Why Iran should get the bomb

[shaayecanaan]

Kenneth Waltz penned this piece in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs. There's a fair bit that I disagree with, but its worth a read:-

The third possible outcome of the standoff is that Iran continues its current course and publicly goes nuclear by testing a weapon. U.S. and Israeli officials have declared that outcome unacceptable, arguing that a nuclear Iran is a uniquely terrifying prospect, even an existential threat. Such language is typical of major powers, which have historically gotten riled up whenever another country has begun to develop a nuclear weapon of its own.

Yet so far, every time another country has managed to shoulder its way into the nuclear club, the other members have always changed tack and decided to live with it. In fact, by reducing imbalances in military power, new nuclear states generally produce more regional and international stability, not less.

Israel's regional nuclear monopoly, which has proved remarkably durable for the past four decades, has long fueled instability in the Middle East. In no other region of the world does a lone, unchecked nuclear state exist. It is Israel's nuclear arsenal, not Iran's desire for one, that has contributed most to the current crisis. Power, after all, begs to be balanced. What is surprising about the Israeli case is that it has taken so long for a potential balancer to emerge.

http://www.offiziere.ch/wp-content/uploads/Why-Iran-Should-Get-the-Bomb.pdf

[MADem]

1. This is a country that waged a war of bloody attrition with their next door neighbor for nearly a

decade. Over a million people died. Iraq started it, but Iran recouped all their lost territory and was on the offensive within two years. They could have sued for a favorable (for them) peace any time in the six years after they got the upper hand...but they didn't. They just kept grinding on.


They can get....petulant.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

2. I think we should give all of the coutries in the middle east 1 nuke

and pull all of our people out. They've been fighting with each other for over 2000 years... just give them all the tools to end the fight and let them nuke each other back to the stone age. Then the rest of the world can get on with life enjoyably.

[LeftishBrit]

3. Apart from the fact that the people of the Middle East are human beings and don't need a horrible

nuclear death, what makes you think they could all nuke each other to bits without making the rest of the world uninhabitable too?


'Will little drops of fallout
And dabs of radiation
Finally unite us all
In the Ignited Nations?'

(E.Y. Harburg, 1960s)