A bitterly partisan Washington is unlikely to give Obama votes he needs to ratify treaties, writes PATRICK SMYTH
FOR MANY Obama watchers, the healthcare triumph has been a bittersweet moment. Yes, those who hope the US administration will deliver on a number of treaty pledges will have been pleased to see Obama deliver a majority. But the reality that not a single Republican was part of that majority and that politics is again mired in bitter partisanship has put a serious damper on expectations.
Not least on hopes that US leadership could give a boost to ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) ahead of May’s important five-yearly review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the global pact that has contained the spread of nuclear weapons for decades. Senate rules require 67 votes for the treaty ratification – at least eight Republicans – now seen as an unlikely prospect ahead of the mid-term elections.
The same is true of the landmark cuts in strategic nuclear warheads, from 2,200 to 1,550, which the US and Russia announced yesterday they have agreed in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start) talks, and which Republicans are also vowing to block in Congress.
As Tibor Toth, the Hungarian secretary general of the CTBT, in Dublin this week for talks with the Department of Foreign Affairs, points out, progress on both treaties is crucial in setting the scene for the NPT meeting. Its review conference in 2005 failed in large measure because of anger among non-nuclear states that the nuclear powers, while seeking new commitments from the former on issues like trade in fissionable materials and restrictions on their ability to develop nuclear power, had failed to honour their treaty obligation to reduce their nuclear armories.
Indeed, the last decade has seen precious little movement on nuclear disarmament while threats from rogue states like Iran and North Korea have risen. Tangible progress on Start and CTBT would help the non-nuclear states embrace other aspects of the NPT. As Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin argued recently in Geneva, “Satisfactory conclusion to the Start . . . would undoubtedly establish a solid foundation for good faith negotiations in May on practical, concrete, transparent and verifiable steps. ”
Toth argues that US ratification of CTBT would also help to unlock at least some of nine ratifications that are required for the treaty to come into force. Diplomats suggest China and Indonesia may well be ready to follow the US, while Israel and Egypt may be willing to move if they see progress in Middle East peace talks. (The other CTBT hold-outs remain India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Iran – precisely, of course, those countries the world would most like to see engaged).
One of the bright moments in recent conventional arms reduction agreements remains the signing of the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) in May 2008 in which Ireland played a leading role. Irish diplomats are also actively engaged in preparations for the NPT which, as Martin most proprietorially pointed out on its 40th anniversary this month, was very much Frank Aiken’s baby.
At the May conference Ireland is expected to play a central role in the strand of discussions on the aspiration for a Middle East nuclear-weapons-free zone, although only the most optimistic would expect substantial progress on the issue. It is also contributing actively to the preparation of the joint EU position on the conference, due to be signed off on by ministers next week; and to the work of two groups of concerned states, the Vienna Ten, and the New Agenda Coalition (NAC), which includes Brazil, Egypt, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa and Sweden.
The latter, in particular, was responsible for an important initiative known as the “13 Practical Steps for systematic and progressive nuclear disarmament”, agreed at the 2000 conference, and seen as a benchmarking tool against which the, admittedly slight, progress can be measured at the May meeting.
The NAC has set out an ambitious agenda: it wants nuclear-weapon states to commit to military doctrines compatible with the goals and objectives of the treaty – such as rejecting low thresholds for use of nukes – and to reduce the operational readiness weapons. It also wants universal adherence to the treaty; the establishment of further nuclear-weapon-free zones; legally binding security assurances to non-nuclear-weapon states; steps to ban production of fissile material for nuclear weapons and to ensure its verifiable removal from them; as well as further action on transparency, accountability and confidence-building measures.
There are some 20,000 nuclear weapons around the globe today, capable of blowing us all to smithereens many times over – many of them are tactical battlefield weapons held in Europe by the US and Russia. Both the glacial pace and arcane nature of disarmament talks should not blind us in our European post-cold war complacency to the urgency of the challenge at hand. Ireland’s vigorous engagement is a welcome moral assertion of our independent and internationalist foreign policy.