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Comment by lwansbrough | Hacker News Reader

There sure are a lot of people in here who are defaulting to "nuclear proliferation is okay" by thinking that not being involved somehow solves the problem. You are in a prisoner's dilemma. Choosing not to participate is still participating.

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Diplomacy was working until the US unilaterally withdrew from the treaty in 2018.

There are solutions other than war to nonproliferation.

So we're blaming the US because Iran chose to pursue weapons-grade enrichment. Have you considered that Iran could simply choose not to do that, like every other paranuclear state?

Ultimately the choice of whether or not Iran gets to build a nuclear bomb is not up to them, and they're finding that out now.

I am blaming Trump. He did this. He withdrew from the treaty which led directly to this action today.

What happened between Trump withdrawing from the treaty and Fordo getting bombed? I feel like you're perhaps missing a few critical steps on the Iranian side.

Trump signaled that diplomacy wasn't going to solve the tension, and they weren't getting what they wanted to in exchange for not building weapons. Of course they were going to build them. Why would they not, whether for offense or defense?

Why would they not build nuclear weapons? I guess they don’t have to wonder anymore. It’s not like they weren’t warned.

You can always stop building nuclear weapons at any time and change course. But they chose not to, and suffered the consequences. Whose fault is that?

Please remind why France, England, Israel are allowed to have weapons and Iran is not?

- Trump murdered top a top Iranian general (Soleimani)

- Israel bombed an Iranian Embassy

- Iran counterstruck Israel but relatively restrained and with warning

- Israel bombed several high ranking Iranians, especially those involved with the nuclear program

- Iran counterstruck Israel.

None of it had that much to do with America.

Iran regime has been a great destabilizer and war monger. So, may be their nuke development just provided an opening for the regime change operation. The Middle East will be much more peaceful once Iran is de-fanged. This even may help Europe because Iran was helping Russia in the war.

It didn't work in Iraq. Why would it work here?

no boots on the ground and more moderate goals. The current state of Iraq - severely corrupt moderately religious not threatening anybody kleptocracy would be a success here. Not threatening is the key - Iran has been behind sectarian violence in Iraq, behind Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis, helping Assad, ... one can see that Iran's regime should have already been taken out yesterday just in order to advance peace in the Middle East.

Note - no boots on the ground wouldn't be a big limitation because in case of say ethnic violence, with Azerbaijani and Persian being the largest groups, or even just great social chaos, Turkey and Azerbaijan, are, as far as i understand, ready to bring their armies into the Iran's Azerbaijani populated provinces, which would leave Persians, who are many don't like that "Arab's Islam", in their provinces to their own devices, probably even restoring the monarchy with the Shah's son, which again would be a good outcome here.

No boots on the ground... yet. We don't know how Iran reacts next. To their leadership, this is a pretty serious existential threat.

They don't have much options. They have only Revolutionary Guard for them. Army hates the Guard. The Guard isn't really a fighting force, it can only launch missiles and beat unarmed protesters. Once it runs out of missiles (with a lot of missiles lost to the bombing), it is done.

I expect a full no-fly zone enforcement, and with that the regime's domestic authority and power will quickly go down the drain.

Iraq today is alot less of headache to it's neighbours than if Saddam Hussein was still here. So clearly it did work on the long term.

Stuxnext was quite an achievement, too -- aside from it escaping containment and all. Kudos to ... whoever it was that pulled that off.

It does remind me of the North Korean situation, where nobody wanted NK to get nukes, but since nobody was willing to take action on it, and diplomacy went nowhere (because they obviously wanted nukes), eventually NK got the nukes they wanted.

Does anyone think that situation resolved well? If we were able to go back in time, would we choose diplomacy again, knowing it would fail?

> Does anyone think that situation resolved well?

I don't think we've seen the resolution of that situation. We will one day, and I think the chances of it being a good outcome are pretty slim. I'm very much against Iran having nuclear weapons. I just hope we don't get dragged into a long war which will explode our national debt and potentially lead to a sovereign debt crisis.

Iraq and Afghanistan were long wars because we had a ground invasion and then nation building in countries with relatively weak civic structures and identities. It doesn't seem like anybody is seriously considering a ground invasion of Iran here, Israel will probably just continue airstrikes and sabotage/assassination. The US might join in on more airstrikes but it seems extremely unlikely it'd go beyond that, the appetite for nation building is obviously gone ever since Iraq and Afghanistan went terribly. Nobody in the US wants a repeat of that.

North-Korea has had a bunch of conventional artillery aimed at Seoul since the 50s. They've had a "we will completely fuck your shit up"-type deterrent way before nukes, which is also why they've been able to do their nuclear programme: they used their previous deterrent to develop their new one.

There was never really any other option than "ask nicely to not do that", and maybe try some covert sabotage here and there. Everyone knew that and everyone knew that everyone knew.

In Iran the situation is different, because everyone knows that they don't have any such deterrent and they will lose in any real shooting war, with fairly little options to meaningfully fight back. There is a real inventive to actual pursue diplomacy for Iran which didn't exist in North-Korea.

Also the North-Korean regime and population is of quite a different nature than Iran. By and large, the North-Korean regime just wants to be left alone and is quite isolationist. This also doesn't really apply to Iran.

And to pile on, diplomacy with Iran was working until Trump fucked it up in 2018. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_withdrawal_fro...

During the Korean war, when the US started to lose, they threatened to use nuclear weapons to force negotiations.

Maybe that's why NK has nukes. They US declared war on them and then threatened them with nuclear weapons to prevent North Korea from winning the war.

There are lots of people in this thread who are defaulting to "when the US attacks someone that's by default OK, and you have to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that it's not".

What makes it OK specifically for the US to do this? There is an entire international framework to deal with non proliferation. Bombing another country on the other side of the world because you can is not that.

The people who decide if it's okay are the ones with nuclear weapons. They are the ones who built and enforce the framework for determining what "okay" even means. That's why nuclear weapon acquisition is so powerful. And why it's so fiercely protected.

The framework to deal with non-proliferation depends on the states involved voluntarily participating in the framework. Iran was not doing so.

There are numerous countries that enjoy paranuclear status who have had no problem not lying to the IAEA.

You cannot place blame for this outcome on anyone other than Iran, they made the move entirely of their own volition. Once you open the door for consequence, you don't get to choose how it is handed out.

You completely missed the point. Whether certain actions are "OK" are not is utterly irrelevant in geopolitical affairs. Sovereign states will always act in their (perceived) best interest regardless of legalisms or moral codes. Justifications are then manufactured for public consumption.

Ultima ratio regum.

As for international frameworks, how should the Non-Proliferation Treaty be enforced? If a country violates it then what should the consequences be?

https://disarmament.unoda.org/wmd/nuclear/npt/

I agree, we should require Israel to surrender its nuclear weapons or subject them to the same consequences.

They are a nuclear state. They have defacto special privileges. That's how it works. The US doesn't decide that.

North Korea is crazy and diplomacy works just fine with them. This is entirely the foreign policy of another country that has taken American foreign policy hostage. I'm sorry, the America is not safer because of this ... the opposite in fact.

Eh? Diplomatic measures famously failed to stop North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons.

That ship sailed but the world was able to manage them. The ship didn't sail with Iran and the world was able to manage it. My point being is that whatever stage the situation is in, diplomacy without war actually works.

So this is a comment in favour of nuclear proliferation? I don't get your point. It sounds like you're saying oh well because NK has worked out so far. So far, by the way, because they're still a rogue state, and they now have nuclear weapons on top of that.

Yes, so far it worked. That's what "it's working" means, like, it will always be "its working so far". Listen, don't bring up the bullshit framework everyone used to get into the Iraq war. I can hear the echoes of it in your commentary. Everything is working so far, that is what a process is.

"It's working" in terms of NK not nuking anyone, but it also means that people are scared to do anything to North Korea even when they're belligerent, because they're a nuclear power now.

> Listen, don't bring up the bullshit framework everyone used to get into the Iraq war.

Ridiculous comparison. No one's talking about a ground invasion here.

I discard any pro-proliferation arguments at face value.

You’re arguing for a greater number of uncontrollable parameters governing the world’s most deadly weapons. I can’t think of a more idiotic position to take. And the “nothing bad has happened yet” belief system is just insane. Stanislav Petrov? Able Archer 83? Read a book man.

How many times has the world’s most capable military accidentally almost detonated a nuclear bomb?

You are a warmonger. Take your game somewhere else.

You do realize that there are ways to avoid nuclear proliferation without war? The US had a deal with Iran and multiple other countries that made them limit their nuclear capabilities, but the US withdrew from it in 2018.

Iran needing to be babysat is their choice. Numerous states are capable of building nuclear weapons or enriching weapon-grade uranium. And they don't, because they aren't bad actors.

Iran is an objectively bad actor when it comes to nuclear weapons. They created the problem voluntarily, of their own volition. What comes after is not up to them.

Iran, by the way, broke the IAEA agreement. Fordo was built illegally, without disclosure to the IAEA.

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