The 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) held in May 2010 at UN Headquarters in New York.
BY OZGUR TUFEKCI | JUNE 01, 2010
The first day of the month-long conference was dominated by Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And, as an expected consequence, he was harshly criticised by the US, the British, and the French delegations.During the conference, in a nutshell, Mr Ahmadinejad said that “the US, not Iran, is the real threat to world peace… Regrettably, the government of the United States has not only used nuclear weapons, but also continues to threaten to use such weapons against other countries, including Iran”
Let us stop here…
And go back almost 60 years; start from scratch.
The United States is the first producer of nuclear weapons.
The United States conducted a nuclear weapon test in 1945 for the first time in history.
The United States dropped two bombs onto the Japanese cities Hiroshima on August of 6th, 1945 and Nagasaki on August of 9th 1945; killed tens of thousands of people outright.
The United States and Russia were the two parts of nuclear arms race during the Cold War.
Between 1945 and 1990, the US built more than 70.000 nuclear warheads and bombs.
However, Russia managed to beat the US in this race and in 1986; Russia had the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, almost 45.000 warheads. Still, Russia maintains the largest stockpile in the world.
Now let us come back to present.
Currently, around the world there are 9 countries having nuclear arms; Russia, the U.S., France, China, Britain, Israel, Pakistan, India, North-Korea. Apart from that, 430 nuclear power reactors are being operated. Furthermore, many of the world’s oil rich states are in the queue to have nuclear power plants. What makes them to think that they need that technology is awareness of their oil reserves will not last much longer.
However, according to the US, once countries have the nuclear power technology, it will not last to manage to develop weapons of their own. That is why; the American strategy, begun during the Bush administration, is to pre-empt countries, in particular the Middle East countries, to develop nuclear weapons. From the perspective of Ellen Tauscher, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, that is the right formula for the Middle East.
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* Published in the Second Issue of Political Reflection Magazine (PR).