Let Iran Have the Nuclear Bomb
Seriously, why shouldn't they?
- Proliferation?
- Putting nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists?
- Regional instability?
- A threat to the US or to the West?
- A bad precedent for other countries?
Debunking the above - and more arguments - below.
- Proliferation
That ship has sailed - and not from Iran.
The worst proliferators have been Pakistan and Russia. Their clients have been mostly other states, in the (wider) Middle East. Having a Middle Eastern State with an acknowledged nuclear arsenal would probably dry up a good chunk of the "demand" for clandestine nuclear know-how and materials, as a lot of that demand is linked to the perceived inequality with Israel.
Would the Saudis also want the nuclear weapon to balance the Iranians? That's a trickier question, to which I do not have a ready reply. But if you have Iran publicly a nuclear power, the same reasoning below could also presumably apply to the Saudis. I go into this in below, but I note this weakness in my argument here.
- Putting nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists?
Being a nuclear power is a very specific responsibility, and those that are have for the most part behaved accordingly.
They have not being very good at limiting proliferation (that includes France and the US, along side Pakistan, Russia and China), but the transferees have each time been other countries (Israel, North Korea, Lybia, Iran) to which that same reasoning applies.
States understand the value of having nuclear weapons, and they apply the concept of proportionate response:
- do not use WMDs against a country which has no WMD;
- do not use WMDs first, unless to defend the country against an attack threatening vital interests;
- expect massive retaliation (including by WMD) by any country with WMDs which is attacked by WMDs that can be traced back to you (and nuclear weapons CAN be traced)
Iran is a State and will behave as a nuclear State if they are acknowledged as such. They will actually be forced to behave more responsibly if they enter the delicate balance between nuclear States. Support to terrorist attacks against Israel will be less necessary and more risky - because the rules above apply to Israel as well, and the first one would stop protecting Iran if they had nukes.
- Regional instability?
Israeli nuclear weapons are a major source of tension in the region. Restoring the balance and forcing both sides to acknowledge that balance (and thus each others existence and rights) would probably be a lot more stable. Having nuclear weapons forces you to have a doctrine with respect of their use, and that includes very centralized control. We may not like the regime in Iran, but it is there and it is functioning, and they would certainly be able to manage their nuclear weapons and come out with the appropriate rules for use (these may be public, or privately communicated to other nuclear powers, or somewhat ambiguous, but the other nuclear powers understand that game well enough).
Acknowledging the nuclear option would force Iranians to provide a position viz. Israel, the other nuclear power in the region. This can only lead to an acknowledgment of the existence of Israel and its ability to defend itself (with nukes).
As written above, small scale terrorist attacks against an also-acknowledged nuclear opponent will probably be a lot harder to justify. It will force both sides to talk to each other - simply to avoid accidental launches or provocations from non-State actors. Diplomacy can only be a good thing in that context.
- A threat to the US or to the West?
Iran is not a threat to the West today - except in so far as they can close off the Straits of Hormuz to oil tanker traffic, which is there irrespective of nuclear weapons and is actually a lot more effective as a WMD than a few nukes would be.
Nuclear powers work by the above rules. Any nuke attack on the West which can be traced to Iran will lead to massive retaliation.
Being an recognized nuclear power - and thus an unavoidable regional power treated as such by the West would probably do wonders to Iran's view of the world and their current belligerence would be much less necessary.
Having to discuss nuclear issues with the US, like with Israel, would lead to more diplomacy and dialog, and probably fewer misunderstandings.
- A bad precedent for other countries?
Well, as I wrote above about Saudi Arabia, I am probably on shakier ground here. On the other hand, the Pakistan and India episodes have shown that they did not encourage any countries beyond those that were already contemplating nuclear weapons. Iran has been on that list for a while.
I doubt that the Iranian precedent would change much to the North Korean situation.
The Arab world (even though Iran is not Arab) would probably see some justice being done in someone in the region having nukes as a balancing tool viz. Israel, and would have one major argument against Israel taken from them.
The rest of the world (especially those under the explicit or implicit US umbrella) would probably be happy to see any kind of balance work in that region, and not much change for their own local worries. States are rational entities. They have a lot to lose and will thus control their nukes well, and so would Iran.
Or is this all wishful thinking? Have at it!
Posted by Jérôme à Paris on February 21, 2005 at 15:21 UTC | Permalink
thoughtful points, Jérôme. the iranian state definately needs nuclear arms to protect/defend themselves. the us committed a horrible, horrible genocide to steal their current homeland. they will not hesitate to do the same to get enough oil/wealth from the resource-rich ME to keep it humming, as the new "crusade" has demonstrated in afghanistan & iraq. unfortunately, for humankind, we are in a new level of arms race, like it or not. with madmen on the loose, it's a simple matter of survival for those already in their sights.
Posted by: b real | Feb 21 2005 15:55 utc | 2
I would prefer them to not have nuclear weapons. Any state actor can also miscalculate and run the people into a catastrophy. (Wilhelm II?) Also states CAN dissolve.
But as Iran today is threatend and encircled by United States, they do not have any other option (except giving up and return to CIA induced brutal Shah regime).
If the US would guarantee the integrity of Iran and promise not to interfere there, the Iranians should (and most probably would) give up any such plans.
BTW: It is unproven that they even attempt to make a bomb. They do want a nuclear fuel cycle which makes real sense for them because:
- Their oil production has peaked abd will go down further
- They are in need for energy to develop their country and get the young ones off the street
- They do have natural Uranium within their country that they can mine.
- They do have the right to do so and other states under the NPT do have the legal duty to help them. If anyone wants to change that contract there will have to be a new compromise, not a dictate.
I agree with you, though I am sure this is not what you really think. As you say, the ship has sailed and trying to limit access to the atom bomb is mostly wishful thinking. So it should be all or nothing. Either the entire world gives up nuclear weapons and promises never to study them again (fat chance of this ever happening, the US even kept secret stashes of smallpox when that disease was supposedly eradicated) or all countries with a somewhat stable central government should have the bomb. These things should scare the hell out of everybody. They are scary things. At least we would see a lot less bullying by those who have the bomb now.
BTW, I feel the same way about firearms. I believe it should be a civic responsibility to own guns and know how to use them. People should have to look out for themselves and not put their lives into the hands of elected or appointed rulers.
Posted by: dan of steele | Feb 21 2005 16:03 utc | 4
Has anyone, testing or otherwise, ever delivered and detonated a nuclear warhead on a guided missile, whatever the size or distance involved? I've never known the answer to this one.
Posted by: alabama | Feb 21 2005 16:10 utc | 5
@alabama
Noone ever tested that. Missiles are risky. You never no where the come down, so you do not want to try that with a live a-bomb unless you really want to use it.
But -of course- missiles have been tested with mock payload and a-bombs have been tested in missile payload configuration. So everybody believes they would function the they are supposed to do (or at least some 80% would do so).
When I was a young adult, ah, 25 years ago or more (gulp!) I figured the fate of the world would be nuclear disaster at the hands of tribal leaders in the far east of what was then the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
I figured that part of the world was run by men who would put their tribal loyalties above all else, and that there were enough nukes floating around that they would certainly have control of a bunch of them by then. I figured Russia would not keep control of these areas forever.
I also figured the world would suffer its next nuclear war once the politicians in power all over the world are too old to personally remember the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. My father remembers; he was 10 at the time. There are still plenty of politicians his age. They won't be around in another 10 years or so, though.
I thought that if we somehow survive the passing of living memory of the utter evil of nuclear weapons, we are still at the mercy of aging machinery, bureaucratic failure, and political structures which will always put off expenditures that don't have the immediate purpose of keeping them in power. In other words, I saw a lot of nuclear contamination in the future of the world.
The only real change I have had to make to this scenario, as I have grown older, is to add the U.S.A. to the list of countries run by insanely parochial leaders who will put their own very narrow interests above all, and I do mean ALL, else.
As someone who has been a pacifist and an anti-nuclear activist all my life, I never thought I would say this; but lately I have been hoping that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. I've always hated the idea of "Mutually Assured Destruction" but I can also see where it is a step up from the U.S. thinking it can crush an entire region like a couple of bugs.
Would it really help? I don't know. I like to think there is someone with a bit of power in the U.S. government who has a fingernail grip on reality, but it seems less and less likely with every passing day.
ferdzy
Others here know more than me, but global disarmament and nuclear regulation is possible, yes? Not you, but so frequently the "impossibility" of disarmament is reported as a foregone conclusion.
On the other hand, sas you say, nukes have a funny way of keeping bullies out of the schoolyard.
Posted by: slothrop | Feb 21 2005 16:51 utc | 8
I too miss the wretched safety of MAD. I don't know if I agree with dan that every country should have nukes, but it seems that having them at certain strategic nodes and pivot points is the only way to keep a balance. Right now, Iran is at one of these nodes. It seems useless to hope that the US will ever give them up, and maybe it is equally useless to hope Israel will give them up, though the concept of a 'nuclear-free middle east' does sound like a good step towards building up peace in that region.
Posted by: kat | Feb 21 2005 16:58 utc | 9
After some analyse my best guess on a possible real nuclear explosion is one that will be done with a US manufactured device and it will explode in the US.
After that, all bets will be off.
b, would that bomb blow up "on target", as a warhead delivered by a missile, and if so, would that missile be fired from within the US itself?
Posted by: alabama | Feb 21 2005 18:04 utc | 11
I was about to write the following:
Sadly Alabama, who can tell? It's difficult to predict the behaviour of a dictatorship facing losing power.
But then I decided to ask for a reality check instead.
It's very important that we watch ourselves carefully for departure into a land of fantasy every bit as that occupied by the neo-cons: it appears to me that there are signs of that departure all around this site at the moment.
Why do you say that it will be a US bomb on US soil, b?
b wrote:
BTW: It is unproven that they even attempt to make a bomb. They do want a nuclear fuel cycle which makes real sense for them because:
- Their oil production has peaked abd will go down further
- They are in need for energy to develop their country (...)
- They do have the right to do so and other states under the NPT do have the legal duty to help them. If anyone wants to change that contract there will have to be a new compromise, not a dictate.
Yes. Add in that Iran has a horrendous pollution (air and water) problem. According to some stats., the worst in the world. In Teheran schools are often closed because of pollution. Poor child health in Iran has been linked to many factors (e.g. ineffective vaccines, insufficient coverage...) but pollution is always mentioned first.
Pollution reduction is one of their top priorities. If they are setting about it in the right way is questionable.
It has very little hydro electric power, and not much scope for developing more. (I have read.) They are doing some small experiments in geothermal (?) - their problem is poor technology coupled with the abundance of fossil fuels. Brown-outs are common. Etc.
Posted by: Blackie | Feb 21 2005 18:26 utc | 13
@colman
two possible groups could do this
- some sleeper group inside the US controlled by interest from outside the US, i.e. "terrorists"
- some US wingnuts who needs a terror shocked US population to take control over the country
steps to take
- bribe someone with access to one of the US nuclear warhead sides to steal a "small" nuclear artillery warhead (155 or 203mm, some 20-30 kilogramms), build a one-time-use-cannon, put it in a container to truck it where you want, fire that cannon.
- there are enough people trained to activate such warheads to find one who knows all steps and would love a few millions to settle in the caribians.
Tin-foil-hat-stuff - sure, but possible anyhow.
---
Much more likely and easier though would be some kind of "dirty bomb" in one or more population center. BTW - who did send around these Antrax letters?
Last month Joseph Cannon filed a post on his weblog CANNONFIRE about a woman he had known who was apparently prescient. An exerpt:
Here she was, in a trance-like state after having awakened from a vivid dream of the the World Trade Center's collapse.Naturally, I wanted to know if the New York event was connected with the nuclear event in Chicago. Yes, she said. In a way. But the explosion in Chicago would happen later.
(Incidentally, Gabrielle spent her life in a small town in the Pacific northwest, and had not traveled to either New York or Chicago -- in fact, she almost never left her home state. Oddly enough, I've never visited either of those two cities myself, although I've seen many other parts of the country.)
Would the same people be responsible for both events, I asked?
Not really, she answered, although the events are linked. In both cases, she emphasized, "it won't be who they say it is."
"Terrorists?"
"Yes and no. It's like people from the government are involved. Or at least they know about it."
She said that the public would be told that Iran was responsible for the Chicago event. "After that, it's World War Three."
She intimated that things would not play out the way "they" planned, and that the war would spin out of all control.
Posted by: beq | Feb 21 2005 18:54 utc | 15
Reality check? Whose reality? I noticed over at Kos that most posters agree with the comments here. The only one to disagree described himself as a lefty liberal. He used the word terrorist a lot to make his case against proliferation. That is probably the most odious word I hear as it means absolutely nothing and serves merely to inflame passion. As we all know terrorists are merely those poor souls who do not have an Air Force or the bomb.
I find it condescending to consider Persians or Mesopotamians too immature to have the bomb. Where do we get off labeling them like that? Which group of people has fought more wars and used more brutal methods? Which country dropped two atomic bombs on cities? Which group of people firebombed Dresden? Which people developed a very efficient way to exterminate huge numbers of people during the holocaust? Was it Persians or Arabs?
Yes, the wingnuts will think we are all a bunch of loonie lefties for making these statements but I don't really care what they think. They are but pitiful fools facilitating their own demise.
Posted by: dan of steele | Feb 21 2005 18:59 utc | 17
b
i have come slowly to the point of view - that there exists no 'terrorists' groups with that capacity - though there are limitless possibilities in their facilities - pakistan - russia also have the expertise, the absence of security & a criminal formation glad to business of any kind. i would be very surprised if some fissionable material has not left the ex soviet union but i believe that any attack on north american soil could only be done with the complicity of members of the military industrial complex - a big bang serves neither the interests of so called sectarina groups nor of states - they have little or no reason to confront the beast on its own territory. whatever they need to do they need to do locally & this they have seemed to do. on the other hand this administration would benefit from a big bang in mnay many ways at a time when its proper fragility is on display
i am a lot more threatened by the united states than any pissant group of believers of this & that theology - they will dissapear as god has done
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 21 2005 18:59 utc | 18
Sorry. This link works better so you don't have to scroll.
Posted by: beq | Feb 21 2005 19:06 utc | 19
both nuke plants and nuke bombs are non-events if you are, for example, slovakia. the slovaks are running a nuclear power plant about 70km from here very sloppily, bordering on the irresponsible. but still, nobody has menaced them with war and accused them of supporting terrorism and wanting to acquire nukes, or even said anything remotely uncouth in their direction.
so, what makes the issue interesting in the case of iran ?
iran is a muslim country sitting on top of lots of natural resources like oil, gas uranium, steel, ... which the americans would prefer to sell for the benefit of halliburton and their ilk. iran has a govt which is rather unsavory (and so is the US govt BTW) and which has not sold out to the "west", to the difference of pakistan, a muslim country with nukes. not being sold out to western capitalist interests plus having a second power generation capability besides fossils makes the country a bit too independent for the taste of same capitalists. last but not least, the iranians have dared to criticize israel.
israel will loose BIG if iran gets nukes. lets look why.
an iranian mullocracy (even a democracy) armed with nukes means that they can ask for and get things which they would not otherwise be able to get, respect for example. teheran would stop being called names and all of the sudden our expensive spendthrifts in brussels would find hezbollah is a legit liberation army and reports of student demos taken apart with massive violence would not find many listeners. the magic word is not "nukes", but "legitimacy". nukes buy legitimacy.
an iran armed with nukes would have to do no more than an acknowledged test in their own desert in the south to essentially destroy israel as we know it. an israel which is not a bully and a menace to the muslims is useless to the west and will not be able to extract subsidies from europe and the US for very long. this would mean that israel would probably have to install a real democracy instead of the club of rightwing sociopaths the knesset has always been, and put their economy on a sound basis. this would probably mean giving the everybody and not only the jews equal rights before the law. a _jewish_ state by definition and racist by tradition, israel would collapse if arabs (palestinian "drugged cocroaches", "two-legged crocodiles", "half-dogs", "subhumans" and other creatures) were given equal access to state services, land buying rights, water, voting, ... sharon is supposedly already fighting against coup attempts by settler factions which have managed to subvert parts of the IDF officialty. if the settlers are already rioting because they see sharon as too soft imagine what would happen if israel had to reconstruct its political system overnight because of the exigencies of foreign relations.
of course the iranians have every right to have nukes, but if they excercise that right they will be taking its means of subsistence as a state from israel.
Posted by: name | Feb 21 2005 19:22 utc | 20
both nuke plants and nuke bombs are non-events if you are, for example, slovakia. the slovaks are running a nuclear power plant about 70km from here very sloppily, bordering on the irresponsible. but still, nobody has menaced them with war and accused them of supporting terrorism and wanting to acquire nukes, or even said anything remotely uncouth in their direction.
so, what makes the issue interesting in the case of iran ?
iran is a muslim country sitting on top of lots of natural resources like oil, gas uranium, steel, ... which the americans would prefer to sell for the benefit of halliburton and their ilk. iran has a govt which is rather unsavory (and so is the US govt BTW) and which has not sold out to the "west", to the difference of pakistan, a muslim country with nukes. not being sold out to western capitalist interests plus having a second power generation capability besides fossils makes the country a bit too independent for the taste of same capitalists. last but not least, the iranians have dared to criticize israel.
israel will loose BIG if iran gets nukes. lets look why.
an iranian mullocracy (even a democracy) armed with nukes means that they can ask for and get things which they would not otherwise be able to get, respect for example. teheran would stop being called names and all of the sudden our expensive spendthrifts in brussels would find hezbollah is a legit liberation army and reports of student demos taken apart with massive violence would not find many listeners. the magic word is not "nukes", but "legitimacy". nukes buy legitimacy.
an iran armed with nukes would have to do no more than an acknowledged test in their own desert in the south to essentially destroy israel as we know it. an israel which is not a bully and a menace to the muslims is useless to the west and will not be able to extract subsidies from europe and the US for very long. this would mean that israel would probably have to install a real democracy instead of the club of rightwing sociopaths the knesset has always been, and put their economy on a sound basis. this would probably mean giving the everybody and not only the jews equal rights before the law. a _jewish_ state by definition and racist by tradition, israel would collapse if arabs (palestinian "drugged cocroaches", "two-legged crocodiles", "half-dogs", "subhumans" and other creatures) were given equal access to state services, land buying rights, water, voting, ... sharon is supposedly already fighting against coup attempts by settler factions which have managed to subvert parts of the IDF officialty. if the settlers are already rioting because they see sharon as too soft imagine what would happen if israel had to reconstruct its political system overnight because of the exigencies of foreign relations.
of course the iranians have every right to have nukes, but if they excercise that right they will be taking its means of subsistence as a state from israel.
Posted by: name | Feb 21 2005 19:23 utc | 21
Uh, Dan, my comment about reality was clearly to do with b's comments about nuclear detonations in the US, and had nothing to do with Iran. Nice rant though.
I did not mean to attack you personally Colman. I was still thinking about what the other guy wrote at Kos. FWIW b has a very real and do-able scenario. I know a little bit about this stuff.
I do not think it is likely given the complete control the present admin already has. They do not need to convince anyone, if they want to do something they just do it.
Posted by: dan of steele | Feb 21 2005 20:41 utc | 24
After some analyse my best guess on a possible real nuclear explosion is one that will be done with a US manufactured device and it will explode in the US.
After that, all bets will be off.
b: After the "Oops, where's our Air Force?" episode of September, 2001, nothing much this murderous regime might undertake surprises me.
(I've also see CANNONFIRE's post regarding Gabrielle's vision, and petty much take that as an omen.)
By the way, it needn't necessarily be a readily identifiable US nuke -- for instance, Britain recently discovered the seeming disappearance of 30 KILOS of plutonium, although they officially chalk it up to an "accounting error". Whoopsie!
Calculation errors 'explain missing plutonium'
Thursday February 17, 2005
British Nuclear Fuel, the owner of the Sellafield power station, today denied any nuclear material had gone missing from the plant after an annual audit showed 30kg of plutonium was unaccounted for.
Annual figures published today by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) reveal that 30kg of plutonium was unaccounted for of the nuclear material taken in for reprocessing at Sellafield over the past year.
However, the UKAEA, British Nuclear Fuel (BNFL), the Department for Trade and Industry (DTI) and nuclear experts said the apparently missing plutonium was the result of accounting discrepancies and that no nuclear material had been stolen. Newspaper reports had suggested the amount missing was enough to build five or six nuclear weapons. ...
Posted by: JMF | Feb 21 2005 23:01 utc | 25
beq,
I also read Cannon´s blog, but as I remember it Gabrielle didn´t remember either of the dreams. I will be much less sceptic if Chicago is nuked. :P
Taking a few notes from history one could conclude that:
a) ever since the Hittites failed to keep their monopoly on iron, weapons proliferation has been one of humanities busiest activities. So weapons will spread.
b) a lot of weapons has been deamed to be so horrible that civilized humans should refrain from using them (like the crossbow) or be so horrible that the mere existence of such weapons on both sides would effectively stop all wars (like the dynamite-stick). However they have all been used anyway and wars hasn´t stopped.
But I said ´could´ because I don´t believe in predestination. And besides we should not give in to pessimism, right?
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Feb 22 2005 11:50 utc | 26
@ swedish kind of death: from hellblazer.
"As we know, there are known knowns.
As we know, there are known unknowns.
As we know, there are unknown knowns.
As we know, there are unknown unknowns.
As we know, there are no known knowns.
As we know, there are no known unknowns.
As we know, there are no unknown knowns.
As we know, there are no unknown unknowns.
As we do not know, there are known knowns.
As we do not know, there are known unknowns.
As we do not know, there are unknown knowns.
As we do not know, there are unknown unknowns.
As we do not know, there are no known knowns.
As we do not know, there are no known unknowns.
As we do not know, there are no unknown knowns.
As we do not know, there are no unknown unknowns.
As they know, there are known knowns.
As they know, there are known unknowns.
As they know, there are unknown knowns.
As they know, there are unknown unknowns.
As they know, there are no known knowns.
As they know, there are no known unknowns.
As they know, there are no unknown knowns.
As they know, there are no unknown unknowns.
As they do not know, there are known knowns.
As they do not know, there are known unknowns.
As they do not know, there are unknown knowns.
As they do not know, there are unknown unknowns.
As they do not know, there are no known knowns.
As they do not know, there are no known unknowns.
As they do not know, there are no unknown knowns.
As they do not know, there are no unknown unknowns."
So, what the do we know?
Posted by: beq | Feb 22 2005 12:19 utc | 27
Swedish: indeed, the first ancestor of the gatling was invented by Da Vinci, with a dozen of tubes able to fire at the same time, and another variation with a rotating wheel with guns tied on the exterior. Like most if his designs, they never were actually built.
Then, in 18th, some French inventor came to Louis XVI (or was it XV) with the idea of a multiple-guns model, quite similar to the Civil war and WWI models. The king was horrified at the sheer massacre such a weapon would cause, ordered the plans to be deleted, and the engineer was then deemed to be a dangerous person and an enemy of mankind.
One could also argue that proliferation existed way before the Hittites. Every weapon is doomed to be copied by someone else, since the first caveman came with spear or cut stone. And if someone didn't find some weapon, it would've been developed elsewhere or later on. Actually several weapons and inventions could've been found centuries earlier if the Roman Empire hadn't fallen and if the Romans had some interest in the cutting-edge Alexandrine science - geometry, mathematics, atomism, steam.
Posted by: Clueless Joe | Feb 22 2005 13:27 utc | 28
The comments to this entry are closed.
Kos posted.
Tear me to pieces, please, I am playing devil's advocate here.
Posted by: Jérôme | Feb 21 2005 15:24 utc | 1