In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
I would like to welcome the honorable guests who have gathered here. It is a pleasure that the Islamic Republic of Iran is hosting the International Conference on Nuclear Disarmament today. Hopefully, you will make use of this opportunity and present human societies with the timeless and valuable results that you will obtain through discussion and consultation.
The study of atoms and nuclear sciences are one of the greatest human achievements which can and should be at the service of the wellbeing of nations across the world as well as the growth and development of all human societies. The applications of nuclear sciences cover a wide range of medical and industrial needs as well as energy requirements, each of which has considerable importance. For this reason, it can be said that nuclear technology has gained a prominent position in economic areas of life. And with the passage of time and the rise in industrial and medical needs and energy requirements, its importance will continue growing, and the efforts to achieve and utilize nuclear energy will increase accordingly. Just like other nations of the world, Middle Eastern nations that are thirsty for peace, security, and progress have the right to guarantee their economic position as well as a superior position for their future generations through utilizing this technology. Preventing the nations of the region from paying serious attention to this natural and valuable right is probably one of the goals behind creating doubts about the peaceful nuclear programs of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The interesting point is that currently the only nuclear criminal in the world is falsely claiming to fight the proliferation of nuclear weapons. This is while there is no doubt that it has not taken any serious measures in this regard, and it will never do so. If America’s claims of fighting the proliferation of nuclear weapons were not false, would the Zionist regime be able to turn the occupied Palestinian lands into an arsenal where a huge number of nuclear weapons are stored while refusing to respect international regulations in this regard, especially the NPT?
Unfortunately, although the word atom is associated with the progress of human knowledge, it is equally associated with the most appalling event in history and the greatest genocide and misuse of man’s scientific accomplishments. Although many countries have made an effort to manufacture and amass nuclear weapons – which in itself can be considered a preface to committing crimes and has seriously jeopardized global peace – there is only one government that has committed a nuclear crime so far. Only the government of the United States of America has attacked the oppressed people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs in an unfair and inhumane war.
Since the detonation of the early nuclear weapons by the US government in Hiroshima and Nagasaki created a human disaster of unprecedented proportions in history and exposed human security to a great threat, the global community has reached a unanimous agreement that it is necessary to completely destroy such weapons. The use of nuclear weapons resulted not only in large-scale killings and destruction, but also in indiscriminate massacre of people – military members and civilians, young and old, men and women. And its anti-human effects transcended political and geographic borders, even inflicting irreparable harm on future generations. Therefore, using or even threatening to use such weapons is a serious violation of the most basic rules of philanthropy and is a clear manifestation of war crimes.
From a military and security perspective, after certain powers were armed with this anti-human weapon, there remained no doubt that victory in a nuclear war would be impossible and that engagement in such a war would be an unwise and anti-human act. However, despite these obvious ethical, intellectual, human, and even military realities, the strong and repeated urge by the global community to dispose of these weapons has been ignored by a small number of governments who have based their illusory security on global insecurity.
The insistence of these governments on the possession and proliferation of nuclear weapons as well as increasing their destructive power – which are useless except for intimidation and massacre and a false sense of security based on pre-emptive power resulting from guaranteed annihilation of everyone – has led to an enduring nuclear nightmare in the world. Innumerable human and economic resources have been used in this irrational competition to give the superpowers the imaginary power to annihilate more than a thousand times their rivals as well as other inhabitants of the world including themselves. And it is due to this reason that this strategy has been known as “Mutual Assured Destruction” or MAD.
In recent years, a number of governments who possess nuclear weapons have even gone beyond the pre-emptive strategy based on mutual annihilation in dealing with other nuclear powers to the extent that in their nuclear policies they insist on maintaining the nuclear option even if they are faced with conventional threats from countries violating the NPT. This is while the greatest violators of the NPT are the powers who have reneged on their obligation to dispose of nuclear weapons mentioned in Article 6 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. These powers have even surpassed other countries with respect to promoting nuclear weapons in the world. By providing the Zionist regime with nuclear weapons and supporting its policies, these powers play a direct role in promoting nuclear weapons which is against the obligations they have undertaken according to Article 1 of the NPT. These countries, headed by the bullying and aggressive US regime, have posed a serious threat to the Middle East region and the world.
It behooves the International Conference on Nuclear Disarmament to investigate the threats posed by the production and stockpiling of nuclear weapons in the world and propose realistic solutions to counter this threat to humanity. This will prepare the ground for taking steps towards safeguarding peace and stability.
We believe that besides nuclear weapons, other types of weapons of mass destruction such as chemical and biological weapons also pose a serious threat to humanity. The Iranian nation which is itself a victim of chemical weapons feels more than any other nation the danger that is caused by the production and stockpiling of such weapons and is prepared to make use of all its facilities to counter such threats.
We consider the use of such weapons as haraam and believe that it is everyone’s duty to make efforts to secure humanity against this great disaster.
Sayyid Ali Khamenei
Farvardin 27, 1389
Jumada al-Awwal 1, 1431
source: http://english.khamenei.ir//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1283
Thanks for posting this. The mainstream media never pays any attention to what the Iranians actually say and actually do on the ground.
And much of the alternative media — left and right –is almost as bad, because Iran is not “Socialist” (like Chavez) or “Christian”. So the price for their independence is enmity from nearly all sides. When something happens to Chavez, the anti-imperialist fron unites behind him. When the EXACT same thing happens to Iran, the self-proclaimed anti-imperialist front dithers and even joins the imperialists in its propaganda (there are important exceptions of course).
@ishamid: And much of the alternative media — left and right –is almost as bad, because Iran is not “Socialist” (like Chavez) or “Christian”. So the price for their independence is enmity from nearly all sides. When something happens to Chavez, the anti-imperialist fron unites behind him. When the EXACT same thing happens to Iran, the self-proclaimed anti-imperialist front dithers and even joins the imperialists in its propaganda
I completely agree wity you! And even though I myself am a Christian and a “progressive”, I have been trying hard to post information on Iran EXACTLY because I see that Iran is resisting the Empire at least as much as people like Chavez. Sadly, most people see Iran through ideological lenses, they simply cannot comprehend that “mullahs” (as they would say) can actually be progressives. For example, they just cannot accept the idea that a system in which a majority of studends are females is not sexist even though modesty laws are different then in the USA or Denmark (all these countries ALSO have modesty laws, but that we forget. A woman in California was arrested for breastfeeding a baby in public!).
Anyway – yes, Iran does get it from “both sides” and while the Right simply hates Iran just for daring to resist, a big chunk of the so-called “Left” falls in the same trap and joins the Imperialists.
The good news, of course, is that people like Chavez himself perfectly understand that.
So its a matter of slowly educating the progressives and that is not a hopeless task. More and more of them are, slowly, coming around on this issue.
Don’t loose hope. With time, things do change.
Kind regards,
The Saker
@ishamid: I want to add one more thing: the vast majority of Muslims fall in EXACTLY the trap you mention, only in a different set of circumstances:
What did the Muslism world do when the war started in Chechnia? They automatically sided with the “Muslism” Chechens, even though the Chechen leaders were torturing kidnapped people on video to force relatives to pay ranson, even though the Chechens leaders were kidnapping people all over the region to turn them into slaves, even though the Chechen leaders actually had a open air slave market in the middle of Grozny. The Muslim world’s support for the thugs in Chechia only began to recede when these crazies actually attacked (Muslim) Dagestan, then the former black-and-white “good guys versus bad guys” narrative began to recede.
And what about the Muslims in Bosnia who were fighting under CIA command (who flew in al Qaeda terrorists from Afghanistan and other countries and landed them in Bosnia)? Did the Muslim world not totally support them? Did the Muslim world not totally buy into the NATO propaganda about Markale, Gorazda or Screbrenica?
What about Albania? Just like in Chechnia, you had what is essentially a Mafia posing as a Muslim nationalist (are those two terms compatible?) liberation movement getting CIA and NATO cover to impose the US Imperial plan on Europe. The Muslim world is AT LEAST as responsible for camp Bondsteel as US or NATO.
So please don’t hurry too much in blaming Christians or progressives for doing exactly the same as what the VAST majority of Muslims have done and still are doing: siding with “one’s own” (even if that is a cover) and opposing the “other” (even if in reality the “other” is much closer to you than “your own”).
Please think about it, ok?
The Saker
@VINEYARDSAKER:
I meant “Christian” in the right-wing nut sense, not the liberation-theology or even common sense.
Your criticisms of the Chechen liberation struggle are valid — and you’ll note that Iran, for example, was circumspect. OTOH, Chechnya was the center of a major anti-imperialist struggle 150 years ago, and that struggle was fondly remembered in the Muslim world even before the wars of the 90’s.
I have a general theory about anti-imperialist movements such as the one in Chechnya, why it went so horribly wrong etc. This extends to the problem of overwhelming violence in South Africa, the reactionary anarchist ideology of al-Qaeda, the collapse of Afghanistan, etc. [So, eg, there was a deeper point of origin to the Chechnyan resistance, despite its degeneration into anarchism and gangsterism.] I hope to write it down one day…
Instead of parsing each of your final points, I’ll simply point out the need for a broad philosophical, socio-politico-economic perspective in which to contextualize an anti-imperialist perspective as well as the history of oppressed peoples of the world, in the broader context of the growth of the nationalism cancer.
I taught a course on Christian liberation theology once; beyond that: I believe that authentically Islamic, Christian, progressive, and even some conservative elements — a la Ron Paul for example — have enough in common for dialogue and common ground.
So keep up the good work, and
Peace
@VINEYARDSAKER:
http://www.gsp-online.org/index.php?page=shop.product_details&category_id=16&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=59&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=64&vmcchk=1&Itemid=64
is a highly theoretical foundation for some of what I’m talking about …
Peace
@ishamid: I see that you and I have very very similar views on most topics. You write:
and you’ll note that Iran, for example, was circumspect.
Absolutely. You are, so far, the only person I know of which is aware of that. I had Russian friends who were in Iran during the Chechen wars on, shall we say, a “cultural exchange”, and who had access to some Iranian officials who were keeping an very close eye on the situation in Chechnia and who openly told them that, as far as Iran was concerned, the “Chechen version” of Islam was not Islamic at all, that it was a mix of neo-pagan tribalism with freshly imported Wahabi insanity and while they did regret the numerous innocent Chechen casualties and while they wanted the Russians to do much better in terms of a basic respect for human rights, the bottom line was that they fully understsood the Russians.
Comning back to Iran, and to Shia Islam in general, in particular of the Hezbollah school of thought under Imam Khamenei, always strikes me as sober and non-ideological. On the other extreme of the spectrum I see what I call the “crazed Wahabis” who, along with the Haredim in Israel and the neo-Fascist Papists, are just about the worst religious fanatics out there. I am not making an attack on all Sunni Islam at all, but the Wahabi/Deobandi/Takfiri version thereof is really every bit as bad as the US propaganda tries to protray them, and, in fact, worse. Besides, these folks would not hesitate to kill any Muslim who does not agree with their (18th century) “reformist tradition”, in particular if he is Shia.
OTOH, Chechnya was the center of a major anti-imperialist struggle 150 years ago,
I totally agree. The Russians had NO business in Chechnia, and what Russia fought there was a classic imperial war. On principle, I have absolytely no objection to an independent Chechnia as long as a) it is not run by crazed Wahabis and b) as long as the plains of Chechnia – which were originally settled by Russians – are either left to Russia or, at least, is given an autonomous status and the very few Russians remaining there are not persecuted.
the need for a broad philosophical, socio-politico-economic perspective in which to contextualize an anti-imperialist perspective as well as the history of oppressed peoples of the world, in the broader context of the growth of the nationalism cancer.
Again, I can only totally agree with you. Nationalism and, even more broadly, are THE cancer of modern times and they are fundamentally anti-religious since all religions (except Judaism) advocate the brotherhood of mem regardless of nationalisty or ethnicity. Alas, there is a religious “right or wrong – my country” which inhibits the common sense (and religious duty!) of many otherwise pious people. Only one remedy to that: education in the pure, traditional, form of the religion which always aims at a sober search for the truth and justice.
Thanks for your words of encouragement. It is a real joy for me to feel that somebody understands what I am attempting to do with this blog rather than accepting the usual dichotomies of Left-Right, Christian-Muslim, Atheist-Believer, etc.
Peace to you too!
@ishamid: thanks for the link. I will see if I can get this book.