Iran and Saudi Arabia are the world’s nuclear double standard, says Axworthy
Plus: watch for Hiroshima Day events in your community this week
Here’s a good question: If nuclear uranium enrichment is too dangerous for Iran... why is it OK for Saudi Arabia?
Are the two so very different? Or is this another example of “living within a lie” that Prime Minister Carney used to describe the unfair world in his famous Davos speech.
This is the second of three special newsletters highlighting other important articles: and this week we are reading former Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy’s latest, entitled, “Canada must reclaim its nuclear judgement.”
Lloyd Axworthy argues that Canada’s nuclear identity has always rested on deliberate choice rather than inability. In 1946, with the capacity to build nuclear weapons, Canada instead chose restraint and international control — a decision that shaped our long-standing reputation as a champion of non-proliferation.
Axworthy contrasts that founding judgment with today’s more passive posture: Canada remains outside the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, rarely challenges the contradictions within the NPT system, and — most pointedly — has stayed silent on the new U.S.-Saudi civil nuclear agreement, which reportedly includes uranium enrichment rights.
He argues this silence is telling, since Washington has simultaneously used force against Iran’s nuclear program, exposing a double standard where enrichment is treated as dangerous for adversaries but tolerable for partners.
He points to Canada’s own history — India’s 1974 test using Canadian-supplied plutonium technology — as proof that peaceful nuclear cooperation can curdle into proliferation risk.
Axworthy’s remedy is a single consistent standard: civilian nuclear cooperation should be judged the same way everywhere, backed by rigorous safeguards, verification, and transparency, and he calls for a new parliamentary inquiry into nuclear policy given how much the global landscape has shifted.
His closing argument is that recovering this judgment doesn’t require Canada to break with its allies, just to find its voice again.
It’s a timely piece to run alongside the anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki this week — a moment that gives extra weight to Axworthy’s warning that nuclear norms are eroding while the countries that could speak up choose not to.
Hiroshima Nagasaki Day Coalition
A reminder that the anniversaries of the horrific atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are coming up this week on August 6 and August 9, respectively. PeaceQuest is a co-sponsor of events in Toronto organized by the Hiroshima Nagasaki Day Coalition.
Security in Peace – Eliminate Nuclear Weapons
Commemoration on the 81st Anniversary of the Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki.
The Peace Garden | Toronto City Hall, Thursday, August 6, 2026
4:30 - 6:30 PM Community & Craft Tables
6:30 - 8:30 PM Commemoration Ceremony
8:30 - Lantern Ceremony
Guest speaker: Cesar Jaramillo
Learn more and be sure to watch for events in your community.
