Peace Movement Aotearoa
“One can oppose a hateful regime and, at the same time, oppose an unjustified and dangerous military intervention,” says Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
“I once again call for immediate de-escalation, respect for international law, and the urgency of resuming dialogue.”
While some governments around the world have easily managed to express their opposition to the unlawful military attacks by Israel and the US and their opposition to the Iranian regime, shamefully New Zealand has failed to follow their example.
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Instead, the government has issued a statement that condemns only Iran; “acknowledges” the military strikes were “designed to prevent Iran from continuing to threaten international peace and security”; and calls for “adherence to international law” — apparently blissfully unaware that the attacks comprise multiple breaches of international law.
In an interview on RNZ, the PM repeatedly responded to the question “Does New Zealand support these attacks or not?” by reading out “We think Iran is evil, we think it’s been repressing its own people.
“We think it’s been arming proxies and terrorist organisations. We think it has been developing its ballistic and nuclear programmes and years of diplomacy hasn’t actually paid any fruits.”
He also said more than once that New Zealand’s position was the same as Australia’s — the Australian PM has said they “support the United States acting to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons”.
Bizarre spectre
Which, aside from ignoring the US’s stated desire for forced regime change in Iran, raises the bizarre spectre of two nuclear-armed states attacking another state in case it might develop nuclear weapons — even though Iran is a state party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (#NPT), which Israel is not, and has opened its nuclear facilities to the #IAEA, which Israel has not. Indeed, the only state in the Middle East that does have stockpiles of nuclear weapons (entirely undeclared and unsupervised) is Israel.
New Zealand’s moral failure to condemn these military strikes, but instead to continue describing the Iranian regime as “evil” or “bad actors” as though that somehow makes armed attacks on a sovereign nation to assassinate its leaders to force regime change okay — regardless of civilian casualties — shows how far it has now moved from even the pretence of applying international law to the actions of its military friends and partners.
And what a missed opportunity to point out the urgent necessity for the elimination of ALL #NuclearWeapons — so much for New Zealand’s alleged commitment to a nuclear weapons-free world, and its promotion of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons #TPNW / #NuclearBan and the NPT.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.