Peter Jenkins on Gareth Porter’s New Book
Posted: January 31, 2014 Filed under: Nuclear 6 CommentsPeter Jenkins, former UK Ambassador to the IAEA and friend of ACL, has written a fascinating review of Gareth Porter’s newly released book Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare over at LobeLog. Basically, this book is Porter’s narrative of the history of Iran’s nuclear program and the dispute over it between Iran and the West. Porter, who by all accounts is a well respected, independent journalist of long and productive career, has been working on the subject of this book since 2006. I have not yet read the book myself, but will be ordering my copy straightaway. Peter’s review and description make me eager to read what promises to be a very useful independent analysis of the causes of the crisis.
Along with a truly excellent research assistant, I am currently working myself on a narrative history of Iran’s nuclear program and the dispute surrounding it, that will eventually comprise the first chapter of my forthcoming book Iran’s Nuclear Program and International Law.
Arms Control Law 
The central factor behind the ongoing Iran “crisis” is the formation of the US security state in 1947. The US (uniquely in the world) became a militarized state beginning with the National Security Act of 1947, which led to the rise of a national security bureaucracy within the executive branch. American thinking about national security was transformed by this Act and the military establishment rose to prominence, even predominance, in American life.
A national security state requires enemies, and Iran is one of the convenient states serving that purpose. The evidence that Iran is a US state enemy goes beyond and precedes the current nuclear matter. It started with Iran’s appropriation of British petroleum interests in Iran, and has been extended to include other specious charges including not only Iran’s benign nuclear program but also human rights and the charge that Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. These latest concocted charges have all served as the reason for US sanctions and the creation of “evidence” for the manufactured crisis. (Iran can’t be militarily attacked, as other US enemies have been, because it’s too strong.)
on Orwell’s 1984, from wiki:
During one particular Hate Week, Oceania switched allies while a public speaker is in the middle of a sentence, though the disruption was minimal: the posters against the previous enemy were deemed to be “sabotage” of Hate Week conducted by Emmanuel Goldstein and his supporters, summarily torn down by the crowd, and quickly replaced with propaganda against the new enemy, thus demonstrating the ease with which the Party directs the hatred of its members.
Perhaps we could find a new enemy as a substitute for Iran, a new manufactured crisis, since it’s not working very well? 🙂
I’m so proud to have helped Kickstart Gareth Porter’s book, and look forward to supporting your book when it is published, Dan.
The other day I had an experience that demonstrated the need for more books like Porter’s and yours — Six military leaders spoke at a local library, on the invitation of the library & the town’s World Affairs Council.
They were dreadful.
The audience was mostly old folks like me, but half-a-dozen high school students also attended and asked very astute questions. They got lousy answers, but to their credit, the students politely but articulately pushed back against the nonsense answers. For example, the Navy civil engineer, and admiral, who “explained” US nuclear policy, and why Iran is a nuclear rogue, used the word/concept “deterrence” at least 8 times: “US maintains a nuclear weapons arsenal for deterrence; US must design and build more nuclear weapons for deterrence …”
A student said, “But don’t other nations also see the need for nuclear deterrence, and doesn’t that create a cycle …”
The Navy man tossed a word salad but did not answer the question.
An adult member of the audience schooled the admiral as well as the student: “The NPT is the treaty designed to break the cycle; IAEA oversees NPT, which applies equally to USA and every other nuclear state. USA is NOT the enforcement mechanism of NPT. By your own admission, Admiral, that US is building, rather than destroying its nuclear stockpile as is required by NPT, Iran is more in compliance with the terms of NPT than is USA.”
The admiral was not amused.
It is not clear if the students took in all the information.
It IS clear that the older members of the audience were extremely annoyed with the member of the audience who had the audacity to correct and even scold the Members of the Military. Those uniforms lend authority.
We, the people, as well as those military “authority figures” desperately need expert and informed authority such as your books, not uniforms and badges, to bolster arguments concerning foreign & nuclear policy.
https://www.securityconference.de/en/media-library/single/video/panel-discussion-iran/
Interesting and Amano’s wrong understanding of the NPT!
What was the wrong understanding?
He wants Iran’s CSA to include undeclared sites. If you have monitored ACL debates and read Yousaf and Dan’ articles you would know that the director in 1993 never was able to have “completeness”added to the agreement with states to mean undeclared sites. I think at least the Brazilian objected to it. It is not in the CSA, it is not part of the agreement. He also ventured into checking military sites, again Yousaf and Dan have written on this plenty.
He’s not “wrong” — he’s deliberately misrepresenting it. They like to pretend that their idea of the expanded IAEA verification role is already a ‘fact on the ground’ was was always like this, because they know it wouldn’t be approved by the IAEA Board if it was ever actually put up for a vote.