Open Letter to the Permanent Five Members of the Security Council

on the IAEA reporting Iran to the Security Council

February 4, 2006

Dear Ambassadors,

Tensions over Iran’s nuclear program have been mounting for months, and now the International Atomic Energy Agency has just reported Iran to the Security Council. You can increase the tension or choose the path of peace. Threatening Iran is not working, and continuing this strategy will unite the Iranian population in defiance of your threats. With a full understanding of the situation, the only rational path forward is to peacefully address its root causes. The stakes are too high.

We, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, work every day for peace in a world constantly being pushed to war, injustice, hunger, and destruction of the planet. We have been working for total and universal disarmament, including the abolition of nuclear weapons, since man made the bomb. We understand that if Iran masters the full nuclear fuel cycle as it intends, this could provide the material for a nuclear weapon. Although we do not know if it intends to develop nuclear weapons, it is a possibility. The prospect of another nuclear weapon state is devastating, and the potential for a new arms race in the Middle East even more so. There is no justification for developing or keeping these suicidal, genocidal and ecocidal weapons, and the international community cannot accept one. Iran must not develop nuclear weapons, and after years of hiding its nuclear energy program it must show the international community it does not plan to do so.

However, you are also all culpable in the current situation, and we hold you accountable. In order to solve this problem, you must address your own roles in it.

You are stoking the fires of hysteria over an artificial urgency you created. Conservative estimates put Iran 10 years from making a nuclear weapon, if that is their intention. Still, three of you could not wait even one month to report Iran to the Security Council, turning a concern into a crisis. You interrupted negotiations on the compromise to move the potential bomb-making part of the fuel cycle to Russia, a compromise you claimed to support. Then, even though the International Atomic Energy Agency planned to distribute the findings of its investigation on March 6, you called an emergency meeting of the Board, preempting the regularly scheduled meeting by a single month. As a result, Iran is restricting international access to its nuclear sites and resuming all activities it had suspended, just as they said they would.

Worse, for years you have held on to your own nuclear weapons, even after the Cold War ended. You have increased their importance in your security plans. If you want governments around the world and the people of your own countries to believe you when you object to nuclear weapons, you must get rid of your own. Otherwise it is clear that you just want to maintain your monopoly on power, at the risk of the planet’s security.

Since you refused to get rid of the weapons as you promised the world, and your own people, states without such weapons made a reasonable request. They asked you to legally promise never to use nuclear weapons against them, when they had the moral character to choose not to acquire such weapons for themselves. But even though your justification for keeping these weapons has been to deter other countries with nuclear weapons, you refuse to make this international law.

In fact, two of you have recently threatened to use your nuclear weapons against states without nuclear weapons. Is it any wonder some states without such weapons believe what you have been saying for years—that the best deterrent is having such weapons themselves? Our parents taught us long ago not to trust people whose motto is “do as I say, not do as I do”. As you tell Iran to build the international community’s trust and uphold international law, you must also add to confidence in the rule of law, not force. Give legal assurances to countries without nuclear weapons that you will never use your nuclear weapons against them.

In addition to this global power struggle, we cannot ignore the regional power struggle in the Middle East. Iran and Israel have been lobbing threats at each other. Other Middle Eastern countries do not want a nuclear Iran, but also detest Israel’s presumed nuclear weapon status. The international community agrees the Middle East should be free of weapons of mass destruction, and the UN General Assembly and parties to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty have unanimously supported this. Israel has said it will work towards this goal once the Middle East peace process is complete.

Although the International Atomic Energy Agency Board resolution reporting Iran to you recognizes that a solution to the Iran issue would contribute to the goal of a Middle East without weapons of mass destruction, you are not working through the peace process, and are not including Israel. It is incredibly sad that you are using the threat of violence instead of working for peace to achieve your goal. It is frightening that the appearance of hypocrisy could truly divide the world. The only solution is to fairly address the regional dimension by addressing all nuclear programs equally, and finally putting real work into a nuclear weapon free Middle East.

Listen to us: You cannot crush this threat with war. You cannot crush this threat with violence. You cannot drop bombs from airplanes and make this go away. The only answer is to do the hard work of peace.

Sincerely,

The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom