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Peace
Jan Oberg

Iran’s foreign minister is right about weapons preventing peace

Dr. Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, yesterday spoke at SIPRI – the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. (At the moment of writing nothing comes up on its homepage when searching his name but you may see his speech and the discussion that followed here).

I was asked by Iran’s PressTV to comment on a couple of selected points made by Zarif – which I gladly did:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrer3051QGg

PhD, Peace & future researcher + ‌Art Photographer, Professor Emeritus and media commentator

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  1. As the saying goes, “if the only tool you possess is a hammer everything looks like a nail.” The United States has become the most militarised country in the world with a defence budget almost equal to the next top biggest states combined, if you also include the vast amounts spent on the CIA and other intelligence organisations which are involved in covert military action in the rest of the world. The United States has some 600 military bases in about 130 countries of the world. It enjoys what it calls “full spectrum dominance”. US economy is mainly based on the military-industrial complex. Therefore, it is not strange that such a country believes that wars and military power are the answer to every problem in the world, and that weapons are the most essential tools in peacemaking. According to that mentality war is peace and destroying a country is the best way of saving it.

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