AEI’s Danielle Pletka: It’s Okay To Jeopardize Nuclear Non-Proliferation To Spite The Palestinians

As part of a push for United Nations recognition, the Palestinians are exploring ways to join various U.N. agencies. But two laws passed by Congress in the early 1990s would kill U.S. funding for any U.N. agency that recognizes Palestine among its member ranks. The issue is coming to a head this week as the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) board will vote on admitting Palestine.

But with the Palestinians primed to work their way into other U.N. agencies, the issue could become a much larger one, potentially affecting organizations crucial to international development and, perhaps, even nuclear non-proliferation. Foreign Policy’s Colum Lynch addressed the topic in a piece today where he raised the potential defunding of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). He quoted neoconservative American Enterprise Institute vice president for foreign and defense policy studies Danielle Pletka expressing support for the law prohibiting funding while acknowledging that holding back IAEA resources is a huge price to pay for attempting to block a relatively minor Palestinian gain:

[I]t would be very unfortunate if we were required by law to do to deny money to the International Atomic Energy Agency. [T]here are consequences to playing fast and loose, even in the international community. This is, at best, a supremely political quest by the Palestinians.

Opponents of the Palestinian U.N. bid seem to always dismiss it as a merely “political” exercise, all the while bemoaning the far reaching consequences of the power that the Palestinians stand to gain from recognition by the General Assembly or individual U.N. agencies — something that indicates they are more opposed to a Palestinian state than simply its out-of-turn recognition. That seems to be the case here, where Pletka is prepared to forsake one of the most effective U.N. agencies — one which works on the crucial global security issue of non-proliferation.

Indeed, when it comes to understand and halting Iran’s nuclear ambitions — something that Pletka’s ostensibly been working toward for a long time — the IAEA has proved an indispensable resource.

At a recent Atlantic Council panel, former top CIA analyst and Georgetown professor Paul Pillar noted just how important the IAEA was for gaining access to good information about Iran’s nuclear program:

[T]he single best source of information about programs of this sort – this was true of Iraq, it’s true of Iran – is an international inspections regime.

And in the case of Iraq, the flow of information was very good when we had it. It was suddenly a lot worse when we didn’t, whether it was because Iraq kicked out the inspectors, or as it happened closer to the war, when the U.S. kicked out the inspectors.

So my concluding observation would be, if we want to try to increase our collective confidence about what we can say about this particular program in Iran, the best way to do that would be to strive for a more inclusive and more extensive intentional inspections regime.

But perhaps less reliable information about Iran’s nuclear program would be a boon to Pletka because she has things on her mind other than collecting good intelligence about Iran’s nuclear program.