QUEEN NOOR OF JORDAN - 18th April 2010
Barack Obama's showpiece nuclear security summit this week of 47
nations was the largest gathering of world leaders called by a US
president since Franklin D. Roosevelt organised a meeting in San
Francisco back in 1945, and that one led to the creation of the UN.
Basically, the Obama grand plan is to reduce, and ultimately eliminate,
nuclear weapons from the world - just like that! Well, not quite.
Ominously, the US President also made plain that, right now, the
greatest threat to the post-Cold War world is nuclear terrorism.
BARACK OBAMA, US PRESIDENT: Terrorist networks, such as al-Qaeda, have
tried to obtain the material for a nuclear weapon and, if they ever
succeeded, they would surely use it.
Well, immediately after the summit released its joint communique we
spoke with the most unlikely of interviewees. Queen Noor is the
American-born widow of the late King Hussein of Jordan. What many may
not know is that Her Majesty is also the co-founder of Global Zero - an
international nuclear disarmament body made up of former heads of
state, senior politicians and military leaders.
GEORGE NEGUS: Your
Majesty, thanks very much for joining us. Do you think that President
Obama's plans to curb the proliferation of nuclear weapons is going to
solve the problem when, these days, we're increasingly worried about an
invisible enemy, as opposed to an enemy we can see in the old Cold War
days?
QUEEN NOOR, CO-FOUNDER, GLOBAL ZERO: : Well, that's precisely why the
nuclear security summit is an important step towards 'global zero',
because there is so much nuclear material out there today - highly
enriched uranium and plutonium, perhaps enough to make 200,000 bombs -
and that is a source of increasing concern. Much of that material is
located in unstable regions or unsecured and unstable countries. So,
yes, this summit was, I think, an important step, and we have to
continue to build on it.
GEORGE NEGUS: It's interesting to hear that you should
acknowledge that
there's clearly a long way to go, but do you agree with President Obama
when he says it's a cruel irony of history that the world today is in
more danger of nuclear attack than ever before?
QUEEN NOOR: Yes, and I think there are many experts who say, in fact,
the most powerful nations on earth are more vulnerable today than the
weaker nations because they're the targets of so many of these groups
that are trying to steal, to buy, to build nuclear weapons, and we know
this has been going on for some time. I sat in on the UN Security
Council meeting that President Obama chaired last fall - the first one
on this subject - and, at that meeting, Mohammed ElBaradei, the
outgoing head of the IAEA, said that there had been 200 cases of
missing nuclear materials in the year before alone, and I think that
says it all.
GEORGE NEGUS: 20 years on from the Cold War, there's a whole
new slew
of threats from places like Iran, of course, Syria, North Korea to the
whole potential powder keg of India and Pakistan -
QUEEN NOOR: Absolutely.
GEORGE NEGUS: and 'loose nukes', as you mention. Is this Obama
initiative just wishful thinking when there are so many nations whose
position on nuclear weapons is so unclear and, in many cases, totally
defiant, let alone Israel, of course, who won't really admit openly
that they have even got a weapon?
QUEEN NOOR: Yes, it's an irony that, in fact, Iran, who signed the
nuclear non-proliferation treaty is paying a price for not adhering to
its requirements, and Pakistan and Israel, for example, have nuclear
arsenals and have not signed the NPT, and certainly are not open to
transparency and inspections and the other requirements of the NPT.
Yes, there are a lot of different countries who, for a range of
reasons, primarily perceived security vulnerability and/or status -
have developed nuclear programs, and Iran has had an up-and-down
relationship with its program. It signed the NPT and then, feeling a
threat - probably from Iraq during the Iran/Iraq war and then, once
categorised in "the axis of evil", from the US, and from Israel, after
Israel bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor, it now is moving in a direction
that is of concern to many. So, we believe you have to address these
national and regional insecurities and that is a process that will take
time. Global Zero has set out, through its commission, which is made up
of scientists and experts and politicians who have been working on this
for a long time - a step-by-step action plan for how we might reach
global zero in as little as two decades or more.
GEORGE NEGUS: The operable word being 'might'. Your Majesty,
could I
ask you this? How do you think other nations must feel when 90% of the
world's nuclear weapons are still held by the United States and Russia?
Isn't it hypocrisy that the US - a major nuclear power - is lecturing
other people about what they might and might not do with nuclear
weapons?
QUEEN NOOR: Well, I make this point quite often - that if we are going
to have a process that succeeds, it has to be transparent, it has to be
proportionate, it has to be without any double standards - or, as you
might term it, 'hypocrisy' - whatsoever. It can only be done, as you
said, on the basis of mutual trust and confidence and fairness.
GEORGE NEGUS: You could argue actually that al-Qaeda has
figured out
that fomenting nuclear terror doesn't actually mean possessing a
nuclear weapon at all. One commentator said that their public relations
has been so successful that they've become the world's first virtual
terror network. They're terrorising the world simply by suggesting that
they might!
QUEEN NOOR: Well, that's certainly one way of looking at it. I,
personally, because I do believe there are only two directions we can
move in. One is to retain the remaining status quo, which will increase
proliferation, or reversing course and working toward zero. So, that
being the case, it has galvanised the international community to look
at the issue of nuclear terrorism and then consider all those areas
where leakage of supplies, smuggling of nuclear materials, lack of
security within states - as well as in regions - exists. It is a very
real threat. These materials - this is a genocidal instrument of war.
GEORGE NEGUS: Your Majesty, you've been involved in this
effort to
eliminate nuclear weapons for some time now. Do you often ask yourself
if it's just a filthy rumour that the human race is intelligent?
QUEEN NOOR: You forget also, on top of all that, I've lived in the
Middle East for over 30 years, where we see that distilled in many
respects, absolutely. Today, there are generations who have no idea
what the Cold War was really like nor what happened in Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, and we have to educate them.
GEORGE NEGUS: Meanwhile, this week's communique talks about
greater
efforts to block the likes of al-Qaeda from obtaining building blocks
for atomic weapons for malicious purposes. Now, I'm not too sure about
this term 'malicious purposes'. Is there any good purpose for having a
nuclear weapon?
QUEEN NOOR: This argument has taken place since the weapon was first
created by those most intimately involved with it - both the scientists
and some of the statesmen who were involved with it - and it has
continued over all these decades. We are rather dim that we haven't
managed to resolve this earlier, and had all the parties who signed the
nuclear non-proliferation treaty adhered to the treaty's requirements,
we wouldn't have the problem we're dealing with today. I'm a Muslim, as
you're no doubt aware. The Koran says the killing of an innocent, the
taking of an innocent life, is tantamount to killing all of mankind.
These weapons are a sin in my religion and that has been evoked by
previous leaders in Iran, believe it or not, and it's something we all
have to remember in the Muslim world and I don't think there's any
difference for any other faith. The killing of innocent people is a
sin.
GEORGE NEGUS: Your Majesty, could it be that we're missing the
point,
the target, if you'll pardon the expression in this context? As a
Muslim who lives in the Middle East, don't you think we should be
making greater efforts to find out just why the al-Qaedas and the
extremists of this world exist at all? And why, therefore, they would
ever vaguely consider a nuclear attack?
QUEEN NOOR: Or, more importantly, why they have followers, because that
is the issue and that is where we can make a difference, is to diminish
the appeal of extremist, ideological groups that exist all over the
world, that do not reflect mainstream beliefs in their faiths, or in
their societies or cultures, but have managed to recruit from people
who've been disaffected or felt marginalised in some way, as if they
have no other way of expressing themselves or giving meaning to their
lives. And I think you make a very, very good point and it's a point
I've tried to make as well. When we look at a case of Iran, or we look
at other states and other regions where there is a problem, why is it
that these countries - or the people in these countries - feel so
insecure? How can we address those insecurities in non-military,
non-threatening, constructive ways that will provide a sustainable
future for populations that at the moment are under great economic
pressure, great pressure from climate change, from a whole range of
factors that are putting increasing numbers of people under the poverty
line and great distress?
GEORGE NEGUS: So, ultimately, the real problem is the
extremism itself,
not the stupidity of having a nuclear weapon?
QUEEN NOOR: I agree with you. I think there are always going to be
fanatics and charismatic extremists who are going to be able to draw a
following, but they should never - the way that we address or set the
priorities in our different countries and, now, as an interdependent
global community, to ensure that people have fundamental security in
their lives, that we address, we put human security and the welfare of
the human being as the underpinning of the good society that we all
seek, wherever we live in the world.
GEORGE NEGUS: Unfortunately, Your Majesty, we're losing the
satellite
but that's a good note to end on. Thanks very much for your time.
QUEEN NOOR: Thank you for your interest in the topic. Bye bye.