They are out in the open enriching uranium to 84% with a breakout time to a weapon measured in weeks now, how many reasons do you need really?
I don't see how a sane person thinks Iran getting the bomb is a good development or viable.
And look at those who actually developed nuclear weapons and ensured they have a strong defense deterrent (such as North Korea).
You're looking at it with a very north-atlantic centred perspective.
So? You say that like it is a bad thing.
I didn't say Iran is completely illogical in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. The comparison to North Korea is most apt. I don't want another North Korea situation, one is enough thanks. This one would be worse.
Why? Because Saudi Arabia and Egypt and others will then likely decide they have to get nuclear weapons too. I don't care about "fair", I want fewer countries with nuclear weapons not more - for obvious reasons.
Just like with Iraq; wmd’s, weapons inspectors etc. are ultimately just a side show.
Would want to invade countries on the other side of the globe for "security".
Super powers gonna super power and the rest of have to pretend to care.
Any sources on how? Have they declared that they will attack another country with nuclear weapons? Or it is simply them suddenly becoming immune from invasions / attacks?
What resulted in all this was that Ukraine was negotiating a very favorable trade deal with the EU. They had a presidential election, which was won by a guy who promised to be friendly with Russia, but also push through the trade deal. Only, when the trade deal was almost done, Putin called him, they talked for several hours, and at the end he declared that he was shutting down the deal, and would make one with Russia instead.
This was extraordinarily unpopular, because the terms of the EU deal allowed for Ukrainians to work as guest workers in EU. Doing that, you could earn more in three months doing unskilled labor than you could expect to earn in Ukraine with a degree in a year. Russia had nothing similar to offer. Because of this, there were massive protests. Then the president ordered troops to fire on the protests, and the protests escalated enough that the president fled. After that, Russia invaded Crimea and Donbass.
Two thirds of Ukrainians opposed NATO membership in 2013. Support only became a thing when there already were Russian troops in Ukraine.
IAEA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Atomic_Energy_Ag...), France, Germany, UK, all are sounding the alarm.
So, exactly the same as Iraq?
We can trust you're a "real person" just as much as you, us. Diverting critiques on the basis of "astroturfing" is so HRC '16.
And yet regardless of how poorly it was treated or "what is fair", which is all the whining is ever about, nobody can remotely come up with a reason for why Iran getting a nuclear weapon would be a positive development for anybody.
This is a dangerous game, regardless of your politics.
Astroturfing does not necessarily imply bots, comrade.
Whether it's a positive or negative development really doesn't matter. What matters is what actually happens once that occurs.
When India and Pakistan developed and tested nuclear weapons, we didn't see proliferation or development of nuclear capability in the region. Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, etc. didn't start their own nuclear programs.
So in the event Iran gets nuclear weapons, it's likely nothing of consequence will happen.
Both hostile reactive (Pakistan against India) and (at least semi-)cooperative (Pakistan, or at least AQ Khan as a rogue actor, to other states) proliferation occurred as a result of the Indian and then Pakistani nuclear programs.
When India did it, it did lead to proliferation, specifically, in Pakistan. Pakistan’s program lead to (as well as their own bomb) proliferation through the AQ Khan network (to North Korea, as well as several states that never, at leadt yet, tested a weapon.) Myanmar also appears to have had a nuclear weapons program in the 00s, with assistsance from North Korea, which may or may not have since been abandoned.
Similarly, Israel's program contributed to the motivation for Iran's and Syria's programs (reactive [both of which appear to have also gotten cooperative aid from the Khan network and/or North Korea, which circles back to India/Pakistan]) and to technology for South Africa’s nuclear weapons (cooperative).
And, in the end, neither of them has used those weapons offensively or defensively in close to 50 years (25 years for Pakistan).
> Myanmar also appears to have had a nuclear weapons program in the 00s, with assistsance from North Korea, which may or may not have since been abandoned.
Yet they haven't advertised it or tried to use them (if they ever had them) in any capacity. As for North Korea, while they do test missiles on occasion, they have not made use of any nuclear capability against another country.
> Similarly, Israel's program contributed to the motivation for Iran's and Syria's programs (reactive [both of which appear to have also gotten cooperative aid from the Khan network and/or North Korea, which circles back to India/Pakistan]) and to technology for South Africa’s nuclear weapons (cooperative).
Yet, all the focus is on Iran in terms of sanctions and fear/warmongering about them developing nuclear capability. Every single example in the past has shown that developing such capability has not resulted in any type of nuclear conflict.
The goalposts moved pretty quickly from the original wildly false claim that their programs did not contribute to further proliferation in the region, to something like “well, neither they nor the states in the area of further proliferarion they contributed to have, to date, used nukes in anger, so it doesn't matter”.
I would suggest that waiting until after a nuclear war to take proliferation concerns seriously is... not a great idea.
My original claim was that nuclear weapons did not proliferate in the region beyond India and Pakistan (and there was a 24 year gap between India's and Pakistan's first nuclear tests). You claimed that:
>>> Myanmar also appears to have had a nuclear weapons program in the 00s, with assistsance from North Korea, which may or may not have since been abandoned.
But this wikipedia page[1] does not mention anything like that. Do you have a source for your claim?
> I would suggest that waiting until after a nuclear war
Again, this has not happened so far, and it doesn't look like the probability of that happening will change regardless of whether or not Iran has a nuclear weapons program.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar_and_weapons_of_mass_de...
Whether the domino theory is at play depends on the balance of power and specifics of each geopolitical region. It simply doesn't follow that because India-Pakistan was contained such a thing won't happen in the Middle East.
In fact you'd notice that is a pair. The counterparty to Iran having a nuke would be Saudi Arabia having a nuke, an extremely likely outcome.
> In fact you'd notice that is a pair. The counterparty to Iran having a nuke would be Saudi Arabia having a nuke, an extremely likely outcome.
Israel already has them and has had them for some time. Just like India did before Pakistan developed and tested them.
Nuclear weapons deter invasions.
Some Americans don't like the influence of Iran's mullahs, but the UK and US supported the mullahs and Shah in 1953 when the secular prime Minister Mossadegh wanted to nationalize Iran's oil. The US backed the Shah and mullahs and SAVAK's brutal campaign against Iran's secular left into the 1970s. Then Iranians turned against the Shah and US imperial influence and here we are.
Its a perfectly rational course of action, no nuclear armed nation has ever been invaded and subjugated.
If i ran a country building or acquiring a nuke would be top of my "To-do" list.
That's the thing with non-proliferation that doesn't really sit right with me, it kind of goes against human knowledge and progress. You have to have a smaller group of people ban certain kinds of knowledge from the rest of humans, and be demonstrably willing to use violence to enforce that, otherwise anyone with enough determination will eventually figure it out. Even when there was somewhat of a consensus on how to deal with that during the Cold War, a bunch of countries slipped through the non-proliferation but everyone pretended like it's ok. Now that there is less consensus on anything in this world, how will this system work going forward?
It's zealotry all the way down, whether you explicitly name your god or not. The only irrational thing here is to claim moral superiority based off something as superficial as a particular religion.
God works in mysterious ways?
Will China/Russia/USA give up theirs or do they see them as essential for "national security"?
And if they are essential then what moral authority do they have to deny security to others?
moral authority is only a talking point; a feint veil over the actual truth. Which is that the nuclear powers do not want more nuclear powers, lest those that aren't allies strong arm using nuclear blackmail (against, let's say, the USA's interests).
And tbh, i think ignoring moral authority, or "justice" or "peace", and talking about the truth, makes more sense.
Logic dictates we disarm them first and see how the rest plays out =)