The United States is an "impatient Mars" and Europe is a "patient Venus," Hans Blix said Friday, and he wants Venus to win.
Blix, who ran the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission in the run-up to the United States invasion of Iraq, spoke at the Fletcher School as part of a day-long conference, "Non-proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction: Current Challenges and New Approaches."
He urged countries to use "critical thinking," saying that prudence and negotiation will be the key ingredients in successfully curbing the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
Now the chairman of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission - formed by the Swedish government in 2003 to study the issue and host seminars - Blix described the dangers of WMDs and gave criticisms of and suggestions for United States foreign policy.
"The United States is engaged in a world war against terrorism," Blix said. "The ultimate threat is terrorists using weapons of mass destruction." He said, though, that the United States was quick to use force in response.
"I will not belittle the ... risk of these weapons," Blix said. The United States needs, though, "realistic remedies that are proportionate to the risks."
Blix spoke in the Carmichael faculty dining hall, and his speech was simulcast in Cabot 205.
He discussed the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), a set of ad hoc, bilateral partnerships with the State Department to decrease the spread of WMDs announced by President George W. Bush in 2003.
The PSI coordinates law enforcement and intelligence agencies between countries, an approach Blix called "dynamic, creative and proactive."
Its most important aspect, he said, is the cooperation it encourages. "I think programs on threat reduction ... are prudent and desirable," Blix said.
The goal of the international community should not only be to restrict, ban and destroy WMDs, but to reduce the desire of hostile powers to want them in the first place, he said.
Blix, along with Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was in charge of verifying the disarmament of Saddam Hussein's Iraq in compliance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441.
"Where was the critical thinking of the intelligence agencies?" Blix asked about the United States' justification for war. "The fact that the UN had reported that it found no weapons of mass destruction and expressed doubts of the evidence was ignored."
The weapons inspectors pulled out as the United States prepared to invade Iraq in the spring of 2003. ElBaradei - who gave the 2003 commencement address at the Fletcher School - and the IAEA received the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize.
Blix said the international community should rely on United Nations weapons inspectors to ensure cooperation with resolutions and treaties. "In the area of arms control, the states of the world seem to be a primitive community," he said.
The conference was co-sponsored by the Fletcher School and the American Academy of Diplomacy.
