Joe Cirincione Commends Nobel Peace Prize Winners, OPCW, for Eliminating Chemical Weapons in Syria

Ploughshares Fund President Joe Cirincione went live on KCBS News San Francisco to commend the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the international chemical weapons watchdog that has played a huge part in helping to eliminate Syria’s stockpiles of deadly poison gas. The OPCW and the United Nations have been conducting a joint mission in Syria ordered by the U.N. Security Council with the goal of eliminating the country’s entire stock of chemical weapons by mid-2014. They will soon strengthen their deployment from 35 to 100 inspectors to complete the task.

As Joe explains in his interview, this award is long-overdue and shines validity on the organization’s invaluable work. OPCW inspectors have visited dozens of countries over the past two decades, operating largely in anonymity to destroy stores of the world’s most lethal chemical weapons. Take sarin gas for an example, the weapon allegedly used by the Syrian military in attacks on civilians in August: a mere pin-point drop of sarin gas attacks the central nervous system and kills within a minute, Joe explains. With skepticism running high regarding the actual efficacy of these organizations, the OPCW is awarded with deserved recognition of its hard and hazardous work.

Granting the Nobel Peace Prize to these weapon watchdogs also places serious pressure on the Syrian government to destroy all of its chemical weapons in the indicated timeframe. Of equal importance, states that have not yet signed the Chemical Weapons Convention indirectly feel pressure to finally get rid of their own Cold War leftovers.

During the Cold War, the Soviet-American arms race went chemical, with rapid stockpiling taking place on each side of the Iron Curtain. Slowly, however, the use of chemical weapons became taboo and obsolete. The United States—from the right and the left—committed to destroying all its chemical weapons by signing the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1993. Russia followed suit, and although the process of destruction is taking longer than anticipated (often due to environmental concerns), Joe estimates that Russian and American chemical weapons will be destroyed in their entirety by 2020.  

This is a model example of a diplomatic, bipartisan effort to eliminate weapons that pose more risk to the world than security. The world is on its last lap to the finish line—not in an arms race, but in a race to rid the world of all chemical weapons, a vision no one thought possible a mere 25 years ago. In a quarter-century from now, will the world be on its last lap to ridding the world of all nuclear weapons? We sure hope so.