Ulhas Joglekar wrote:
Doug Henwood wrote:
I thought that Iran was perfectly justified in trying to develop
nuclear weapons
Iran would have to withdraw from the NPT to develop nuclear weapons.
It is unwilling to do that.
Yes, but my point to Joanne was that I didn't like this language:
As for the Iranian nuclear threat, Tehran's assurances that it
only wants to develop peaceful nuclear energy are not credible. Iran
is probably still several years away from being able to produce
nuclear weapons. If Tehran acquires the bomb, it is unlikely that
the ayatollahs, who hold decisive power, would use it since it would
be suicidal to do so. Israel alone has between 200 and 300 nuclear
warheads capable of striking Iran, and this is not counting the
thousands of warheads the U.S. can launch at Iran. Nevertheless,
there is no guarantee that Iran, or any other state armed with
nuclear weapons, won't use them or make them available to others. As
long as these barbaric weapons exist, they can be used, and the more
countries that possess them the more likely it is over time that
they will be used.
We therefore strongly oppose Tehran's efforts to acquire nuclear
weapons. But as long as a handful of nations arrogate to themselves
the exclusive right to possess nuclear weapons, the have-nots will
always be able to point to the threat posed by the nuclear powers
and will constantly seek to acquire such weapons for themselves --
as North Korea has already done, withdrawing from the
Non-Proliferation Treaty regime. Likewise, Iran, which has been
menaced by the U.S. for more than two decades and was a charter
member of Bush's "axis of evil," may opt out of the NPT.
I suspect they're right on the facts - that Iran is trying to develop
a nuclear weapon, and that their denials aren't credible. But I don't
care. It's fanciful to think that Israel or the US will ever give up
nuclear weapons. It's true that in an ideal world no one would have
nukes, but that's impossible; there doesn't even exist a bottle to
stick that genie back into. So second-best is that all those
countries that want them can have them. As crackpot as it seems, MAD
worked pretty well.
>and, in fact, every country should have at least
one nuclear bomb.
Cuba acceded to NPT as late as September 2002. Cuba also ratified
Tlatelolco Treaty. Why Cuba doesn't try to acquire a bomb?
Because the US would go bonkers and destroy the country. Castro's
rational and knows that.
Doug
