It’s Not Iran: It’s Al-Qaida

Regardless of how much France, Germany and, especially, the United States are bothered by Iran’s nuclear program, the fact is that the National Security Summit in Washington did not make Iran the primary target, but al-Qaida, which has been made a synonym for global terrorism.

This is not subjective or privileged information. President Obama himself, in conversation with journalists interspersed by the hyperactive White House press, made it clear that the possibility of a terrorist organization obtaining nuclear weapons is “the single biggest threat to U.S. security, both short-term, medium-term and long-term … “

More clarity is not possible. However, the U.S. president still gave other indications, equal in clarity, about his concerns on such matters in a speech given to his fellow chiefs of state. “Two decades after the end of the Cold War, we face a cruel irony of history,” Obama said, “The risk of a nuclear confrontation between nations has gone down, but the risk of a nuclear attack has gone up.”

Ben Rhodes of the U.S. National Security Council, an adviser who worked voraciously in the now-concluded summit, further explicated, “Terrorist organizations, in contrast to governments, can not be deterred from using nuclear weapons*” (if they are obtained, of course).

This is an allusion to what is called the “equilibrium of terror” that has paralyzed nations in possession of atomic bombs since the end of World War II (1939-1945). “Equilibrium” is a reference to the fact that it was not deemed feasible for a nuclear attack to be so devastating as to impede a country from counterattack also using an atomic bomb, thereby causing equal or greater devastation to the attacker.

Terrorist groups, in contrast to governments, do not fear being attacked for the simple reason that they are not in possession of a territory to defend and are not worried about civilians in their vicinity. Those civilians would be the most affected victims in a counterattack.

In view of this, it remains crystal clear that it is more productive to secure all nuclear material by implementing security measures that limit or impede the ability of non-state organizations (another name for terrorists) to obtain the means to build and launch a bomb.

Easy to say, hard to do. Take into consideration, as Obama stated at the summit that, “Nuclear materials that could be sold or stolen and fashioned into a nuclear weapon exist in dozens of nations.” And, according to Obama, “Just the smallest amount of plutonium — about the size of an apple — could kill and injure hundreds of thousands of innocent people.”

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, also present at the summit in Washington, gave his own estimation of the number of radioactive plants in Brazil, remembering that, after the accident with cesium-137 in Goiânia (1987), the Brazilian government reinforced and updated their regulatory authority, the National Nuclear Energy Commission. Today, they “exercise strict control over more than 50,000 radioactive plants utilized for numerous peaceful activities in Brazil, in such areas as medicine, industrial technology, and research” said the Brazilian President.

It is a clear measure of the size of the challenge; in a sensible statement made by the Brazilian president to his peers, “The most efficient way to reduce the risk of non-state organizations utilizing nuclear explosives is the complete and irreversible elimination of all nuclear arsenals.”

This is Obama’s declared objective, but he himself has already admitted that this definitive solution will not occur during his lifetime. Being that he is young (not quite 49 years old), the world will have to deal with this nightmare for a substantial amount of time.

* Editor’s Note: This quote, as translated, could not be verified.