Strong-Arming Iran May Make Nukes Attractive as ‘Ultimate Security’ For Some Nations: Ex-IAEA Chief

New Delhi: Israel's attack on Iran and its nuclear facilities, seen against the backdrop of Tel Aviv and US President Donald Trump's ‘unwarranted’ suspicions that Tehran is pursuing nuclear weapons, signals to the world's countries that their “ultimate security” lies precisely in developing such weapons, a former chief of the UN-linked nuclear watchdog has warned.

The attack, said Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed El Baradei, is “prohibited by international law”, while Trump's ask that Iran unconditionally surrender and that Tehran “forgo a treaty right” in giving up its nuclear enrichment programme is a “clear act of national humiliation”.

El Baradei was referring to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that seeks to stem the spread of nuclear weapons. Iran is a party to the treaty, of whose Article IV says parties have an “inalienable right” to “develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes”.

Iran has a nuclear enrichment programme and denies that it is pursuing nuclear weapons, but Trump has said his administration “will not allow any enrichment of uranium” by Tehran. The latter has interpreted Article IV to include the ‘right to enrich’, but the US differs.

The Israeli attack and Trump's demands are premised on a “suspicion that it [Iran] is developing nuclear weapons (possessed by both #Israel and #US), [a] suspicion that does not constitute an “imminent threat” as confirmed by all western intelligence agencies and was dealt with through negotiations” for the Iran nuclear deal of 2015, the diplomat added in his X post.

In March, the US's director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard had said that her country's intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader [Khamenei] has not authorised the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003”.

However, Trump earlier this week said he does not care what Gabbard said and that he thought Iran was “very close” to having nuclear weapons.

When the 2015 nuclear deal was struck, then-US President Barack Obama said he thought it would prevent Iran from running secret nuclear programmes.

“To rely on force and not negotiations,” El Baradei said, “is a sure way to destroy the #NPT and the nuclear non-proliferation regime (imperfect as it is) and sends a clear message to many countries that their “ultimate security” is to develop nuclear weapons!!!”.

During its ‘Operation Rising Lion’, Israel has struck among other targets Iran's nuclear facilities, something the IAEA has confirmed.

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