US violating NPT by upgrading nukes: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Richard Becker, with the ANSWER Coalition, about Iran’s civilian nuclear program and the US’s stance toward it.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Mr. Becker, today is the National Nuclear Technology Day, and all the achievements revealed certainly only have to do with civilian issues such as of course health especially and medicine. What does it say about all these years of accusations against Iran about apparent military dimensions to its nuclear program?

Becker: Well, it’s quite amazing to sit in the United States, to live here, and to hear in the presidential campaign the leading contenders on the Republican side, both Cruz and Trump, talking about how they’ll tear up this deal and it’s a terrible deal. And at the same time, on the Democratic side, we have President Obama talking about a 10-year trillion-dollar program to “modernize and update” the US nuclear weapons supply, which amounts to its arsenal of thousands of weapons, including trying to make them more “useable.”

So, it’s a tremendous contradiction and the nuclear arrangement, the nuclear deal that was reached between the P5+1 and the government of Iran we believe is really the alternative to the march toward war. And that’s a very welcome development of course for the people of Iran and for the people of the world. But the hypocrisy in US circles about the deal continues at a very high level and also the reality of the US policy of further developing nuclear weapons, which is a violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Press TV: Mr. Becker, even in the wake of this nuclear deal, we’re seeing that Iran is under a lot of pressure. I believe that Senators Marco Rubio and Senator Mark Kirk have now brought forth a bill in the Senate to try to ensure that sanctions remain, and secondly, that Iran not get even indirect access to US dollars and US financial system. What does that say about the US fulfilling or not its obligations of this deal?

Becker: Well, I think, we can see that the long-term US objective, which is regime change in Iran, continues to be the objective of much of the ruling political establishment in the United States. I would say that some of them have pulled back feeling that they’re not in a position to be able to do that at this time anyways, but certainly there are strong elements within US ruling circles that want to pursue that strategy and that objective.

And I think that we have to keep in mind that Iran has not initiated wars against other countries, the United States has, in many many countries, and that it’s United States’ military power, including nuclear weapons, which set right off the coast of Iran not the other way around.

Press TV: And many people, Mr. Becker, say that if the US were not to live up to its obligations of the deal, it would only hurt itself, and if they were not to allow Iran to get even indirect access to its financial system/dollars, that it would again hurt just itself. How do you feel about that?

Becker: Well, of course there are many corporate interests in the United States, banking and other corporate interests who want to do business with Iran and believe that their competitors, whether it’s Germany or Japan or China or others, can take advantage of the US continuing to block transactions, but we do have to keep in mind that the US banking system… the US is the most powerful financial power in the world, and continues to impose on banks from many countries the penalties for doing business with countries that the US government does not want business being done with. This has been going on a long time in relation to Iran, to Cuba and other countries that have been placed very unjustly under sanctions by the United States.

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