Today, PSA is releasing a statement signed by 30 top Republicans and Democrats that encourages the Obama Administration to fully support the NPT and IAEA.  We believe that success on our nonproliferation and disarmament goals can only be achieved if we approach them through the context of our NPT commitments.

But some argue that the NPT is not successful.  How else can you explain the fact that North Korea was able to withdraw after testing nuclear weapons without consequences?  Or the likelihood that Iran is developing a nuclear capability in violation of the treaty?  And what about the countries with nuclear weapons who never signed up in the first place?  To critics, all of those questions add up to a simple answer that the treaty is a failure.

On the contrary, we feel that these questions all point to the key reasons why the NPT and IAEA are critical to controlling the spread of nuclear weapons.  They are our best weapons in this war.

North Korea is ruled by an irrational regime that is a questionable partner on any agreement.  Its withdrawal from the NPT is a major failure of the system to control a rogue nuclear program.  However, there are many other countries that have considered a nuclear weapons program but decided against it due to international pressure.  The NPT is the only mechanism that can reliably provide that today, preventing a cascade of new nuclear weapons states.

That is why PSA encourages the strengthening of enforcement mechanisms for use against countries found in violation of their NPT obligations.  Without a strong NPT, there is little preventing state proliferation.

Iran is an apparent example of why the international pressure of the NPT may not be enough.  It is easy to cheat the system.  But again, we need to ask where we would be without the NPT and its watchdog arm, the IAEA.  Without the multilateral system in place, we may not even know what Iran was up to.  Only the IAEA has the credibility and the mandate to go into any NPT signatory country and check for violations.  The problem is that the IAEA needs more support, not sniping about its shortcomings.

That is why the PSA statement pushes strongly for more authority and resources for the IAEA.  If the battle is against proliferation, the IAEA inspectors are our foot soliders.

And what of the countries who never signed the Treaty.  First of all, they are severely outnumbered.  189 countries signaled their opposition to proliferation by signing this Treaty; only a handful did not.  And it is a safer world because of it.  Imagine if every border dispute had a nuclear component as is the case with India and Pakistan.  It is the NPT that has prevented that from becoming a reality.

That is why the PSA statement, and the top diplomats and foreign policy experts who signed their names to it, urge the U.S. and other countries to reaffirm the importance of the NPT by reducing nuclear arsenals worldwide, by helping ensure access to peaceful uses of nuclear energy through fuel bank mechanisms and other means, and by giving the multilateral system the tools necessary to do the job.

We don’t need a new grand bargain; we need to strengthen the one we have.

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