Comment: The Iraq-Libya-Iran WMD triangle

Nine months ago, the world was told of an "imminent threat" to the United States, Britain, and their Gulf allies. Agitated western leaders argued that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were intolerable and worthy of war.

Intensive searches have revealed little to date but Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has now come to the rescue. Iran is equally eager to enter into some kind of arrangement with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Clearly, 2003 is closing with a well-oiled WMD triangle that, although still difficult to assimilate, will persuade recalcitrant holdouts. Compliance will be the word for 2004.

Proven Israeli warfare

Naturally, putative weap-ons in Arab and Muslim hands are newsworthy, even if proven Israeli implements of mass warfare are not. Many will point out to the 200+ known Israeli nuclear warheads developed at Dimona - first revealed in 1986 by Physicist Mordechai Vanunu who is now serving a jail sentence - and the substantive biological arsenals perfected at Nes Ziona (a research centre in Israel).

Only twisted logic will stress that non-existent Arab weapons pose imminent threat while confirmed arms are conveniently ignored.

Checks and balances

Of course, major powers prefer to buttress existing monopolies over WMDs, allegedly because their leaders are more responsible in potential uses and, not a negligible point, that checks and balances exist to prevent accidental discharges.

Several powers that are committed to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty have yet to dismantle any of their large arsenals but lecturing the international community is also a favourite sport.

Still, in Libya's case, there seems to be a direct linkage between abandoning WMD programmes and the Lockerbie accords that are still unfolding. It is hugely ironic that Libya's compliance was announced 15 years after the tragic bombing of Pan Am 103 over Scotland.

The details that presumably formed this new agreement will eventually emerge but for now, Tripoli seems to have concluded that Libya's political isolation was too heavy a price to pay. Colonel Gaddafi is proving opportunistic especially given his rejectionist legacy.

For Iran, of course, being strategically caught between Israel on one side and Pakistan/India/China on the other, is not soothing. Yet, pragmatic Iranians realise that they have to "manage" their WMD programmes with the utmost care not only because they are prominent members of the "axis of evil," but also because they are quite vulnerable.

Strangely, the US and Britain now share a border with Iran that, at the very least, means neighbourly relations must be envisioned.

While Libya's motives are not entirely clear - beyond the desire to improve the country's fledgling image - and while Iran is set to drastically enhance its standing through special accords with the IAEA, those of the United States and Britain are also quite clear.

To be sure, both Washington and London are glad that fewer actual WMDs and programmes (both fictitious as well as real) will proliferate but, what is still the primary objective is to secure energy sources for future consumption. Western needs are great and growing even larger.

In addition to Iraq and Iran, Libya is a potentially important oil and gas exporter.

The latest accord with Tripoli, therefore, forges new ties with an exporter long left in abeyance. While the meekly Libyan leadership was/is less than exemplary, Western leaders agreed to do "business" with Gaddafi, just like the convenient contacts with Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union.

Under the circumstances, the WMD issue becomes secondary and, as Eddie Dougall from Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk (UK), summed it up in his letter to The Guardian (December 22), "Libya, Iraq? Let's not be picky, Tony [Blair] knew the WMDs were somewhere." Indeed.

Joseph Kechichian, author of several books, is an expert on the Gulf and Middle East affairs.