Very bad health, my son’s wedding and shifting of my place of residence took a lot out of me physically and mentally and this in turn forced me to take on as light a role as one can have, whilst spending most of the day either sleeping or generally acting like a vegetable. As my medication lessened and I got stronger, I started spending time on the computer, writing and researching for a very long overdue book that I was co-authoring, but for limited periods of time only, that never exceeded an hour a day. Now I am in a phase where I can not only spend more time, perhaps three or four hours a day on the computer, and then I read but then I must take a siesta of a couple hours during the day to enable me spend an evening with the family. Visitors especially those with coughs or sniffles are a no-no, but I am very happy to be left by myself to do my thing, study and complete whatever I have on my plate.
Pakistan today worries me and has become a major preoccupation since the flood and the political situation that arose thereof. Pakistan is not a small country or a country that can be ignored under any circumstances or pushed about. It has the 6th or 7th largest population and the 44th largest economy in the world with a GDP in excess of US$177 billion. To top that, we are a nuclear weapon state and have a strategic geographic location that opens up Afghanistan and Central Asia to the sea. Our elected leaders who carried on their merry ways regardless of the situation prevailing in the land and have as a result, gotten a massive vote of no confidence by the people of Pakistan over their handling of the devastating flood of the River Indus due to very heavy rains.
The World community initially had been reluctant or hesitant about giving aid or help to Pakistan until the magnitude of the disaster became better known. They had thought that this appeal for help was yet another con job by Pakistan to get aid. Now their purse strings seem to be opening and the United Nations and associated NGOs will be the sources through whom the funds will be channeled thereby ensuring that the aid reaches those who need it the most. This should take care of all the allegations of corruption and incompetence that had been floating about. This does not mean or imply for even one moment that the Pakistani Armed forces and local NGOs sat there twiddling their thumbs – they were at the forefront and people preferred to channel aid through them rather than the Government. This singular act could probably be interpreted by many as a massive vote of no confidence in the Government and its ability to rule and unless and until they can seriously change their attitude the fledgling democracy in Pakistan is under threat. After the initial shock and sense of doom that befell the sufferers who raided and ambushed trucks carrying supplies, a semblance of order is in place. Today rescue work is taking place and many who sought refuge from the deluge have started going back to start from where they were forced to leave. Now some resettlement will have to happen.
Thinking about the flood situation, the international response system, the fact that Pakistan’s flood brought the Secretary General of the United Nations to the country and many have declared that the area that was flooded greater than Italy as we know it today. This flooding is seen as a disaster that is greater than the tsunami that swept Southern Asia a few years ago and the recent earthquake in Haiti combined.
The local catastrophe along with the earthquake in Haiti, the floods in China, got me thinking and looking at how the world is being structured today. Of a fact, we are or have become a global village. Telecommunications, the internet, Face book, internet search engines, etc available to us have become possible through space satellite communications and the optic fiber network. More than anything else, the speed with which information moves about has shrunk the world. Consider if you will the amount of information that can easily be transferred from one country to any place in the world is amazing. I think the seeds of this binding or coming closer were sown with the Sputnik launch in the mid 1950s, and then the present system of communications was developed upon by many countries of the world that have satellites in space today. The Global Positioning System or GPS has never ceased to fascinate me. It seems technology had brought everything much closer and there is an explosion in the information that is available at any given time.
I am therefore, forced to recall here something I am in the process of reading in small spurts of a page of two at a time and am quoting from a reference I got from this book. It is the second edition of “Political Geography” by Peter J Taylor, published by the Longman Group in 1989.The reference reads as under:
“In the second half of the twentieth century, laymen and professional intellectuals alike have frequently expressed that the relationship of all of us, all humankind, to each other and to our world, has been undergoing a series of profound changes. We seem to be living in one of those rare historical eras in which a progressive, quantitative process becomes a qualitative transformation. Even when, in more sober moments, we recognize we are yet far from being there, we have an unmistakable sense that we are definitely set off on a new trajectory, and that we are not merely launched but well along towards an only vaguely identifed destination.” (Alex Inkeles “The Emerging Social structure of the World” in World Politics Vol 27 No4, July 1975.)
I followed the subject and trend of thought on Google search and came upon an essay titled “On the Genesis of World Society: Innovations and Mechanisms” by Rudolf Stichweh. I was fascinated by the premise the learned gentleman took when he opened his essay with the following statement.
“The hypothesis of world society asserts that in the present world there is only one societal system. In this simple formulation one can already find a number of unsolved problems and contested positions. First of all it means that the title society can be awarded only once. Germany, the United States, Norway or Pakistan are no longer to be seen as societies. Even Europe is no society. Only the one, world-wide system complies with the conditions for being called a societal system. This demands a certain terminological effort. There seems not to exist a sociologist who on the one hand agrees with the diagnosis of world society and to whom it does not happen now and then that she speaks of a French, Spanish or American Society. But I never heard someone mention the, “society of Luxembourg“. This reveals one problem that was always inherent to the concept of a society closely allied with the territorial state. There was a latent implication of societies having a certain spatial extension. But one could not justify this implication in theoretical terms. ”
It is from this point on that I will say whatever I have to say about the subject below. I start off from a premise that I arrived upon as a 19 year old, who was going crazy trying to understand the evolution of societies and culture especially in the context of my all time favourite subject, Archaeology. The formulation I arrived at was, “every technological advance or objective condition must have an ideological response for successful progress”. Unless there is a comparable ideological response, the new technology could tear or shred a society or a culture. This inability to adapt invariably tends towards retrogression and a diminution of status or in extreme cases, extinction. Having understood this principle, which I then considered unique and earth shattering, I have subsequently applied it to all my studies through the years. I have not, nor was not required, or have not had reason to change my conclusions. I observed that people may glory in their worldly goods, possessions and achievements but they are conservative in changing their outlook or belief. Social changes invariably are forced upon people, who, by and large, are quite happy to maintain the status quo. Very slowly but surely, technological innovations or changes become a necessary part of life. A living example is the television and the mobile telephone and then a television in the mobile phone. Attitudes help in bringing about changes. It also shows a society’s adaptability to a technological change. It reflects, or better still, shows an inherent dynamism in a society that permits it to accept innovations that need not have originated from within a society or a culture.
Change that is small is not viewed as a threat because it has complemented the prevailing social and cultural structure. Most people are aware of the change itself, have accepted it as a part of modern life because it has enhanced their society and their individual capabilities and has not hurt them.
Now, who brings about or initiates the idea that eventually brings about change. In the next stage, we will see whether the ideological response has enabled absorption of this change globally. Take for example the Atoms for Peace program. It was President Eisenhower’s foresight that was the mainspring for a diffusion of nuclear technology to the world through legislation and in a very even handed manner. Subsequent it was, and is the political leadership and the present world leadership’s lack of vision that has given birth to the threat of an imagined global holocaust. The initial global peaceful nuclear energy program has been endangered and the present world leaders have tried to undo a great man’s vision and foresight and tried to politicise the entire nuclear energy concept and the laws that govern it. Those who regulate or oversee this massive technological achievement realized a little too late in the day that because atomic energy has now been politicized, the entire structure that was built to regulate this discovery is under threat. Take for example, the 2010 NPT Review Conference. Had they not agreed to sacrifice Israel’s interest at the 2010 NPT Review Conference by agreeing to take up the issue of the Middle East Nuclear Weapons Free Zone in the 2012 preliminary meeting of the NPT, the Treaty was dead in the water. A promise made in 1995 has after 15 years arisen anew and is seen as a threat to the existing scheme of things. Now having let the genie out of the bottle finally, they are giving Israel various assurances on the side, they are trying to get the Middle East Peace Process on the way to have a more conducive 2012 meeting and by doing this, they want to put the genie back in the bottle by pressuring the Arab States.
Today America insists that there should be no move to degrade Israel to the status of a pariah state at any meeting of the IAEA. The Arabs have a very different attitude towards it and as the situation stands today, the subject is to be brought up and voted on at the IAEA meeting at Vienna to be held in due course. Will this work? I have scant faith in it. The peace process for the Middle East is America’s imperative to get out of the mess they created in the first place. Israelis know the Palestinians are divided between the Hamas in Gaza and the PLO in the West Bank. They will talk and talk and talk and talk without end because there is no imperative for them to bring about change. The Palestinians are not united and the Arabs States can’t do a thing about it militarily. So, the Arabs have taken heart and launched a diplomatic offensive. Unless the USA can prevail on the Arabs to remain silent and be reconciled with their fate or really implement the NPT Resolution of a Nuclear Free Middle East, there is no solution in sight. All things said and done, who will represent the Palestinians – Hamas or the PLO? So the present talks on the two state solution in Palestine has the makings of creating an even bigger mess.
Nuclear energy is a new concept of energy. Hitherto we have relied on natural materials to help us along and then came an era where explosive power was enhanced by certain industrial inputs. Splitting the atom is something very different and we have to thank Albert Einstein’s input of E=mc2. The splitting of the atom enabled man to carry out his first energy based explosion which was so massive, and its results so unexpected, that it scared a lot of people involved in creating the first nuclear device. J. Robert Oppenheim can be seen as the world’s first nuclear era martyr.
Even after 65 years we are unhappy about the way it is being handled. Why? Because we have politicized this very important discovery for no reason but a lack of political faith in our present global make up and the desire to be the cock of the walk. Because the powers that were made nuclear power the currency for world domination at a point in time when the world was divided into two political or ideological camps. When one of the two super powers collapsed or better still imploded, it was believed by many that the world had become uni-polar and the USA had a right to tell the world what to do. Now, after it’s military fiascos in Iraq and Afghanistan, ex-Vice President Dick Cheney and the Republican Party’s dream of redrawing the map of the Middle East or in the area denoted as US CENTCOM, is not to be for the time being at least. There are extreme right wing positions developing in the USA and this is a sure sign of a society under threat from within.
This is also because there are nuclear arsenals held by the two original competitors that were so large that they could annihilate all life on the Planet and then move on to any part of our solar system to carry on the good work of destruction. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no one has used a nuclear device in war and today nuclear weapons are not a “weapon of use” but a weapon to deter others from attacking you. No matter what positions current thinkers hold, nuclear weapons, have in all probability, just about found their place in the world now and will hold this position until the next madman comes around. The possession of a nuclear arsenal deters others from attacking you, but nuclear weapons are not to be used unless the existence of the possessor state is in jeopardy. This fear of nuclear attack has given birth to an even more destructive concept of war fighting. The ability to carry out a second nuclear strike in case you got hit first. This capability has been achieved by 7 or 8 out of 9 nuclear weapon states in the world and having this ability, the next biggest threat deterrent and strategic imperative has found its place.
Having reached this point in our discussion, what then is the purpose of doing away with nuclear weapons? Have we frightened ourselves silly? Can you unlearn a certain aspect of scientific knowledge? So like many things we did in the past, this awesome destructive power unleashed by splitting the atom will always be a part of humanity. We may create nuclear power reactors for generating electricity but the nuclear genie will not go back in the bottle. You cannot unlearn what you have learned. If it frightens you, then you must overcome your fear by remembering that you created it and by that token you can and have to control it by de-politicising it and creating a global world view of what nuclear energy is and what nuclear weapons are. This example of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy is a classical case of a failure of an ideological response.
It seems that after all is said and done, the point of view I outlined above is not to be for the time being. We are using older worldviews that are a carryover from the age of colonialism to encompass the new era, “the Nuclear Age.” There are ways around the problem but there is a lack of will. It is something akin to what a married man told a very attractive lady “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak”. The world is not uni-polar and this is something that the USA and the West refuse to accept. The USA has created 8 separate commands to control the World and this can been seen in the map attached as an annexure, and then, there are those who insist that the world is multi-polar because there is a subtle and perceptible shifting in the world power base. The change is taking place slowly but surely, the power centers have moved from Europe into the USA and slowly now into Asia. Asia has an economic powerhouse in Japan and two global economic powers in the making and to top it all off, having two gigantic population centers that boast of more than a billion people in each country. And finally, we also have the 4 non-recognized nuclear weapon states, namely, India, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan in Asia. So it seems the next economic and power center is not the USA and Europe but Asia and probably some countries in South America.
The crux of the problem lies in the way the rule of exception had been used at the end of the Second World War and today, there are 5 countries that are recognized nuclear weapon powers, Britain, China, France, Russia and the USA who are the exceptions, along with 4 countries that are not recognized nuclear powers enumerated above. Will non-recognition by the NPT and the UN Security Council, degrade the nuclear capability of the 4 non-recognized nuclear powers in any way? An existing legal framework is so grossly inadequate in this case because of antiquated beliefs that are held by some countries that the world moves at whims and at their beck and call. Are we in reality a global village? Are we just one society or are we one society insofar as technology and objective conditions go? So, when we look for an ideological framework that would unify the world, there are huge gaps. It would pay to find out why. Let us take a modern day example.
Let us see the failure of our nuclear establishment on a micro scale. A major sticking point today is the right to enrich Uranium. Any country that has this ability can make a nuclear device in the same way, if any country can reprocess Plutonium, can also have a nuclear device. This right to enrich Uranium or reprocess spent nuclear fuel to extract Plutonium is given to every signatory nation to the NPT with a condition that they will not use it to make nuclear weapons that are the sole prerogative of 5 states. But today it irks the West led by the USA who believes that it is only Europe and America, or the 5 recognized nuclear powers, who are capable enough to have this privilege. They forget that the NPT is 40 years old and there have been many changes in the world since then. At every given occasion, the West tries to curb this ability, at every turn they try to pass a legislation curbing this right that is enshrined in the NPT. The only alternative they have is to change the NPT and update it. Unhappily, it will not work because there has to be an overwhelming majority consensus to effect the change and there are no veto powers in the NPT. So, the exemptions and privileges that the five nuclear powers have will be lost or diluted.
Why is it they want to curb nations from enriching Uranium or reprocessing spent fuel to extract Plutonium? The most obvious first is Iran, who tends to walk its own path and steadfastly refers to the USA as the “Great Satan” and has acquired the capability to enrich Uranium. This Iranian ability to enrich Uranium was obtained in a clandestine manner and from suppliers who were outside the purview of the NPT to which Iran is a signatory. Obtaining the ability to enrich Uranium in such a manner was considered wrong and also outside the purview of the NPT’s subsidiary body the NSG (Nuclear Suppliers Group). The irony is, most of the raw materials and equipment originated in those countries that are signatories to the NPT and the NSG. Iran got in touch with a Gotthard Lerch who was a German/Swiss national who sold them the of Uranium enrichment. The proposal included layout, equipment and the works. Having its own source of adequate Uranium ore meant Iran could successfully carry out its enrichment program without paucity of raw materials. However, to lessen international pressure, Iran placed its nuclear establishment under the IAEA that is the sole monitoring body that ensures everyone is keeping to their end of the bargain and no hanky panky is taking place.
The USA, in turn has turned a shade of blue in the face yelling that Iran will develop nuclear weapons. How they arrived at that conclusion could be anything from real time intelligence to using I Ching or reading the shoulder blades of sheep or the entrails of a sacrificial animal or flights of birds or even watching the colours of the sunsets. The USA’s fiasco and the West’s “irrefutable information about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction” is a well known and well established propaganda that was put in place to wage war on Iraq to get rid of Saddam Hussein, destroy its military capability that in turn would let the Saudi Arabian Royal family breathe easier. On the other hand, Iran’s refusal to weaponise its Uranium capability is something the Vilayet e Faqih, who is the supreme religious authority in Iran, has ruled on the matter and said that whilst Iran can use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, it would be illegal or unacceptable to use nuclear energy for weapons and Iran will never do so. What we tend to forget in all the hullaballoo is that the IAEA is monitoring Iran’s nuclear program and have not cited Iran for enriching Uranium beyond the declared enrichment rate, or remove enriched Uranium without the IAEA’s knowledge and every gram of material has been accounted for by Iran.
The enriched Uranium is in gaseous form and has to be turned into metal that is another specialized exercise and then machined into the shape of a warhead or a part of a bomb. None of these steps have been undertaken by Iran. Enrichment beyond a certain extent has happened with the IAEA’s knowledge but the very fact that Iran can enrich Uranium means that Iran will make a nuclear device. It seems the IAEA is sleeping or not doing its job properly as far as the West is concerned when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program. When all things are considered, unless the USA gives Iran a nuclear device, it does not seem like or feasible that Iran will ever have a nuclear device. The very fact that Iran can enrich Uranium and has sufficient supply of this metal within its borders is a very frightening scenario. It is so frightening that there is a Bill pending before the US Congress that permits Israel to bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities (refer to Annexure I).
Now comes the question – Is Iran capable of enriching Uranium to weapons grade using the IR-1 centrifuges it has installed at Natantz? Were we to refer to the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control mailing for September 2010 regarding Iran’s nuclear capabilities, we find the following fact that each centrifuge produced 0.96 swu annually. This is miniscule and means Iran is still using Aluminum rotors that have a lower number of revolutions per second than a maraging steel rotor has, and is therefore an inefficient way of doing things when you are thinking of a creating a nuclear arsenal because it could take forever to make your first bomb. Iran is still using the first generation centrifuges that were specifically designed in both Holland and Germany to produce and enrich Uranium to reactor grade, or a maximum of 5% enrichment. However, after many twists and turns, these centrifuges could be used to enrich uranium to weapons grade but it would take Iran a very long time to do so. In all probability, Iran could do this on the Tuesday following the 12th of Never.
I had started off on this article which is based on a deeply theoretical matter and used my concept of every Technological or Objective challenge must have an ideological response to succeed, to a prevailing scenario today. I am sure I am not the only smart man in the world and that there must be many smart men and women who have come to the same conclusion or some other conclusions that explain the grand scheme of things. I have not copied this maxim from anyone or from any source but arrived at it by myself after much sweat and tears so I am proud of it and have dared to use it here. Are we a global village? Is the concept of a territorial state a thing of the past? I don’t think so because this would mean that the world and how we view the world is strictly subject to our 5 senses or objective. This is applicable to an extent to scientific thought but is a fallacy, as far as I am concerned, when it comes to dealing with humanity. Let me tell you why below.
We feel sorrow, or joy, or anger. Who amongst us doesn’t? But what we see is a manifestation of what we feel and not sorrow or joy, namely the thing in itself. So how can our response to the World be restricted to our 5 senses because our responses are conditioned by what we feel? We have to increase our worldview to accommodate that which we know is there but cannot be qualified at this time because no one has seen these emotional or intuitive responses or understood them. It is very similar to what scientists are doing when they try to find atomic particles or sub-particles. The Quantum theory is full of such instances. They can trace the trajectory of the particle but they cannot see it; this is considered rightly to be proof of the existence of the particle or sub particle. Science today has accepted that this is what they have to do if they are to move forward. Are our politicians blind or plain stupid because they cannot follow the example set by our scientists? Because we have to accommodate these factors, we cannot ignore any society’s conception of what it is. We cannot ignore the binding forces of the Social Contract that is applicable to an area or has territorial limits. This binding link is culture. Pakistan wishes to become an Islamic state. To what extent will Pakistan secularize? How will Pakistan’s partial secularization sit with the World at large is a secondary matter. To what extent will Pakistan copy the West? We have before us the case of post World War II Japan and how it synthesized the technological and ideological forces that were unleashed on it after the World War. Isn’t it a Japanese cultural society? Will Turkiye become a cheap imitation of the EU and lose its ‘Turkishness” for the lack of a better description? Therefore, whilst technology can unite us, the unification will never come about in minutiae because we are what we are and this is our culture, our heritage and it defines us. Most of us are not willing to lose this identity and join the great faceless mass of humanity.
Today we are in the process of trying to adopt a unified vision of, and for mankind. Yes, in very broad terms we can do that. But that integration will be very limited. Take the Declaration of Human Rights. Very specifically, Article 8 of the Declaration of Human Rights qualifies rights and freedoms and has made them subject to a country’s constitution. The Declaration lays out broad outlines. The details are to be filled by individual states. And because of this qualification, emphasizes the all important cultural overlay. An example of this all important cultural overlay is outlined below. Iran has recently carried out the stoning for adultery. The man died but the woman has survived. There are the Hudood Ordinances in Pakistan but amputation that had been decreed in the Ordinances has been struck down. Now Iran is a signatory to the Declaration of Human Rights as is Pakistan and here are two different interpretations of Islamic law of Shariah and Shariah is certainly not the misunderstood bogeyman of the current western media. There are five or more schools of Shariah in practice today in the Islamic world and to various degrees to suit the cultural overlay of a society or country. Lack of understanding has created visions of veils and persecution and seclusion of women. The Western media will flaunt pictures of women in a Burqa. Very rarely will it show the average Muslim woman and their interpretation of modesty that Islam asks for.
Our present day rulers are overwhelmed or yet to understand the spirit of Cancun as demonstrated in 1975, as a result of this “copelessness” or inability to cope with the situation prevailing. Today the Doha Round of Talks have yet to progress. On a smaller scale, we can look at the Treaty of Pelindaba that is meant to declare the Continent of Africa to be a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone. It was first signed at Cairo on the 11th of April 1996 but it entered into force on the 15th of July 2009 when it obtained the 28th country’s signing and ratifying the Treaty. There are an additional 24 countries that have signed the Treaty but have to ratify it. The idea of such a Treaty originated at the OAU meeting held at Cairo from 17th to 21st of July 1964. The aim of the exercise is to show how territorial and therefore cultural strength underlies the concept of State as at today’s date. Take the OIC, will it ever be capable of doing away with borders that define the Muslim Ummah? I don’t think so. Even before the Mongol sack of Baghdad in the 13th century, there were states that went to make the Ummah. These states paid nominal homage to the Caliph in Baghdad. Islam survived after the caliphate was done away with by Mustafa Kemal Pasha in the 1920s. Despite all this, there is an OIC that can serve as a nominal Ummah but I don’t believe it could survive doing away with territorial borders. So much for the Global Village. Now after 6500 words and more I have to end here because I could go on and on, on the matter.
ANNEXURE I
111TH CONGRESS 2D SESSION H. RES. 1553
Expressing support for the State of Israel’s right to defend Israeli sovereignty, to protect the lives and safety of the Israeli people, and to use all means necessary to confront and eliminate nuclear threats posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the use of military force if no other peaceful solution can be found within reasonable time to protect against such an immediate and existential threat to the State of Israel.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES JULY 22, 2010
Mr. GOHMERT (for himself, Mr. AKIN, Mrs. BACHMANN, Mr. BARTLETT, Mr. BISHOP of Utah, Mrs. BLACKBURN, Mr. BONNER, Mr. BROUN of Georgia, Mr. BURTON of Indiana, Mr. CAMPBELL, Mr. CHAFFETZ, Mr. CONAWAY, Mr. CULBERSON, Ms. FALLIN, Mr. FLEMING, Mr. FRANKS of Arizona, Mr. GINGREY of Georgia, Ms. GRANGER, Mr. GRIFFITH, Mr. HENSARLING, Mr. HERGER, Mr. KING of Iowa, Mr. LAMBORN, Mr. LATTA, Mr. LOBIONDO, Mrs. LUMMIS, Mr. MARCHANT, Mr. NEUGEBAUER, Mr. PENCE, Mr. PITTS, Mr. POSEY, Mr. PRICE of Georgia, Mr. OLSON, Mr. ROONEY, Mrs. SCHMIDT, Mr. SHADEGG, Mr. SMITH of Texas, Mr. WESTMORELAND, Mr. ROSKAM, Mr. MCCOTTER, Mr. BROWN of South Carolina, Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin, Mr. MCCLINTOCK, Mr. JORDAN of Ohio, Mr. BARTON of Texas, Mr. KINGSTON, and Mr. CARTER) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs
RESOLUTION
Expressing support for the State of Israel’s right to defend Israeli sovereignty, to protect the lives and safety of the Israeli people, and to use all means necessary to confront and eliminate nuclear threats posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the use of military force if no other peaceful solution can be found within reasonable time to protect against such an immediate and existential threat to the State of Israel. Whereas with the dawn of modern Zionism, the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, some 150 years ago, the Jewish people determined to return to their homeland in the Land of Israel from the lands of their dispersion;
Whereas in 1922, the League of Nations mandated that the Jewish people were the legal sovereigns over the Land of Israel and that legal mandate has never been superseded;
Whereas in the aftermath of the Nazi-led Holocaust from 1933 to 1945, in which the Germans and their collaborators murdered 6,000,000 Jewish people in a premeditated act of genocide, the international community recognized that the Jewish state, built by Jewish pioneers must gain its independence from Great Britain;
Whereas the United States was the first nation to recognize Israel’s independence in 1948, and the State of Israel has since proven herself to be a faithful ally of the United States in the Middle East;
Whereas the United States and Israel have a special friendship based on shared values and together share the common goal of peace and security in the Middle East;
Whereas, on October 20, 2009, President Barack Obama rightly noted that the United States–Israel relationship is a ‘‘bond that is much more than a strategic alliance.’’; Whereas the national security of the United States, Israel, and allies in the Middle East face a clear and present danger from the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran seeking nuclear weapons and the ballistic missile capability to deliver them;
Whereas Israel would face an existential threat from a nuclear weapons-armed Iran;
Whereas President Barack Obama has been firm and clear in declaring United States opposition to a nuclear-armed Iran, stating on November 7, 2008, ‘‘Let me state—repeat what I stated during the course of the campaign. Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon I believe is unacceptable.’’;
Whereas, on October 26, 2005, at a conference in Tehran called ‘‘World Without Zionism’’, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated, ‘‘God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism’’;
Whereas the New York Times reported that during his October 26, 2005, speech, President Ahmadinejad called for ‘‘this occupying regime [Israel] to be wiped off the map’’;
Whereas, on April 14, 2006, Iranian President Ahmadinejad said, ‘‘Like it or not, the Zionist regime [Israel] is heading toward annihilation’’;
Whereas, on June 2, 2008, Iranian President Ahmadinejad said, ‘‘I must announce that the Zionist regime [Israel], with a 60-year record of genocide, plunder, invasion, and betrayal is about to die and will soon be erased from the geographical scene’’;
Whereas, on June 2, 2008, Iranian President Ahmadinejad said, ‘‘Today, the time for the fall of the satanic power of the United States has come, and the countdown to the annihilation of the emperor of power and wealth has started’’;
Whereas, on May 20, 2009, Iran successfully tested a surface- to-surface long range missile with an approximate range of 1,200 miles;
Whereas Iran continues its pursuit of nuclear weapons;
Whereas Iran has been caught building three secret nuclear facilities since 2002;
Whereas Iran continues its support of international terrorism, has ordered its proxy Hizbullah to carry out catastrophic acts of international terrorism such as the bombing of the Jewish AMIA Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1994, and could give a nuclear weapon to a terrorist organization in the future;
Whereas Iran has refused to provide the International Atomic Energy Agency with full transparency and access to its nuclear program;
Whereas United Nations Security Council Resolution 1803 states that according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, ‘‘Iran has not established full and sustained suspension of all enrichment related and reprocessing activities and heavy-water-related projects as set out in resolution 1696 (2006), 1737 (2006) and 1747 (2007) nor resumed its cooperation with the IAEA under the Additional Protocol, nor taken the other steps required by the IAEA Board of Governors, nor complied with the provisions of Security Council resolution 1696 (2006), 1737 (2006) and 1747 (2007) . . .’’;
Whereas at July 2009’s G-8 Summit in Italy, Iran was given a September 2009 deadline to start negotiations over its nuclear programs and Iran offered a five-page document lamenting the ‘‘ungodly ways of thinking prevailing in global relations’’ and included various subjects, but left out any mention of Iran’s own nuclear program which was the true issue in question;
Whereas the United States has been fully committed to finding a peaceful resolution to the Iranian nuclear threat, and has made boundless efforts seeking such a resolution and to determine if such a resolution is even possible; and
Whereas the United States does not want or seek war with Iran, but it will continue to keep all options open to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives—
(1) condemns the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran for its threats of ‘‘annihilating’’ the
United States and the State of Israel, for its continued support of international terrorism, and for its incitement of genocide of the Israeli people;
(2) supports using all means of persuading the Government of Iran to stop building and acquiring nuclear weapons;
(3) reaffirms the United States bond with 0Israel and pledges to continue to work with the Government of Israel and the people of Israel to ensure that their sovereign nation continues to receive critical economic and military assistance, including missile defense capabilities, needed to address the threat of Iran; and
(4) expresses support for Israel’s right to use all means necessary to confront and eliminate nu3 clear threats posed by Iran, defend Israeli sovereignty, and protect the lives and safety of the Israeli people, including the use of military force if no other peaceful solution can be found within a reasonable time.
