Israel Matzav

US part of conspiracy of silence on Syrian nuke program

Graham Allison, the director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School and author of "Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe" (Times Books, 2004), and Olli Heinonen, the former deputy director of the IAEA and a senior fellow at the Belfer Center, point out an unintended consequence of Israel's (alleged) destruction of Syria's al-Kibar nuclear plant a little more than three years ago. Since the plant was destroyed by Israel over the protests of then-IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei, rather than 'discovered' by the IAEA, the nations of the world are ignoring the fact that destroying the plant did not necessarily destroy the program. Syria is refusing to cooperate with IAEA inspections, and the 'international community' - led by the United States - has entered into a conspiracy of silence about the issue.

The United States has joined other major powers in a dangerous conspiracy of silence on Syria's nuclear program. Syria foreswore nuclear weapons when it ratified the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1969. To assure the world that it is fulfilling that commitment, Syria also signed a safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1992.

Yet Syria was able to secretly buy a nuclear reactor from North Korea, a country facing the most restrictive sanctions regime in the world. If Israel had not bombed the Al-Kibar reactor site in an air strike in September 2007, it would be producing plutonium by now for Syria's first nuclear bomb.

But this violation of Syria's treaty commitments was not discovered by IAEA inspectors. And the program was not halted by the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. So it has been convenient for world powers to let Syria slip off the radar and to move on as if these events had not occurred.

It is by no means certain that Damascus has given up its nuclear ambitions. Since November 2008, nine IAEA reports (the latest released last month) have documented Syria's noncompliance with its requests for more details about its nuclear program.

Read the whole thing. President Obumbler is more interested in 'engaging' with Syria than in stopping their nuclear ambitions. Just like with Iran. The two countries' nuclear programs are just inconvenient facts he'd rather ignore.

What could go wrong?

Labels: al-Kibar, Barack Obama, IAEA, nuclear proliferation, Syrian nuclear program

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:26 PM