EDITORIAL
The Obama administration’s important efforts to place nuclear disarmament at the top of the world’s agenda, and its efforts to engage in diplomacy with Iran, should not be derailed by controversy over Iran’s nuclear enrichment
Nor should that cause a rush into sanctions.
Apparently Iran violated the requirement that signers of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty inform the International Atomic Energy Agency180 days before fissile material is put into a plant. But focusing on this and diverting from a comprehensive approach will only lead to failure on the main goal – a nuclear-weapons-free world.
Prevention of the unthinkable – a nuclear holocaust – means much more than jumping onto a hysterical anti-Iran bandwagon. It means staying on course to encompass all the nations that possess these weapons of mass destruction and engage them in talks about mutually beneficial agreements that can at long last rid the world of the threat of nuclear annihilation.
Beyond Iran, other concerns include a secret plutonium enrichment plant in Israel, said to be capable of manufacturing 10 nuclear bombs; nuclear weapons in Pakistan that could get into the hands of unstable forces; nuclear weapons in India, which is often in confrontation with Pakistan; the ongoing issues with North Korea; continuing efforts to keep nuclear weapons in the former Soviet Union away from dangerous political elements; and efforts by militarists in the U.S. to steer our country back into nuclear buildups.
Warhawks are working overtime to attack Obama’s initiatives. This is the moment to stand with the president and educate yourself and others on why nuclear disarmament is fundamental to U.S. – and world – security. A good place to start is none other than the 2007 Wall Street Journal article by George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger and Sam Nunn, “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons,” posted on the Friends Committee on National Legislation web site.
CONTRIBUTOR
Comments