Argentina’s position against the Iranian regime explains, in part, the 15 minutes Obama gave Cristina [President of Argentina] in the context of the Nuclear Security Summit. Although not a single one of the 46 countries invited to the Summit openly condemned the role of nuclear armaments as a “dissuasive threat” to maintain US imperialism’s world domination, President Barack Obama used the meeting with Cristina to reduce the frictions the White House has been having with Brazil over the harsh policy against the Iranian regime the US is trying to legitimize. Those differences became explicit in a meeting that President Lula and the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan had with Obama during the second day of the Summit. Brazil and Turkey, that hold two non-permanent seats on the UN Security Council, are opposed to the imposition of a new round of economic sanctions against Iran, that US imperialism is trying to get approved, still unsuccessfully, at the UN. This position of Lula, who, on several occasions, has defended Iran’s right to continue its nuclear program with peaceful ends, and the lack of any basis for the US accusation that Iran would be developing non-conventional armaments, far from being a sign of anti-imperialism, responds to strategic interests of the Brazilian bourgeoisie and Brazil’s plan to play a role as a regional power, which causes frictions with the United States, as happened with the installation of US military bases in Colombia.
Beyond these disputes, the Summit was a stage set up by Obama to reassert the military power of the United States, that possesses the biggest nuclear arsenal in the world, to guarantee the exclusivity of the nuclear privilege for the United States’ allies and condemn those countries that, because they are not allies of imperialism, are considered “a threat to world peace.” Thus, while Iran, in spite of having accepted the UN’s weapons’ inspections and having signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty is still an object of economic sanctions and even of a threat of military attack by the United States, the State of Israel, which developed nuclear armaments with US help and now possesses between 200 and 300 nuclear weapons, has never been subjected to any inspection, nor was it challenged for using prohibited weapons against the Palestinian population.
The agenda of the Summit organized by imperialism, discussed the alleged threat that nuclear weapons will fall into the hands of terrorist organizations, in order to cover up an obvious fact, that the main nuclear danger for humanity are the enormous nuclear arsenals that the United States and Russia possess, that, in spite of agreed upon reductions, retain the capacity to blow up the planet several times over, besides the smaller arsenals that France and Great Britain have.
The objective of the Summits and the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaties promoted by imperialism is not eliminating nuclear weapons, but maintaining the monopoly of the countries that have already acquired nuclear armaments, and especially the undisputed predominance of the United States, that was the only country to use nuclear weapons against the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, at the end of the Second World War, in order to give a convincing sign of US power, and that will not hesitate to use them again. Therefore, while imperialism, its allies and its agents are armed to the teeth, we must defend the right of oppressed countries to develop their programs of nuclear research, and we condemn the hypocrisy of imperialism, that uses the “nuclear threat” as an excuse to attack those that do not completely submit to its control.
