Moral Degradation at the United Nations

"In Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere, the regime is working directly against global disarmament goals and subverting the fundamental principles of this committee.
"Iran's leaders blatantly ignore their international obligations, all while undermining regional security."
Rick Roth, spokesman, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird

In view of Iran's inexplicable election to the rotating presidency of the 65-nation Conference on Disarmament, where it is set to preside as temporary chairman from May 27 until June 23, Canada will once again absent itself from proceedings within a United Nations-approved and -funded gathering whose purpose has been fundamentally degraded to a disgusting sham.

Canada will assuredly not be alone in choosing to sit this one out; the United States has similarly announced its intention to remove itself from the spectacle of criminal absurdity that this situation represents. Other countries with any sense of dignity and appropriate honour to the absolutes of right and wrong will also mark the occasion with their deliberate absence as a symbol of their disapproval.

Mocking the very universal virtue of countries coming together for the purpose of stating their unified position to inhibit the circulation, transference and use of weapons of mass destruction, and their unequivocal support for limiting stockpiles of such weapons, elevating the very state whose activities exemplify the opposite represents an assault on the moral integrity and purpose of the universal body of the United Nations.

The Conference on Disarmament has been responsible in the past for negotiating the international non-proliferation treaty. It has initiated conventions on the prohibition of biological and chemical weapons. And it is struggling to reach new arms control accords. Under the chairmanship of the Islamic Republic of Iran, supporting Syria in its use of chemical weapons against the rebel opposition, and itself defying UN sanctions meant to halt its goal of achieving nuclear weapons, what can be expected to be accomplished?

Iran can be expected to mouth quasi and hypocritical humanitarian platitudes while expressing its sincere solidarity with those countries of the world for whom a end to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction has a vital meaning. The Islamic Republic is skilled at expressing opinions and promises that it knows the world wishes to hear, without having any intention whatever of obeying its own promises, meant to convey an attitude which it holds in utter contempt itself.

Alireza Miryousefi, spokesperson for the Iranian Mission to the United Nations, proudly affirms Iran's right under existing rules to take on the presidency of the conference. "During its presidency, the Islamic Republic of Iran would focus on promoting the goals and objectives of the Conference on Disarmament through according the highest priority to nuclear disarmament and the total elimination of nuclear arsenals of the nuclear-weapon states in an irreversible, transparent and internationally verifiable manner."

An utterly astonishing statement. Representing the very height of morbid cynicism. Empty rhetoric devoid of any meaningful philosophy of intention, given the reality of Iran's defiance of UN sanctions in its feverish and determined goal of attaining nuclear weaponry. Holding the rest of the world in blatant contempt for its willingness to believe what it hears from a nation whose conscience and veracity are both deliberately absent, for whom absolutes are simply what they say they are and nothing other.

But Iran's absolutes can be deciphered by the add-on statement expressed by Miryousefi that the country has "fully complied with its international obligations, including those negotiated by the conference". Lest there be any doubts respecting the legitimacy and legacy of this very important United Nations-funded conference, a memory jog might be useful: North Korea in 2011 took its respectable turn as temporary president.

An occasion which prompted Canada to sit out the conference proceedings then, as well. As a country that takes its universal moral obligations seriously, and acts accordingly.