The Rudd Government has joined international efforts to pressure Israel into signing up to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and to help form a zone free of nuclear weapons in the Middle East.
While the Israelis have not in over four decades declared their possession of nuclear weapons, all expert analysts know they have around 100–200. This is one core reason why Israel remain outside the NPT and international safeguard regimes.
Last week at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in New York, Australia was among 189 states who agreed to press Israel to join the international nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament regime, and to attend a UN-sponsored conference in 2012 about a denuclearised Middle East. For Iran and the Arabs, led by Egypt, it appeared a sweet victory. For Israel it is nothing but a proposition.
The prospect of a denuclearised Middle East, as utopian as it may appear, was tabled at the UN by Egypt and Iran in 1974. Despite early resistance from Israel, the negotiation of a nuclear-weapon-free zone remains the only non-proliferation initiative to have been accepted by all members of the region, including Israel, since 1980. Because of the political and geographical climate in the Middle East, many states now argue a region free of WMD (chemical, biological and nuclear weapons) is the only way forward.
So why has it taken 30 years?
Crudely put, Egypt, Israel and Iran have competing reasons for promoting the idea. Egypt sees it as a way of removing Israel's nuclear superiority. Israel maintains that lasting peace agreements with its neighbours are a prerequisite to any formal negotiation. Iran uses it to exert pressure on Israel's policy of nuclear 'ambiguity', and to deflect attention from its own non-compliance with international safeguards.
There are precedents. Since the Antarctic Treaty in 1951, presently more than 100 states that comprise almost the entire southern hemisphere are stitched into a tapestry of individually agreed nuclear-weapon-free zones.
For its part, Australia has long advocated serious negotiations that will lead to such a zone in the Middle East. But in my view, over the three meetings held in 2007, 2008 and 2009 to prepare for last week's conference, it has changed its focus from Iran to Israel. At the 2009 preparatory meeting, Australia's representative John Sullivan called on Israel to 'join the NPT as non-nuclear-weapon state'. He did not mention concerns about proliferation in Iran, which had dominated his government's two earlier statements to the treaty body.
Predictably the United States sparred with Iran throughout the conference. But during the 2009 preparatory meeting, it carefully exerted pressure on Israel, without making it clear that it would demand that it register as a non-nuclear-weapon state (as is required by the treaty).
Following the NPT review conference last week, the US delegation said it 'strongly' and 'deeply regrets' the concensus reached at the conference which led to Israel being singled-out as it has been. The Obama Administration chose to ignore this issue in its 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, released earlier this year.
As in the three preparatory meetings, China stood alone. It opposed vilifying either Israel or Iran, preferring to facilitate some form of official dialogue between the international community and the region. And yet it is the United Nations, supported by Russia, the US and the UK that will lead the preparations for the 2012 conference that will seek to negotiate a denuclearised Middle East.
There remains much to do if such dialogue is to take place.
Of the 44 ratifications needed for the treaty to ban nuclear testing to have force, neither Iran, Egypt, nor Israel have signed. In fact, Egypt has linked its ratification to Israel's status in the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty. Irael has been active in the talks but has expressed disappointment at its role in the international system.
Despite relatively peaceful relations, this tit-for-tat game played between Egypt and Israel when ratifying treaties about WMD is sadly quite common. Egypt alone has ratified the nuclear treaty. Israel has only signed the chemical weapons treaty. Iran has ratified all three major WMD treaties, but has been heavily criticised for its lack of cooperation, especially in relation to the NPT.
In the Middle East, an estimated ten states have some form of WMD capability. The weapon most commonly used to deploy WMD — medium to long-range cruise and ballistic missiles — have proliferated throughout the region for decades. In the words of Mohamed El Baradei, former head of the international body that verifies compliance with the NPT, 'The use of nuclear weapons by any region like the Middle East means the destruction of the entire Middle East'.
Of the 35 or so countries with missile ranges of over 150km, more than a third are located within the Middle East, where they have often been used. But all three states remain outside the two international bodies that attempt to control the trade and production of missiles.
Despite this sombre picture there is some hope.
When Libya voluntarily handed over its WMD capability in 2003, it was the first case in the Middle East where a state had done so without regime change or a move towards democracy. Libya was moved by fear of isolation and further international pressure.
Now the international community has indicated that it is losing patience, I have some small hope that Israel too may do the unexpected, and bring its nukes to the negotiating table. Israel have the trump card in this; may Iran and the Arabs respond in kind. Relations in the Middle East are tense enough without the need for WMD.
Nicholas A.J. Taylor is completing a doctorate on conventional armaments trading to the Middle East at La Trobe University. Website