On the road to Damascus is where you get an epiphany. Well, Saint Paul did, anyway. He was on his way to Damascus to do punishing stuff to Christians, when he had a divine revelation and was transformed into an apostle, all aglow with Christian love.
Well, I don’t know that Rafael Grossi had any such revelation, in going to Damascus. But it seems clear that he decided that the proliferation of nuclear weapons is really nothing to worry about, certainly not when compared with the mission of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is to promote the nuclear industry.
We always knew that countries that get nuclear weapons first get a “civil” nuclear industry. Except for the USA, which started the whole thing off the other way around, with the atrocity of the bombs for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They then launched enthusiastically into the hypocrisy of the “peaceful nuke.
Britain’s leader Rishi Sunak, and France’s Emmanuel Macron have both publicly made it clear that “commercial” nuclear power is essential for their nuclear weapons industry. (So it doesn’t matter if commercial nuclear is a financial catastrophe.) The USA and Russia don’t seem to care, as long as they can sell all kinds of nuclear technology to anybody, really.
The new “advanced” small nuclear reactors make the problem worse, as they use enriched uranium, and reprocessing technologies that provide a great cover for making weapons grade fuel .
Rafael Grossi is well known for his earnest and pious statements about nuclear safety. Indeed, didn’t we all think that this is his job, to ensure the safety and non-weapons-proliferation of the world’s reactors?
But when did Rafael’s epiphany happen? When did he realise that safety and non-weapons proliferation did not matter now?
Rafael doesn’t seem to understand that all nuclear facilities become a target for terrorism, and a target in war-time. He has said a few cautionary words about the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station in Ukraine, but he’s quite OK with Ukraine setting up new nuclear power stations.
Rafael has expressed worthy worries about Saudi Arabia and nuclear weapons, but nevertheless “expressed his delight and admiration for Saudi Arabia’s nuclear capabilities” – and promoted them .
Syria is a place, and with a leader, prone to military disruptions, and , like Saudi Arabia, to human rights abuses, but that doesn’t seem to worry Grossi, over there to arrange for a Syrian nuclear industry.
An epiphany? Or did Rafael know all the time that his job is to be a nuclear salesman ?
Blatant hypocrisy
Der Friedensstifter 