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US National Security > International Nuclear Security

Posted: Saturday, April 24, 2010 by CM Sapper in
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The month of April saw two international nuclear weapon summits with different agendas, the first in the US called for securing nuclear arms from “terrorists”, and the second in Iran called all possessors of nuclear weapons to let go.

The US summit was held in Washington, D.C. on April 12th and 13th and was the larger of the two in terms of numbers and level of delegation. This summit, which was titled the “Nuclear Security Summit”, focused its agenda on the need to secure all vulnerable nuclear weapons to prevent “terrorists” from possessing such destructive arms. Although the issue of Iran’s nuclear program was not officially on the agenda, its frequent mention to glorify the statements made at the summit did not go unnoticed.

According to Republican Senate, Jon Kyl, the US summit “makes no meaningful progress” in terms of what it was prospected to accomplish since its conclusion is a nonbinding communiqué. Also, if I may add, the US summit was only organized in hopes of gathering more international support against the Iranian program. Few days prior to this summit, Obama made the comment that he will be limiting the conditions under which the US may use nuclear arms and that “outliers like Iran and South Korea” are an exception to this. The conclusions of this summit, which included the recognition of nuclear terrorism as one of the greatest international challenges today, only affirm Obama’s comment which indicates that if need be, a nuclear strike against Iran is an option.

The Iranian summit was held in Tehran on the 17th and 18th of April and saw delegations from 35 countries in attendance. Unlike the US summit which saw things in black and white, the “Tehran International Conference on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation” focused on the distinction between the usage of nuclear energy and that of nuclear arms. This conference came as a reaction to the summit in the US, and in my eyes had more value, since it discussed the events on the ground. In a statement during the conference, the Iranian president called the US “The World’s Only Atomic Criminal”... well, at least there is more truth to that than “the terrorists’ possession of nuclear weapons” which we haven’t and likely won’t be witnessing.

The United States dropped a nuclear bomb on Japanese soil and that’s a fact, but it has also now put the option of a nuclear strike against Iran on the table. The latter came uncoincidentally simultaneous to the US summit, only to show the real intention behind the gathering of global powers and their blind followers.

I am not a fan of Iran’s political system either, but their latest conference was purposeful and it included more diverse representations from some of poorer as well as the richer states, ensuring the balance of the conclusions. As for the US summit, hypocritical marks were all over as the nature of the host dominated by blaming the “terrorists”, when it is the only one that has committed the sin in the past and while pretending to lead the way to “nuclear security”.

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