Iran Nuke? Do I Care?
Every time I hear talk of Iran and a possible nuclear bomb I simply think, "so what." I've long decided that it just doesn't matter whether they get nukes or not.
What's the big deal anyway? Lots of countries have nukes now including regimes that aren't considered America's friend. Sure, it would be nice if the world was nuclear free, but that's just not a realist stance. The fact is that unless every country disarms their nuclear arsenal then we have to face the fact that the world has nukes.
As to Iran, the "media shock" due to Bush bluster, is that they are some sort of special case. But as usual we seem to have the normal American ignorance of history, and recent history to boot. It wasn't just last year that all the bluster about a country going nuclear was about North Korea and how evil it would be. Now, we hear nothing about North Korea. It seems that life goes on and North Korea hasn't bombed anybody.
The same old, and I mean very old, reason for desire for nuclear capability is just plain MAD, Mutual Assured Destruction. Any country that feels threatened by any other countries wants to have nukes to insure the simple aspect that an attack is much less likely, even nonexistent because the threat of attack is retaliation via nukes.
What makes Iran special? Nothing really if you ask me. The Bushies will say that Iran is led by a madman, but so is North Korea. The Bushies will say that it is because Iran is in the Middle East, but so is Pakistan also owners of nukes. The Bushies will say that Iran is a threat to Israel, but so would Pakistan be an Israeli threat should Pervez Musharraf (a military dictator) lose power to an Islamic regime.
And finally the Bushies would claim that Iran would turn over nukes to terrorists, probably the idea that should most be considered. Yet, it seems that even the worst countries that have nukes today, aren't interested in handing a nuke to a non-nation. It isn't so easy to just hand a usuable nuke to a terrorist. Nukes are large (the suitcase nuke we used to hear about was a myth) and to be most effective need a delivery system, missiles.
I've heard the statement that democracies don't war directly against each other. The same could be said for nuke holding countries. In fact these days it seems that nuke powers do plenty of world trade between each other. It wasn't but a month ago that Bush visited India, a nuke power, and offered a trade deal involving nuclear energy technology in exchange for mangos essentially. And our trade with nuclear power China only grows ever larger by the day. Just today China signed a deal to buy 80 airline 737s from Boeing.
The current list of nuke powers consists of The United States, Britain, France, China, Russia, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea at the least, I may be missing one or two. Certainly other countries could easily have nukes if they so desired, Germany for instance. But these other countries won't want them as long as they aren't threatened by another nuclear power.
I'm not all that scared about Iran getting nukes. I'm not even convinced they are after nukes, but are more interested in nuclear power plants for energy. The current estimates by experts is that Iran is at best 5 years from getting one nuclear bomb if that is what they are planning. I think by then Iran may have a different political leadership. But experts also think it could be 10 years from now. Alot can change in 10 years.
Would I prefer a nuke free world? Of course. This is really what I would like to see, the promotion diplomatically of nuclear disarmament. Whatever happened to that? Even Reagan was for that. But I'm just not going to be alarmed and scared by the Bushies about Iran.
What's the big deal anyway? Lots of countries have nukes now including regimes that aren't considered America's friend. Sure, it would be nice if the world was nuclear free, but that's just not a realist stance. The fact is that unless every country disarms their nuclear arsenal then we have to face the fact that the world has nukes.
As to Iran, the "media shock" due to Bush bluster, is that they are some sort of special case. But as usual we seem to have the normal American ignorance of history, and recent history to boot. It wasn't just last year that all the bluster about a country going nuclear was about North Korea and how evil it would be. Now, we hear nothing about North Korea. It seems that life goes on and North Korea hasn't bombed anybody.
The same old, and I mean very old, reason for desire for nuclear capability is just plain MAD, Mutual Assured Destruction. Any country that feels threatened by any other countries wants to have nukes to insure the simple aspect that an attack is much less likely, even nonexistent because the threat of attack is retaliation via nukes.
What makes Iran special? Nothing really if you ask me. The Bushies will say that Iran is led by a madman, but so is North Korea. The Bushies will say that it is because Iran is in the Middle East, but so is Pakistan also owners of nukes. The Bushies will say that Iran is a threat to Israel, but so would Pakistan be an Israeli threat should Pervez Musharraf (a military dictator) lose power to an Islamic regime.
And finally the Bushies would claim that Iran would turn over nukes to terrorists, probably the idea that should most be considered. Yet, it seems that even the worst countries that have nukes today, aren't interested in handing a nuke to a non-nation. It isn't so easy to just hand a usuable nuke to a terrorist. Nukes are large (the suitcase nuke we used to hear about was a myth) and to be most effective need a delivery system, missiles.
I've heard the statement that democracies don't war directly against each other. The same could be said for nuke holding countries. In fact these days it seems that nuke powers do plenty of world trade between each other. It wasn't but a month ago that Bush visited India, a nuke power, and offered a trade deal involving nuclear energy technology in exchange for mangos essentially. And our trade with nuclear power China only grows ever larger by the day. Just today China signed a deal to buy 80 airline 737s from Boeing.
The current list of nuke powers consists of The United States, Britain, France, China, Russia, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea at the least, I may be missing one or two. Certainly other countries could easily have nukes if they so desired, Germany for instance. But these other countries won't want them as long as they aren't threatened by another nuclear power.
I'm not all that scared about Iran getting nukes. I'm not even convinced they are after nukes, but are more interested in nuclear power plants for energy. The current estimates by experts is that Iran is at best 5 years from getting one nuclear bomb if that is what they are planning. I think by then Iran may have a different political leadership. But experts also think it could be 10 years from now. Alot can change in 10 years.
Would I prefer a nuke free world? Of course. This is really what I would like to see, the promotion diplomatically of nuclear disarmament. Whatever happened to that? Even Reagan was for that. But I'm just not going to be alarmed and scared by the Bushies about Iran.
posted by jon at 6:33 PM
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