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The Road To Global Zero An Interview With Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan by Plutonium Page Sun Feb 07 2010 at 10 00 39 AM PST Last week a rather extraordinary summit took place in Paris Over 200 leaders and experts in the field of nuclear arms control and national security gathered to discuss the threat of nuclear proliferation and terrorism and a plan to end the nuclear threat once and for all by setting the world on the course to the elimination of all nuclear weapons Presidents Obama and Medvedev sent statements to the summit Ellen Tauscher the US Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security even spoke

at the conference as did UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon This initiative is called Global Zero The list of signatories includes veterans of Reagan era Cold War arms control negotiations heads of think tanks peace activists former national security advisors and top military commanders So as you can see this is a rather serious initiative that is gaining momentum No one understands this better than Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan who was a founding member of the Global Zero group in 2008 I had the wonderful opportunity to interview her last week My questions are in boldface and her replies follow I ve inserted links references wherever appropriate Introduction and Background How did you get interested in the Global Zero effort and nuclear disarmament nuclear elimination in general The absurd duck and cover under rickety wooden desks in elementary school was the beginning of my awareness of this state of mutually assured destruction if you will during the Cold War that mindset That existential terror was with me for years Plus the images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the shame of that of civilian casualties on such a scale and such destruction as well as the environmental catastrophe and dangers posed by these weapons I have lived in the Middle East for the past thirty five years in a region that has been a crossroads of conflict and tensions not only during the Cold War but also through today with the highest per capita military spending in the world and the least security and striking lack of human security in terms of average 40 poverty and 40 illiteracy and the highest unemployment rate in the world The issue of weapons and the extraordinary expenditures and the lack of security that that generates in fact the opposite the greater insecurity that there is we feel that on a daily basis in our region So that has been a motivating factor as well I ve added to my previous interest anti personnel landmines and cluster bombs with this initiative of Global Zero and what appears to be this growing international consensus among former architects of nuclear programs in the nuclear states Both officials and the public in nuclear and non nuclear states this growing consensus that we have to work for the elimination of nuclear weapons or we cannot live in security and that nuclear weapons are in fact an antiquated notion of security and a deterrent or any kind of defense shield if you will for a state So many experts who have worked in this field almost from the start really believe this is possible a very difficult road to follow but that it is possible And then my becoming a founding member of Global Zero then was followed after our launch in 2008 in Paris by these Obama Medvedev statements that have given hope to I think a great many people this historic commitment to work together for the total elimination of nuclear weapons