Khamenei's Message on Nuclear Non-Proliferation

In a message read at the two-day the first International Conference on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation in Teheran, Iranian supreme leader Khamenei has said that 'any use or even threat to use nuclear weapons is a serious and material violation of indisputable rules of humanitarian law,' adding that there is 'no winner in a nuclear war.' Khamenei also said that the United States is the 'only country' that has made the ultimate nuclear offense for its atomic attack on Japan.

The supreme leader stressed the need to find 'sensible and practical ways and solutions to counter the threat of nuclear weapons against humanity.' The Ayatollah also urged participants of the conference to take serious steps toward protecting world peace and stability.

Threat to World Peace
Although several countries have produced and stockpiled nuclear weapons that could lead to commission of a major nuclear crime and have seriously threatened world peace, only one government has committed the ultimate nuclear offence, the United States. I wish to welcome the honorable guests that have gathered here for this conference.

It is a source of pleasure for the Islamic Republic of Iran to be the host for this international disarmament conference. I hope this occasion will be an opportunity to yield enduring and important results from your dialogues and discussions for the whole humanity. Atomic and nuclear sciences are among the greatest achievement of humankind and must be at the service of welfare and advancement of all human societies. The application fields of nuclear science cover a wide spectrum of medical, energy and industrial uses, each being of essential importance. For this reason, we can rightly say that nuclear technology occupies a prominent position in our economic life and its importance will only rise as we move forward.

Health and Energy Sectors
As the needs of industry, the health and energy sectors grow, so do the efforts to make more use of nuclear energy. The nations of the Middle East, like other nations of the world, are thirsting for peace, security and progress. They have the right to ensure the economic position and prosperity of the future generations. Most likely, one of the reasons behind efforts to cast clouds of doubt on the peaceful nuclear activities of the Islamic Republic of Iran is to hold back the nations of the region from paying serious attention to this natural and important right of theirs.

The deceptive ploy by the sole nuclear offender that falsely claims to be advocating non-proliferation of nuclear arms, while doing nothing substantive for this cause, will never succeed. If the campaign by the United States was not fictitious, could the Zionist regime refrain from accepting the rules of international law, especially the nonproliferation regime, and turn the occupied land of Palestine into an arsenal with huge stockpiles of nuclear weapons?

The word 'atom' implies as much the advancement of human knowledge, as it does remind us of the most appalling event in history, the most dreadful genocide, and the gravest exploitation of scientific achievements of humankind. Although several countries have produced and stockpiled nuclear weapons that could lead to commission of a major nuclear crime and have seriously threatened world peace, only one government has committed the ultimate nuclear offence, the United States.

The innocent people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were attacked by atomic bombs in an unequal and cruel war. From the time of the first explosion of an atomic weapon by the government of the United States in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that caused human catastrophe with colossal proportions, the security of the entire humankind has been threatened and there has been a global consensus on the need for complete elimination of these weapons.

Consequence of Devastating Effects
The use of nuclear weapon not only caused massive loss of lives and destruction, but also was totally indiscriminate toward military and civilian population, young and old, women and men. Its ruthless consequences crossed political and geographical boundary lines and even wreaked irreparable losses on the next generations. As a consequence of these devastating effects, any use of or even threat to use nuclear weapons is a serious and material violation of indisputable rules of humanitarian law and a cogent example of a war crime, after a few countries acquired these weapons, it has been proven beyond any doubt that there is no winner in a nuclear war and entering such a war is irrational and inhuman.

Nevertheless, despite these simple moral, rational, humane and even military facts and justifications and emphatic and repeated desire of the international community for the total elimination of these weapons, a small number of governments that have built their illusion of security on the insecurity of others continue to ignore this global call.

The insistence of these governments on holding on and increasing the destructive powers of these weapons will have no use but to serve as a tool for collective intimidation and terror and to create a false sense of security based on deterrence resulting from assured destruction and perpetuation of the global nuclear nightmare.

Colossal amounts of resources have been spent in this irrational arms race, so each superpower could have this illusion and power to imagine that it is able to destroy its rivals and other inhabitants of the planet Earth, even their own population, many times over. It is for good reason that the deterrent strategy based on 'mutually assured destruction' is referred to as MAD.

Violating Commitments
Over the recent years some government have gone beyond the 'mutually assured destruction' deterrence doctrine in facing other nuclear powers. They have gone so far that their nuclear strategy emphasizes on maintaining nuclear choice in countering conventional threats by violators of Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), while the greatest violators of NPT are those powers that, in addition to violating their commitments under Article 6 of NPT on nuclear disarmament have even taken over others in the race for vertical and horizontal proliferation.

They have played a direct role in proliferation of these weapons by helping to arm the Zionist regime with nuclear weapons and supporting the policies of this regime. This is contrary to their undertaking under Article 1 of NPT, and poses a serious threat to the Middle East region and beyond.

Production and Stockpiling of Nuclear Weapons
The bullying and aggressor regime of the United States is leading these efforts. It behooves this international conference on disarmament to review and examine the perils resulting from production and stockpiling of nuclear weapons in the world, and to present sensible and practical ways and solutions to counter this threat against humanity so, serious steps could be taken toward protecting world peace and security. We believe that other weapons of mass destruction, in addition to nuclear weapons, such as chemical and biological weapons, also pose a serious threat to humanity.

The people of Iran were themselves victims of the use of chemical weapons and are better aware of the dangers of production and stockpiling of these weapons. We are prepared to make resources available to us to counter this threat. We regard the use of these weapons to be illegal and haram, and it is incumbent on all to protect humankind from this grave disaster.

New US Nuclear Policy

US President Barack Obama has announced a new nuclear policy, which maintains that the United States reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in case of extreme circumstances. The United States will disband a large number of its nuclear weapons and only maintain a bare minimum for its defense.

The new nuclear policy has imposed a number of sanctions on the use of nuclear weapons, but Iran and North Korea have been restricted from availing any remissions under this policy. China's nuclear program has been declared murky.

Aim of New Policy
Before announcing this policy in an interview with The New York Times, President Obama said that he felt Pakistan has made its nuclear installations safe. Nuclear extremism is the biggest threat and the United States reserves the right to use nuclear weapon in defense of its allies. At the same time, dependence on nuclear weapons will be minimized and the defense of the United States will be based on conventional weapons.

The aim of this new policy is to give incentives to countries, which are willing to withdraw the option of nuclear weapons and refrain from nuclear intentions. Countries like Iran and North Korea, which violate the NPT, will not be able to benefit from this policy.

Discouragement for Other Countries
To discourage nuclear proliferation, Obama's new nuclear policy seems to be very positive, which says that the United States will abandon making nuclear weapons and maintain their use to a bare minimum. This policy is craftily drafted.

According to this policy, the United States wants to be the sole nuclear power and does not want to give the right to any other country to use nuclear technology for its defense. The fact of the matter is that in the Second World War the United States used nuclear bombs against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and showed the way to countries of the world how to defend themselves through nuclear technology.

Hegemony on Nuclear Technology
Despite facing the brunt of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan rose as an economic giant and compelled the United States to buy its products. But the question arises what lesson did the United States learn from this catastrophe? It seems that the United States only nurtured its ambition of expansionism and the desire to be a superpower.

Outside of this nuclear club no other country has the right to defend itself with nuclear technology. The United States wanted to make itself the sole merchants of nuclear technology.

The aim of the NPT and CTBT was also to maintain the US hegemony on nuclear technology. Moreover, India and Israel have fully been patronized by the United States in their nuclear initiatives. They have been encouraged and helped to attain nuclear technology.

Double Standard Game
Does this not speak of the double standard of the United States? Many countries' nuclear tests were considered violations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), and strict economic sanctions were imposed on them.

India, however, got some benefits, and has, so far, entered into 123 nuclear. Israel is an established nuclear partner of the United States. Our nuclear installations were threatened with attack by the Israeli Air Force, but this plan was foiled by our vigilant Air Force.

Assessment
The foundation of proliferation was laid by the United States itself. The United States does not want Iran, Pakistan, and North Korea to progress in this field. Likewise, Iran, after continued threats from the United States, decided to go nuclear. Only nuclear China can challenge the United States and strike a balance of power in the region.

Now, the United States, in order to impose its nuclear position, has set the stage for a reduction of nuclear arms, thus curtailing many countries' nuclear capabilities, depriving them from their right to defend themselves with nuclear technology.

The United States: World's Biggest Polluter

The global conference on environment was recently held in Copenhagen, the capital city of Denmark. The conference discussed the issue of reducing the release of carbon dioxide and other such toxic gases that destroy the global environment. Today the world is confronting the major issue of environment. Some of the countries of the world have been blamed that they are producing a lot of material releasing carbon dioxide for their industrial development that is affecting the green house gases. This is causing an increase in global temperature. More than 1,500 envoys of the 192 countries participated in this conference. The importance of this issue could be judged from the fact that more than 100 head of states attended this conference. Similarly, more than 100,000 protesters were protesting against these hypocritical policies of the developed countries on streets. However, an important factor was not mentioned over there in the conference. How is it possible that the element responsible for spreading the environmental pollution could not be mentioned in the conference? This agency is playing havoc with the global environment by producing most of the carbon dioxide and other such toxic gases. This agency is US Defense Ministry or Pentagon. Pentagon is a geometrical shape having five sides. To the readers' interest, I must tell that as the US Defense Ministry building is of Pentagon shape, therefore, this building and the US Defense Ministry is called Pentagon.

Largest Oil Consumer
Pentagon is the world's largest oil consumer, its relevant materials and energy user in the world. Despite this fact, it is quite strange that the role of this agency has been shelved under the carpet in almost all global conferences on environment. The release of green house gases during war activities of Pentagon in Iraq and Afghanistan, its secret actions in Pakistan, the equipment used on its more than 1,000 bases spread all over the world, its 6,000 installations in the US, all NATO's operations, its huge aircraft carriers, jet fighters, tests and sales of weapons, sale of weapons and training of troops have never been attributed to the US Government. It has been proved through bulletin of 17 February 2007 that Pentagon is the largest oil consumer in the world. This bulletin contains the details of the jet fighters, ships, vehicles, and installations of Pentagon where oil is used. At that time, the US Navy had around 285 war and supporting ships and 4,000 jet fighters. The US military had approximately 28,000 armored vehicles and approximately 140,000 HMWV. More than 4,000 choppers, several hundreds of other planes, a fleet of 187,497 vehicles, nuclear submarines, huge ships, and aircraft carriers where jet fighters land and take off and they release radio active material in the atmosphere all the time. Moreover, thousands of other army vehicles also use oil. According to the CIA World Fact Book of 2006, there are 210 countries in the world and there are only 35 countries are using more oil than Pentagon. According to an officially released data, the US military uses approximately 321,000 barrels oil in a day and the quantity of that oil has not been counted, which is used by the Army-affiliated contractors or private agencies working on lease. The preparation of deadly weapons, bombs, grenades and missiles and unlimited energy used during their tests and other resources are besides this huge consumption. According to the report of Steve Kretzmann, director of the Oil Change International, approximately141 (MMTCO2e) was released in the air during Iraq war from March 2003 to December 2007.

Major Difficulties
Approximately 60 percent of the total gases released by all countries is released in areas where war is underway. Release of toxic gases is prohibited in war-torn areas under the US law. Therefore, scientists have to face several difficulties, while gathering this data. Bryan Farrell is considered an expert environmentalist and he has written in his book The Green Zone-The Environmental Cost of Militarism that "the great attacks on the environment of the each is launched by an agency, which is the US military". It is strange that the activities of the US Defense Ministry Pentagon have got exception in the global environmental conferences. It is also really a strange tale.
The global conference on environment held in Japanese city of Kyoto in 1997. The US Government imposed this condition, while signing the agreement that the US military action in the world, participation of the US military in UN missions, and US-NATO joint military actions would not be discussed in the global environmental conferences. Under the force of circumstances, the participants of the conference accepted this condition, so that the United State could sign this agreement. However, the United States adopted its deceptive posture, and when the entire world acknowledged its condition, it refused to sign the agreement. In this way, the United States deceptively removed its military actions from the agenda of any global conference in the world. This great concession has provided freehand to the United States in that it could play havoc with the environment of the world through its military action as much as it desires.

Impact of Toxic Gases and Materials
In addition to carbon dioxide, the US military is adding up several other toxic gases and materials in the soil and water. The US military is also using weapons that have been manufactured with less powerful uranium. These weapons were used on wholesale basis in the Middle East, Balkan, and some areas of the Central Asia. That spread thousands of pounds used material and radioactive particles in the areas. The US Government is also selling explosive mines and cluster bombs on wholesale basis. These bombs causing damages to farmers and common citizens after they are sprayed in the fields in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Thousands of people have been maimed due to this. Israel showered more than 100,000 US supplied cluster bombs on Lebanon in 2006.
Toxic and chemical material was spread on a vast area in Vietnam because of the US invasion. Because of that invasion, still the level of dioxin toxic gas is 300-400 above dangerous level. This is causing birth-disabilities to the newborn babies and diseases like cancer. The Iraqi land was the most fertile land in the Middle East since 5,000 years.

Environmental Pollution
However, the twice US invasion has devastated its fertility. Iraq used to supply food to other countries and now it imports more than 80 percent from aboard. We have not mentioned the nuclear bombs dropped by the United States on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. No agreement can decrease the environmental pollution, in which the US military actions are not included. The world should include the US military actions in its agenda.