The Ethics of Mutually Assured Destruction

[sabotabby]

The fact that the U.S. is threatening to use nuclear weapons to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons is justification for Iran to develop nuclear weapons.*

Discuss.

* I believe that no one has the right to nuclear weapons. This said, the U.S. has them. Given this scenario, does Iran have the right to defend itself against this threat?

Comments

[pretzelsalt.livejournal.com]

Of course they don't - they are an enemy of FREEEEDOM!!!!

You can be so thick sometimes.

[sabotabby]

Well, yes. But how can they be a proper enemy of freedom without nukes?

[syndicalist.livejournal.com]

Whatever happened to the good old days of the Discharge song "Two Monstrous Nuclear Stockpiles"? Now it's one monstrous nuclear stockpile, a few that are almost as a big, and many tiny nuclear stockpiles. The more there are, the greater the chance one will be used somewhere, somehow.

I guess you're asking "What is to be done?" 80's answer: We should oppose all nukes -- that money that goes into building them could go into feeding the starving people of the world, and in the meantime we should work to build a classless society.

Realpolitik answer: US and its allies should provide positive incentives for Iran not to build any. Cash payment, bribes, preferred trade treatement, whatever. That leaves the responsibility of getting the West/US to disarm to its citizens, who also have to pressure their home governments to do the same.

There's no magic answer that I can see. Just saying "we have to organize to build an anarchist/communist/better society," as is the stock answer for pretty much any problem, wouldn't cut it.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

Bribes? They're like the 5th oil producer in the world.

There's nothing, that the West can do to prevent the current Iranian government from getting nukes. The fundies are doing this in order to maintain the regime, and the longer they antagonize the United States, the longer they can stay in power.

I mean, basically I agree with Bush: the way to solve the problem is regime change. I just don't understand how in hell they can think that attacking the country could result in regime change. It's never happened anywhere. The closest it came to happen was Iraq in 1991, and they dropped the ball.

[sabotabby]

As global citizens, we ought to be finding ways to disarm all nuclear countries and build better societies, etc. That goes without saying. But the situation we're in is one of many nasty and conflicting nation-states, some of which are armed, some of which aren't. The most heavily armed one—and the only one to have ever used nuclear weapons to kill anyone—is threatening to use them again.

Given the political system of nation-states, which is one I don't like but that nevertheless exists, the government of Iran is as obligated to protect the lives of its citizens and defend its sovereignty as any other government. It can protect the lives of its citizens by stopping its nuclear program, but in doing so, it relinquishes its sovereignty and leaves itself open to a future invasion (especially since not having WMDs is not a deterrent to attack by the U.S.).

Given this, its other option is some form of mutually assured destruction; not necessarily on the scale of the Cold War arms race, but enough to be a deterrent to the U.S. acting on its threat.

The question I'm pondering isn't "what should Americans do?" or "what should the Bush administration do?" I'm more curious about what Iran should do.

[jaymoh.livejournal.com]

But wait... we make the rules, hence we can change the rules when the situation deems necessary. Maybe I'm missing something-I don't see your point. I mean honestly, only we (the US) should have nukes... Pakistan....and Israel. Oh and India, well at least for the moment.

[sabotabby]

Who was it who said that Musharraf's dictatorship was a better U.S. ally than democratic India? I forget...

[dobrovolets.livejournal.com]

Nuclear disarmament isn't going to happen until some point after the global proletarian revolution. Iran has as much "right" to nuclear weapons as any other capitalist state, and I'll defend that right.

[sabotabby]

That's pretty much how it looks from where I'm sitting, minus the defense and emphasis on the quotation marks.

[jk-fabiani.livejournal.com]

Does that mean we're going to offshore manufactuer of the nukes to Iran now?

[sabotabby]

We?

[genesayssitdown.livejournal.com]

i'm not even sure if this particular cycle can possibly be stopped by anything

[sabotabby]

I like to think that it can be. I don't know how.

[syndicalist.livejournal.com]

It would require massive, massive international, coordinated, cross-border linkages of protest. Because no country wants to be the FIRST to give up its nukes, though if one did, they would be my heroes forever.

No one wants to be the first to surrender them; everyone wants to be the last and only ones to have them. The only way it could be stopped is through multilateral, enfroceable, int'l aggreement, with concomitant public pressure at home in the various countries that are party to the agreement.

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

At a moral level, no. The use of nuclear weapons by any country would (in the case of the US did) involve the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of civilians. This is, to my mind, wrong at an absolute level, whatever end may be served by it. Nuclear deterrence, by Iran or anyone else, involves not only the threat, but the willingness, emodied in doctrine, training and command and control systems, to carry out such an atrocity. I realise there is a jump from saying it's wrong to do X to saying it's wrong to be willing to do X, though I'd be prepared to justify it. But my conclusion is that it is not justifiable to threaten and be willing to commit an atrocity, even in response to a like atrocity, whatever the threat it may be deterring. This argument applies equally of course to any country's nuclear weapons.

At a realpolitik level, absolutely. Even realpolitik tempered with some notion of fairness and equal treatment. Faced with a hostile, aggressive and militarily overwhelmingly superior power on its borders, armed with nuclear weapons and potentially willing to use them, the only absolute guarantee for Iran against being attacked (or at least being attacked deliberately by a sane agent) is to develop nuclear weapons of their own. This principle is espoused by comparable-sized powers around the world and on their own borders, so it is entirely reasonable for Iran to apply it to themselves. The only issue is that they would be violating the NPT; but it is open to them to withdraw from the NPT, and in any case the nuclear powers are in flagrant violation of the NPT themselves.

What should the Iranian government do? I think that, even from a realpolitik pov, the nuclear option is so fraught with danger, deceit, and the possibility of bringing all-out attack down on themselves in the 5-10 years it would take them to get the bomb, that they would be better to eschew it and come to a compromise on enrichment. Their best defence against US attack right now is probably their leverage in Iraq. They should (and I expect are) make sure that their willingness and ability to use this lever is clearly communicated to the US, so that the US are aware that an attack on Iran would render their position in Iraq untenable.

As for what we can do - well, the usual, protest, revolution, etc., but what worries me is that it's so difficult to motivate people at the moment - the fact that Blair went ahead in Iraq despite the Feb 15 protests has totally killed off the sense of being able to influence things for the great majority of people. (I think the big mistake the demonstrators made on Feb 15 was going home at the end of the day). The government is also playing it very cleverly, with Jack Straw repeatedly saying that an attack on Iran is 'inconceivable'. I expect he'll be saying that till the week before it actually happens.

[sabotabby]

I think that people in the western democracies are still operating under the assumption that their government is going to listen to them. It might be true in some cases (it seems to have worked in France), but it is certainly not going to work in the U.S.

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

Not with nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are inherently genocidal and their use is ruled out tout court by any conceivable moral account.

[sabotabby]

How does one defend oneself against an enemy with nuclear weapons?

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

Another thing could happen too--Just like they say wall street stopped the viet nam war*, some in the U.S. business community could start waking up and realize that Bush is turning into more trouble than benefit.

* I don't know how much weight that theory actually has.

[sabotabby]

Do you think he's more trouble than benefit? I can't tell from their perspective.

[fanciulla.livejournal.com]

exactly what i was thinking... in fact, i posted something about it in my journal earlier today. it's kind of messy, though.

i think if america attacked iran, i think i would really REALLY consider moving out of this country. it makes me want to cry. and i cant take it anymore.

[sabotabby]

Right—I saw that. I didn't think it was that messy.

It's hard to leave. Sometimes I think about the circumstances that would force me to leave Canada. As much as I've joked that I'd leave if I had to utter the words "Prime Minister Stephen Harper," I think things would have to get pretty intolerable. And by that point, it's typically too late.

[lol911omgwtc.livejournal.com]

I doubt that having nuclear weapons will prevent Iran from being attacked by the US. In which case, Iran will not be "defending itself" against attack by developing nuclear weapons. In which case, Iran should not develop nuclear weapons.

Too bad they probably don't see things as clearly as I do.

[sabotabby]

I'd respond, but I'm too busy laughing at your username. Are you englishpigdog?

[terry-terrible.livejournal.com]

Pretty much. I just find mind boggling that Israel, by far a more destablizing force in the Middle East than the crazy Mullahs have ever dreamt of being has been given free reign with thier nukes. Hell Golda Mier and her cabinet seriously considered useing them when it looked like Egypt and Syria were going to win the war of '73.

Maybe a nulcear Iran would make them think twice when they want to throw thier wieght around.

And considering the fate of the other two named "Axis of Evil" ( the one without nukes got crushed by the U.S., the other, who has nukes, is still thumbing thier nose at G.W.) Iran would be crazy not to pursue the nuclear option.

[sabotabby]

Israel's important in this, of course, because going back to the analogy that dobrovolets and I were discussing, if you've got a .22 and the sandbox bully has an Uzi, the other thing you can do is point your gun at the bully's best friend. It's still not a good idea, since the best friend also has more guns than you, but it's a strategy worth considering.

[uberbitsch.livejournal.com]

In a sense of a right to defence against the US, then I'd say yes, Iran is justified in having nuclear weapons on that level.

What I don't agree with is the disturbing religious fervour surrounding the whole development and propaganda tool that the nuclear technology provides.

[sabotabby]

The religious fervour's to be expected, since Ahmadinejad is a total nutjob.

[bike4fish.livejournal.com]

Of course, the US didn't have an problem with apartheid South Africa having the bomb (heavily assisted by the Israelis). South Africa (after the 1994 elections) did abandon its nuclear weapons program - the only country to have done so.

There is always the possibility that the Iranians are serious about it only being an energy program. But it may be too tempting to become part of the nuke club. Having enriched nuclear materials around doesn't make the world safer for anyone.

[sabotabby]

I doubt the Iranians want a nuclear energy program. It seems like a big hassle to go through if that's all they want.

[earthlingmike.livejournal.com]

That discussion of nukular weapons was one of the thins that really stood out in the video jaymoh linked to in her journal. http://www.sais-jhu.edu/media/april06/20060410_bush_qa.wmv

I don't know if I've ever come across hypocrisy that blatant.

[sabotabby]

It doesn't seem to be streaming properly, but can he still not pronounce nuclear?

[jhfurnish.livejournal.com]

The USA is the ONLY nation in the WORLD to have USED nuclear weapons against another nation.

THAT'S ENOUGH JUSTIFICATION FOR ANYBODY TO HAVE THEM, since Amerikkka will invade or bomb EVERYBODY and ANYBODY who doesn't do what the World Bank Gang tells them to do.