Obama's foreign policy is dominated by Iran and therefore by Israel, deduces Graham Usher in New York Whatever the practical impact of the Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) held in Washington last week, it consecrated one fact: the emergence of a distinctly Barack Obama foreign policy free from the Iraq and Afghan legacies of his predecessor George W Bush. The "cornerstone" of that policy is a revamped Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT), says Obama. It's driven by his belief that the "single biggest threat" to American and global security is potential "nuclear terrorism" by groups like Al-Qaeda and/or proliferation by "outlier" states that, like North Korea, have abandoned the NPT or, like Iran, are in alleged violation of it or, like Syria, are impugned to have "nuclear ambitions" beyond it. The fear of a nuclear armed Iran pervades all parts of the policy. Prior to the NSS Obama unveiled the so-called Nuclear Posture Review (NPR): a new strategy document where the United States pledges to reduce its nuclear arsenal, refrain from nuclear testing and ever-so-slightly narrow the circumstances in which it would go to nuclear war. But the key warning is to Tehran. The US "will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons' states that are party to the NPT and in compliance with their non-proliferation obligations", says the document, even were those states to attack it with biological and/or chemical weapons. The flip side of course is the US could use nuclear arms against non-nuclear weapons' states like Iran that are in alleged NPT violation, even were they not to attack the US. This at least is how the clause was read by Iran. "Such inflammatory statements ... are tantamount to nuclear blackmail against a non-nuclear weapon state signatory to the" NPT, railed Mohammed Khazaee, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations. He called on the UN to "strongly oppose (this) threat of the use of nuclear weapons". The uninvited Iran likewise dominated the NSS. While the 47 participant countries agreed non-binding vows to lockdown "loose" nuclear materials within four years, Obama met Chinese President Hu Jintao in the wings. Hu finally agreed to join discussions on a possible fourth round of UN Security Council sanctions against Iran without, however, making any pledge to support them. Not surprisingly -- the differences between the two global powerhouses are wide. The US wants a new UNSC resolution hard enough to deter Iran from going for any nuclear weapons capability, with sanctions on its energy, shipping, financial, arms and Islamic Revolutionary Guard sectors. China -- and to a lesser extent Russia -- want sanctions so mild they leave untouched their immense economic and military ties to the Islamic Republic. Both countries raised objections to "pretty much" everything in the US-drafted sanctions resolution, said one diplomat. The outcome is likely to be a resolution stronger than previous rounds but not as strong as the US, Britain, France and Germany would wish. For now that probably will do. The importance of the resolution was "less the specific content than the isolation of Iran by the rest of the world," said US Defence Secretary Robert Gates on 14 April. It was partially to break out of that isolation that Iran held its own international conference on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation in Tehran on 16-17 April. Entitled "nuclear energy for everyone, nuclear weapons for no one" it was a rejoinder to the NPR and sanctions discussions. But it was also a dress rehearsal for the NPT review conference in New York next month, which Iran will attend, together with 200 other governments, overwhelmingly non-nuclear and non-aligned. There Tehran will make one fundamental charge: the "double standards" of Western nuclear armed states sanctioning a non-nuclear armed state and NPT signatory like Iran while doing little to cut their own nuclear arsenals and granting billions in military aid to India, Pakistan and Israel, all three non-NPT signatories and currently expanding their nuclear weapons production. Iran will also revive the call for a nuclear-weapons free Middle East. Both calls will resonate. That is why Obama's signature foreign policy of isolating Iran has become increasingly tied to attempts to revive a Middle East peace process. At the NSS he became only the latest American leader to underscore how failure to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict hurt US interests in the region. "It is a vital national security interest of the US to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower," he said. "And when conflicts break out, one way or another, we get pulled into them. And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure." He also made the even rarer utterance of mentioning Israel and the NPT in the same breath. "Whether we're talking about Israel or any other country, we think becoming part of the NPT is important." For the American president the logic is unassailable: isolating Iran requires Arab support and Arab support requires progress in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which now hinges on Israel halting settlement in occupied East Jerusalem. For the current Israeli government the logic is the reverse: peace will be possible, if at all, only after "the West" has removed the threat posed by Iran. As for nuclear disarmament, that will never be possible. Pro-American Arab states are obliged to watch this struggle for influence in the region like extras in their own historical drama. For their peoples only one thing will count: the seriousness with which the US goes about containing the alleged nuclear ambitions of Iran will be measured by the seriousness with which it contains Israel's actual colonisation of the Arab occupied territories.
