Can we get rid of nuclear weapons, or are they here to stay, asks Mohamed Sid-Ahmed During an encounter with Swedish nuclear expert Hans Blix in Cairo a few months ago. I asked him whether he thought it might be possible one day to rid the world of nuclear weapons, bearing in mind that access to such weapons is no longer limited to the permanent members of the Security Council. Whether we like it or not, there is nothing today to guarantee that the great powers alone enjoy a monopoly over lethal weapons which are becoming more widespread and dangerous every day. The question is particularly relevant as Japan commemorates the 60th anniversary of the devastation rained on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the two atomic bombs dropped on the cities by America, killing 300,000 in each city instantly and causing untold suffering to thousands more. People usually interpret disarmament as a campaign aimed at dismantling nuclear weapons at some point down the road and, ultimately, eliminating them altogether. But that can only work if the ability to manufacture such weapons is limited to entities forming part of the international system and willing to play by its rules, which is no longer the case. For non-proliferation to work, an international authority should be formed and furnished with a military capability sufficient to deter any force from resorting to nuclear weapons and exposing humankind to total annihilation. In what I consider an unsatisfactory reply to my question, Blix said: "It is still premature to study the issues of complete disarmament. The problem for the time being is to drastically reduce the huge stocks of weapons still in the hands of a variety of parties. Then, one day, perhaps, the situation will be ripe to tackle the question you raised." It seemed to me that Blix's logic was built on a contradiction. There was the recognition, on the one hand, that disarmament was necessary and, on the other, that it could not exceed a certain threshold, i.e. that a certain amount of weapons should be retained, presumably to deter terrorists from launching attacks of the magnitude of 9/11. How to reconcile these two opposite considerations? The truth is that the issue is not only theoretical, nor does pertain only to the future. It is at the very heart of the present. Therefore, it cannot be dismissed. To illustrate what I mean, let us consider the present situation in Iran. The Iranian leaders insist that they should be able to control the whole cycle of nuclear enrichment and conversion, and that the EU proposal offering economic and political incentives in return for a suspension of certain nuclear activities negates Iran's inalienable sovereign rights. Commenting on the statement made by the leader of the US delegation to the IAEA that "the US shared its European allies' deep concern about the course Iran is taking", his Iranian counterpart, alluding to the bombing of Nagasaki, said: "The United States is the sole nuclear weapons state which had the guts to drop a bomb to kill and maim and turn into ashes millions in a split second. [It] is in no position whatsoever to tell anyone and to preach to anyone as to what they should or should not do in their nuclear programme." How can the present standoff be resolved before it leads to a showdown between Tehran and the Western capitals? The essence of the dispute lies in different readings of the prerogatives of sovereignty. As far as Iran is concerned, it is being asked to relinquish part of its sovereignty to allay Western fears. If it does, this would set a precedent for similar concessions by other states. To find a way out of the dispute we need to find a way round the rules and principles now governing the contemporary global system. One way is to resort to using what has come to be known as a "feedback process" where we try to create conditions which are the very opposite of what we aim at in order to make what we aim at easier to achieve. For example, thanks to the medical feedback test which allows a doctor to take a biopsy of a woman's breast and test it to ascertain whether or not she suffers from cancer, we have moved from a situation where we do not know for sure what the answer is to a situation where we do know. More generally, feedback is a process by which a continuing action is controlled, corrected and modified. In discussing the issue of disarmament, we have referred to two feedback models. One is represented in not pushing for total disarmament but in maintaining a reduced supply of nuclear weapons in the hands of an international body to deter any renegade forces out to violate the principles of international legitimacy. The other is not to go forward with the nuclear cycle to its ultimate conclusion and to abandon it before it attains a capability of enriching uranium for use in weapons. But before these models can be applied, several issues need to be addressed. One is to set in place guarantees to ensure that taking disarmament one step further would not disturb the global military balance to the advantage of terrorist groups. Another is to devise checks and balances to prevent the international body in charge of the world's remaining weapons from abusing the authority vested in it. How to measure such a balance, what criteria should be used and how should they be implemented? To answer such questions, it might be useful to integrate the debate into the framework of the discussions now underway for the updating and reforming of the United Nations
