WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The nuclear deal reached between Iran and the P5 + 1 nations removes the key US argument for deploying ballistic missile defense systems in Europe, prominent global anti-nuclear campaigner Dr. Helen Caldicott told Sputnik.
“The vacuous and fallacious rationale for deploying US missile defense systems [across Europe] now falls in a shattering heap,” Caldicott said.
Caldicott was founding president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, the co-winner of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize. The Smithsonian Institution has named her one of the most influential women of the 20th century.
Caldicott said the Europe-wide deployment of advanced US weapons already included “missile defense systems in Poland and Romania, plus Aegis ships equipped with MD [missile defense] systems in the Baltic and the Mediterranean plus a missile-defense radar in Turkey.”
In every case, Washington’s publically-stated justification for the deployments was to protect its European allies against a possible nuclear missile attack from Iran, she pointed out.
“[These US anti-ballistic missile systems] were said to be deployed against any aggressive moves by Iran,” Caldicott said.
“However now that the Iranian agreement has at last come about, what reason will the great USA now give for all this aggressive technology?” she asked.
Caldicott argued that the refusal of the administration of President Barack Obama to remove its anti-ballistic missile systems from Europe following the new agreement with Iran revealed the reason behind the deployments.
“Let’s be frank, it is about encircling Russia so that the US can fight and ‘win’ a nuclear war against Russia which is its official policy,” Caldicott noted. “It is all extremely dangerous, provocative and stupid.”
Caldicott, an Australian physician, has been one of the world’s leading anti-nuclear activists for more than 40 years. She is also the founder and leader of the Helen Caldicott Foundation for a Nuclear Free-Future and the author of many books including “If You Love This Planet” and “The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush’s Military Industrial Complex.”
Caldicott is also author and editor of the widely acclaimed book “Crisis Without End: The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe.”
Previously, Caldicott had told Sputnik that the military establishments in the United States and Russia have been practicing nuclear war exercises “like little boys in a sandbox.”
She has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin for showing restraint in the face of continued moves by the United States and NATO to pressure and isolate Moscow.
