By Pratap Chatterjee

The president of the United States, Barack Obama, will receive in Washington 47 world leaders, among whom will include, the presidents of Russia, Dimitri Medvédev, China, Hu Jintao, France, Nicolas Sarkozy, and the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, to analyse methods for keeping nuclear weapons out of the reach of terrorist organizations.

Also participating will be India and Pakistan, but not North Korea and Iran.

For the purposes of the Nuclear Security Summit, the Global Zero organizers, an international initiative that advocates the elimination of atomic weapons, held a press conference in Washington,D.C. on Thursday.

The event revolved around the new documentary film “Countdown to Zero”, directed by British film-maker Lucy Walker and produced by Lawrence Bender, who also worked on the celebrated film regarding climate change “Inconvenient Truth”, with former Vice President of the United States Al Gore (1993-2001).

Bender, has also produced several films by the American director Quentin Tarantino, such as “Inglorious Basterds”.

The documentary was financed by Canadian multimillionaire Jeff Skoll, founder of the Internet auction site EBay, who also contributed to other films such as “Food, Inc.” and dramas like “Charlie Wilson’s War”.

The promoters of the film, which includes interviews with former heads of State like Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, Tony Blair and Pervez Musharraf, concluded that “our only choice is eradicating every last missile”.

“Nuclear weapons have lost their political and military usefulness”, indicated the former ambassador to the United States, Richard Burt, who was also the United States representative in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) negotiations with the former Soviet Union in 1991.

“The danger is no longer that of a nuclear conflict, but the propagation of radioactive materials”, he added, while being introduced to various leaders like queen Noor Al Hussein of Jordan and General John “Jack” Sheehan, former supreme commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

During the worst period of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union held 19,000 atomic weapons, enough to destroy the world hundreds of times over. Both were reducing their arsenals to 2,200.

Obama and Medvédev committed to decrease their nuclear warheads to 1,550 in seven years after executing the new START treaty on Thursday in a ceremony held in Prague.

Obama, additionally, made public the strategy of his government to publish the new version of the Nuclear Policy Review document, that limits the possibilities in which Washington may use nuclear technology.

The United States may no longer use atomic weapons against countries that are signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and who are in compliance with their obligations, renounce tests of the technology and the manufacture of new warheads and commits Washington to attempting to obtain Senate approval and achieve the enactment of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

In the START signing ceremony in Prague, Obama and Medvédev increased the pressure on North Korea and Iran, countries that are not NPT signatories, and it is understood that they will be subject to reprisals for failing to sign.

Obama requested “intelligent” and “strong” sanctions from the United Nations. Medvédev, in turn, stated that “unfortunately, Teheran does not react to the constructive proposals put forward for agreement. We cannot look the other way”.

But, they did not agree on everything. Obama and Medvédev did not reach agreement on the anti-missile shield that the United States intends to construct in Europe to protect the West from Iran.

The film-makers Bender and Skoll explained that their interest is in getting as many signatures as possible for the Global Zero declaration, which asks for the total elimination of nuclear weapons and the isolation of radioactive materials in order to overcome the impasse.

In a preview of the documentary, which will be released on July 9, politicians and citizens are seen standing, saying one after another: “Zero”.

When asked whether the film would be shown in North Korea and Iran, Bender noted that he would love for that to happen. For her part, Queen Noor, who often travels to Syria, indicated that she would be pleased to work so that governments in the Middle East see the documentary and sign the declaration.

Obama himself must do more, according to activists, who believe that he is using the new nuclear policy of his administration, the signing of a new START agreement and Washington’s security summit so that he seems like a less bellicose politician. However, his attitude with respect to North Korea and Iran reveals that Obama could do more to confront nuclear proliferation.

“He has the typical hawk’s position, he is a hawk disguised as a dove”, said Greg Mello, executive director of the Study Group of Los Alamos, where the United States Government laboratory that developed the first nuclear weapons is located.

“The new strategy tries to reconcile liberal ideals with the conservative reality of United States nuclear policy. Nothing will change”, he added.

From the numerical and proportional perspective, the government of George W. Bush (2001-2009) reduced the nuclear arsenal more than Obama, remarked Mello, when comparing the meaning of the Prague accord.

“The new strategy attempts to maintain global nuclear stability as the stage for continuing to apply a ‘firm hand policy’”, he maintained.

*(Translation provided by Iuslingua LLC)*