Iran Nuke Redux
Author:
Originally Published at Peace and Conflict Monitor on: 04/05/2006
Category: Letters
Dear Monitor,
Shoji Sawada a physicist and a survivor of Hiroshima atomic bombing recently made a ‘Call for the swift abolition of nuclear weapons’. In his open letter to the people and governments of the world, he writes of the current threat to world peace posed by, in particular, the government of the United States, the biggest nuclear power. This government declares that it will retain its nuclear arsenals, and on the grounds of needing to cope with terror and nuclear proliferation, continue to wage war and develop new bombs, drawing up plans for their use. He writes that it is now 60 years since the first UN General Assembly adopted its first resolution to move toward nuclear disarmament and notes that the actions of the US government betray this resolution, as well as the basic purposes of the UN to settle disputes by peaceful means. Mr. Sawada does not advocate trade sanctions against the US, however he does call for a united effort on the part of people from all continents to carry forward the effort to ensure the 21st century is a century in which humanity is liberated from the danger of nuclear war and nuclear weapons are eliminated.
Adam Breasley
Dear Monitor,
Thanks for putting the current debacle about Iran’s supposed nuclear arms program in perspective. There really is no pretty way of getting out of this logjam. The Iranian president is not likely to abandon brinkmanship, and the international community can simply not do nothing.
Especially after the ill-advised and unprovoked attack on Iraq, and the resulting bloody, inter-group low-scale civil war, we can expect that many countries in the Middle East will not trust any agenda with America behind it, and for very good reasons. America is still in the middle of a muddle it created. It supported Shi’ites in wresting power from the Sunnis in Iraq, and although it wishes there were a way it could send its troops back home, there is no simple way out of this one, short of abandoning the Iraqis to the self-destruction that is bound to come.
Be that as it may, Iran must be stopped from acquiring nuclear arms. It will not stop on its own.
Lanre Obafemi
Chief Research Officer
Department of Democracy and Development Studies
Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution
The Presidency
Abuja, Nigeria
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