Editorials

UN, IAEA, IMF: instruments of US imperialism

Editor

Muharram 06, 14332011-12-01

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There are a host of organizations — the United Nations (UN) with its Security Council, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) — that are touted as world bodies whose function is to maintain peace, security and stability — financial and nuclear — in the world. The UN and IMF were created around the time of World War II. The UN with the Security Council, was meant to preserve Western domination of global politics; the IMF is the financial arm while the IAEA, established in 1957 is supposed to provide safety and security, promote science and technology and provide safeguards and verification for nuclear material.

The UN, especially the Security Council with five veto-wielding members, is anything but democratic. It is outrageous to suggest that the five permanent members represent the collective wisdom of all humanity. The Security Council is little more than a blunt instrument for Western, primarily US imperialist designs. When the US cannot use the Council to advance its own militaristic agenda, as happened in 2003 vis-à-vis Iraq, then it contemptuously ignores it. And the IMF is used to rob the countries in Asia and Africa of their precious resources by offering financial and fiscal “advice” that is designed to impoverish the inidigenous peoples by having them pay for the resources that are plundered from their societies.

It is, however, to the IAEA workings that we need to turn our attention. In recent years, it has lost whatever little credibility it had by targeting Islamic Iran at the behest of the US and Israel. One need hardly look beyond the agency’s latest report released on November 8 to understand what is afoot. Under its director, Yukiya Amano, the agency has allowed itself to be used to rehash old discredited allegations against Iran to feed the war frenzy of US-Zionist imperialists. Consider this. Using evidence from 2003, the former IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei said there was “no conclusive proof Iran had crossed the weapons threshold”. Yukiya Amano, the new head, says that there is “no conclusive proof that Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful” and he “has serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program,” without offering any proof. The IAEA report admits that it found no proof of diversion of nuclear material from known activities to non-authorized use but that there may be diversion of “undeclared nuclear materials”. This is not only speculative, it is scandalous. An agency whose mission is to provide nuclear safeguards and verifications should not indulge in this kind of political rhetoric. As Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s representative to the IAEA, said: “The report of the International Atomic Energy Agency is unbalanced, unprofessional and politically motivated.” It was “a repetition of old claims which were proven baseless by Iran in a precise 117-page response.”

Under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran is entitled to enrich uranium and member states are obliged to help it in this quest. Instead, the IAEA report indulges in wild speculation, tarnishing the agency’s already failing reputation. In September, the 117 member countries of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) expressed deep concern at Amano’s “departure from standard verification language.” There is also concern among agency staff that Amano is moving away from scientific-based work and turning the agency into a political tool of the West. The same concern was expressed by NAM members at how Amano had uncritically accepted unnamed Western intelligence information on Iran’s nuclear activities. The self-serving nature of such allegations is beyond dispute.

Amano stands exposed unlike any previous head of the agency, as a US puppet. Cables from the US mission in Vienna in July and October 2009 leaked by WikiLeaks also confirm the tight relationship between US diplomats and Amano. And 12 days before the agency released its report, Amano secretly visited the White House to meet National Security Council staff. Why an independent agency’s head would need to confer in secret with US officials when he has no mandate and not offer such courtesy to other members proves his subservience to the US.

Like the UN and IMF, the IAEA is merely a tool of American imperialism. In fact, it has shown itself to be even more obsequious than the other organizations. Amano shares a major part of the blame for this. Or should we say, he must be “credited” with exposing himself for what he is: an American lap dog?

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