public would not accept the use of nuclear weapons, adding that there is no need for such an action “because of the overwhelming superiority of American conventional weapons”.

The Nuclear Posture Review also states that the US reserves the right to change the current policy in future, making the document a mere exaggeration show and boast.

“...This caveat was added largely for domestic political reasons. The Nuclear Posture Review should be seen for what it is. It signals a significant reduction in the role of nuclear weapons.”

Fitzpatrick also denied that Obama’s review of the US nuclear policies is akin to Bush’s warmongering line and rhetoric.

“Anyone who thinks the Nuclear Posture Review “toes Bush’s line” should read the harsh criticism of the new policy directed by Republican members of Congress and other right-wing domestic critics, who claim it is a naïve unilateral disarmament. Both criticisms are wrong, of course.”

He claimed that the review clearly is a “step toward disarmament, in that it reduces the role of nuclear weapons.”

However, Fitzpatrick fell short of mentioning how excluding some countries from the new nuclear policy of the United States which justifies the use of nuclear bombs against them is a step towards “reducing” the role of nuclear weapons.

“It [Nuclear Posture Review] clearly is not a step toward pacifism,” he concluded, preferring not to make any comment regarding Tehran’s conference on nuclear disarmament./end