phoenix80
Banned
The precautionary principle (Is Iran Next?)
James Harkin
Saturday September 24, 2005
The Guardian
Is Iran next? As the United States and Europe huff and puff about the country's nuclear ambitions and threaten to report it to the UN security council, we might be forgiven for experiencing a sense of deja vu. But is Iran really on the brink of developing a nuclear weapons programme, or is it simply bluffing and sabre-rattling?
We can hazard a guess, but the fact is that we simply don't know. Confronted with cases like these, lawyers tend to take refuge in the canons of international law and journalists tend to flatter themselves that everything can be traced to hidden agendas and smoking guns. Social scientists, on the other hand, have traditionally taken a more considered approach. Nuclear brinkmanship, according to theorists of decision-making, is no more than a game of risk, one in which we weigh the risks of doing nothing against the risks of applying greater political and military pressure.
That was until the precautionary principle came along. The precautionary principle started life on the fringes of the environmental movement in the 1970s as a way of nipping potential harm in the bud. Rather than arriving at a decision by weighing the risks against the likelihood of their occurrence, the precautionary principle ranks alternative courses of action by their worst possible outcome in order to make its decision. Put bluntly, it prefers to play safe. It evolved from its humble origins on the fringes of the environmental movement to other areas of social policy, and by the early 21st century, the principle - even if it didn't dare speak its name - had exploded into a doctrine to justify a pre-emptive invasion of Iraq.
What the precautionary principle brings to foreign policy is the idea that if we are not sure about the arsenal and intentions of rogue states and there is a danger of a nuclear catastrophe, we are perfectly justified in having recourse to military preventive action.
Donald Rumsfeld's ominous declaration about the "unknown unknowns" in dealing with the Iraqi nuclear threat is not as risible as his critics make out, but is hugely and silently indebted to the idea of the precautionary principle. Likewise, Tony Blair's post-facto admission that he was right to wage war on Iraq given the information available to him at the time is perfectly consistent with his application of the precautionary principle.
The same principle, sadly, can just as easily be said to apply to Iran. At least for anti-war environmentalists, the moral of the story is to handle principles with care. Without proper training - and a little like weapons of mass destruction - they are likely to blow up in your face.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1577447,00.html
James Harkin
Saturday September 24, 2005
The Guardian
Is Iran next? As the United States and Europe huff and puff about the country's nuclear ambitions and threaten to report it to the UN security council, we might be forgiven for experiencing a sense of deja vu. But is Iran really on the brink of developing a nuclear weapons programme, or is it simply bluffing and sabre-rattling?
We can hazard a guess, but the fact is that we simply don't know. Confronted with cases like these, lawyers tend to take refuge in the canons of international law and journalists tend to flatter themselves that everything can be traced to hidden agendas and smoking guns. Social scientists, on the other hand, have traditionally taken a more considered approach. Nuclear brinkmanship, according to theorists of decision-making, is no more than a game of risk, one in which we weigh the risks of doing nothing against the risks of applying greater political and military pressure.
That was until the precautionary principle came along. The precautionary principle started life on the fringes of the environmental movement in the 1970s as a way of nipping potential harm in the bud. Rather than arriving at a decision by weighing the risks against the likelihood of their occurrence, the precautionary principle ranks alternative courses of action by their worst possible outcome in order to make its decision. Put bluntly, it prefers to play safe. It evolved from its humble origins on the fringes of the environmental movement to other areas of social policy, and by the early 21st century, the principle - even if it didn't dare speak its name - had exploded into a doctrine to justify a pre-emptive invasion of Iraq.
What the precautionary principle brings to foreign policy is the idea that if we are not sure about the arsenal and intentions of rogue states and there is a danger of a nuclear catastrophe, we are perfectly justified in having recourse to military preventive action.
Donald Rumsfeld's ominous declaration about the "unknown unknowns" in dealing with the Iraqi nuclear threat is not as risible as his critics make out, but is hugely and silently indebted to the idea of the precautionary principle. Likewise, Tony Blair's post-facto admission that he was right to wage war on Iraq given the information available to him at the time is perfectly consistent with his application of the precautionary principle.
The same principle, sadly, can just as easily be said to apply to Iran. At least for anti-war environmentalists, the moral of the story is to handle principles with care. Without proper training - and a little like weapons of mass destruction - they are likely to blow up in your face.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1577447,00.html