Queen Noor is the sort of connection between the Western and Arab worlds that only Hollywood could've dreamed up. Born as Lisa Najeeb Halaby in Washington, D.C.,  educated in the best American schools, she met and married the King Hussein of Jordan while working there as an architect. She soon converted to Islam, married Hussein in 1978 and ascended to that country's throne. Ever since, she's been a charming and glamorous link between worlds that too often eye each other with suspicion and concern.
 
She's also been a prominent spokeswoman for numerous causes, most recently as an advocate for Global Zero, an anti-nuclear proliferation group with an impressive array of world leaders behind it. As a result of her work, she was invited to last month's U.N. Security Council meeting on nuclear disarmament -- a gathering that ended with a much-lauded, unanimously approved resolution to strengthen non-proliferation.

Queen Noor spoke with Salon's Kerry Lauerman by Skype about Global Zero, Iran's pursuit of nuclear technology and President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize.

I'm most interested in hearing why the issue of nuclear disarmament is such a personal one for you.
 
Well it would start from childhood really, because I was a member of that generation that was periodically forced to "duck and cover" under our rickety wooden desks at elementary school in California during these Cold War nuclear attack drills. That certainly instilled an enormous fear—an existential fear—for many, many years. And that's something that was the most profound, really, memory in many respects that I have of that moment in time, at least on an emotional level. And then I became very much involved with the anti-war movement and, of course, grew up in Washington during President Kennedy's administration and was very influenced by his call to public service, very much influenced by Martin Luther King and his promotion of peaceful protest and call for social justice and equity.

When I reached the Middle East I found myself in a region that was burdened by the detritus of previous wars and ongoing conflicts, and first of all landmines – or, weapons of mass destruction in slow motion. So that was my first work with weapons of mass destruction, if you will. I became a member, one of the founding leaders, of Global Zero, a year ago. After a couple of years of preparation, this nonpartisan international initiative launched at a summit in Paris. We had 100 leaders from around the world, former heads of state, secretaries of state, national security, defense, military commanders, who had been the architects in many cases of their own country's nuclear weapons programs, and were coming together, recognizing that the dangers of increasing proliferation and the possibility of nuclear terrorism far outweighed the current value that these weapons might have had during the Cold War, and have really no longer, for almost any country on earth. So this is a passion for me because I see climate change and the proliferation of nuclear weapons as the two most serious challenges we face today.


You've talked about how there's a certain "tipping point" for nuclear weapons, after which disarmament will no longer be possible. What is that tipping point and how close to it are we now?

 
I can't qualify it, I'm not sure anyone can, but the experts believe we are very close to that nuclear tipping point beyond which it would be very difficult to begin to rein in the weapons and the nuclear materials that have proliferated. One of the encouraging statistics is, since the end of the Cold War 20 years ago, at least 40,000 nuclear weapons have been decommissioned or destroyed. That leaves us with another 23,000 that Global Zero's International Commission has laid out a phased, what we believe is a practical and realistic program, to reduce those in the coming 20 years. With the kind of emphasis that the international community is giving to this issue, led by the US and Russia who have 95 to 96 percent of the world's arsenals, and are committing to deep reductions, we're hoping that now a multilateral process will begin as those reductions begin. And that even the United States and Russia will follow the example—I speak for myself here now, it's not on our Global Zero mandate—will follow the example of, for example, China, whose entire arsenal is de-alerted, there's no hair trigger alert for their nuclear weapons, whereas the United States and Russia still have weapons on hair trigger alert . . .

It is our position and the position of other countries like China  that once the United States and Russia show their commitment, then the other nuclear states must come on board. And the UN Security Council meeting, which I had the privilege to attend representing Global Zero the other day in New York, requested for all nations to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, to strengthen that treaty, to ensure that there are no double standards, no exceptions, and that every country in the world with nuclear weapons is disarmed.


How do you convey the threat of nuclear weapons to countries like Iran, or even Israel, who feel that maintaining some kind of nuclear arsenal is really necessary for their survival?

A country like Iran, for example, likes to believe that there is a deterrent value of having a weapon when they feel under threat from a country like the United States or Israel, countries that have previously linked them to an "axis of evil," and that being part of a very confrontational and aggressive stance towards the country. And, of course, Israel and Iran have traded very confrontational rhetoric, and Israel has bombed other countries' reactors in the past. They likely believe there is a deterrent value for the moment.
 
But what I consider to be most important, is that two of Iran's most significant spiritual leaders, first Khomeini in 1979, shut down the Iranian nuclear program, declaring nuclear weapons un-Islamic, because indiscriminate killing of civilians is forbidden in Islam. Khamenei, who is the current spiritual leader and ayatollah, recently reinforced, reiterated that defining of nuclear weapons as being against Islam. I very much hope that this is in fact, the most compelling reason why a country like Iran recognizes that those weapons are not only dangerous, but in fact evil.

 
So in Iran, I believe, yes, there is likely enormous support for the elimination of nuclear weapons. But, again, in Iran there is a very strong feeling that that needs to be in a regional context in which there is a nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction-free zone that includes Israel and the Arab states and countries like Iran. But that is something that Iran has called for, and the Arab states have called for, they've all signed on to the [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty]. It's important that Iran fulfill its obligations under the NPT. It's very important that we encourage, as the IAEA has repeatedly and the UN Security Council and General Assembly, that Israel sign onto the NPT as well. That would do a great deal, I think, for sending signals that everyone is working in an environment of increasing trust, and that is critical to this process. . . .

 
And the Nobel Prize just awarded to President Obama I think is a reflection of many things in the larger global community.… It does reflect an awareness of just how important this issue is to a vast number of people around the world.


Do you correct people when they pronounce it nuke-u-ler, as opposed to nuclear?
 

[Laughs] I don't hear that! I have to tell you the truth, I haven't been in a situation where I've had to correct that.