On the recordMay 5, 2010
I read with interest, and disgust, the press reports about the comments of Iranian President Ahmadinejad at the United Nations on Monday, when he attempted to defend Iran's secret nuclear program and his government's continuing defiance of the Security Council. I could not help but contrast his words with the efforts so many other countries have been making to prevent a nuclear weapon from ending up in the hands of a terrorist, or a nuclear arms race from taking off in the Middle East or South Asia. In the past couple of weeks, the United States and Russia--two former enemies that once came to the brink of a nuclear war and since the 1980s have slashed their nuclear arsenals--agreed to make further reductions, and President Obama has said he wants to negotiate deeper cuts in furtherance of his long-term vision of a world without nuclear weapons. On Monday, the Pentagon disclosed publicly the number of weapons that remain in our arsenal, which would have been unthinkable a few years ago. There are serious efforts being made to establish nuclear weapons-free zones in South America, Africa, and the Middle East. And at the United Nations, even countries such as Russia and China, which have traditionally sided with Iran, have all but lost patience with what Secretary Clinton rightly called Iran's 'history of making confusing, contradictory and inaccurate statements.' Nobody questions Iran's right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
