It’s not magic, it’s not even breaking new ground. All these details were worked out in various disarmament negotiations with the Soviets. “Trust, but verify,” remember?
And you go ask any ten people on the street if they think the Russians would ever completely eliminate their nuclear arsenal. Ask in 1987, ask now.
Доверяй, но проверяй only goes so far, and there’s literally no possible way anyone can fully verify what Russia or China or the US do with their nuclear technology. Even if there were, I argue that the US public will never believe it. And will never consent to total disarmament.
To reiterate, have people forgotten what happened to the Ukraine when they gave up nukes?
Anyone who thinks Israel would ever give up nukes is astonishingly naive.
Much more efficient to use nukes against someone who has thermonukes. Hard to get millions of people to slash their wrists simultaneously.
For your first point, “they’re not close to a nuke,” how do you know? I’ve seen estimates from they have it now, to they’re not even close and they don’t want one anyway, to they’ve some 20% enriched uranium but no idea on how much or how fast it can be made into HEU. Here’s Iranwatch’s estimate; Since the 2012 NIE, the U.S., at least, thinks Iran’s back on the path towards trying to make a nuclear weapon. My point is not that we don’t know whether Iran is trying to make a nuke, or far along they are, it’s that we can’t know precisely when Iran admits to having other nuclear production/processing facilities where the IAEA isn’t allowed to audit.
As to your point that a putative Iran nuclear weapon would not spur the rest of the Gulf nations into obtaining nuclear arms of their own, I will firmly disagree, and point to the Kingdom’s publicly stated desire to obtain nuclear weapons or weaponizable material, from, Pakistan, and South Korea. See also, this Business Week recent article on talks held between KSA and Pakistan re ‘strategic cooperation’ and this US News/World Report article on the same meeting. Other commentators disagree, and claim that alleged KSA attempts to acquire nukes are "a fantasy."
They already have had Chinese IRBMs since the 1980s, and have upgraded those in 2007. The CSS-2 missiles secretly purchased in the 80s are notable in that their accuracy is so poor, their only effective purposes are for either WMD delivery and preferably with a nuclear or biological payload, or as very expensive terror weapons, a la, the Scuds from Desert Storm and from the Iran/Iraq War’s, “War of the cities.”
Syria before its Civil War never had the cash to seriously pursue a nuclear program. And when they did, it got bombed by Israel. See also, Operation Orchard. Nevertheless, even with its Civil War still raging, Syria may be at it again. Iraq tried as well during the 1991-2003 period. Though half-heartedly in the case of nuclear weapons, as well as a country could that was under long-term aerial surveillance and bombing. The Duelfer Report goes into great detail on this subject, and is interesting reading if you’re an insomniac or have a few days to kill.
KSA is both much richer than either Syria or Iraq, and more importantly, isn’t sitting under sanctions explicitly crafted to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons, though it is a signatory of the NPT. It isn’t thought to have an indigenous nuclear weapons’ production or material enrichment capability, which exempts it from some of the more rigorous oversight by the IAEA. This lack of this oversight—which would be somewhat remedied if KSA were to sign the modified Small Quantities Protocol of 2005 or Additional Protocol, according to this 2014 report from the Washington Institute—may facilitate efforts to clandestinely establish enrichment cascades. Me, it’s a WAG on my part, but I think they already have weaponizable material, have done so since the 90s, and that the material was not created in the Kingdom.
As to why it makes sense for Sunni nations adjacent to Iran to also have WMDs, consider that both Sunnis and the Shia consider each other apostates, and many of the Gulf states bankrolled Saddam Hussein’s ruinous 8 year war against Iran. Admittedly, it had been a lot warmer between to Iran and Saudi Arabia until Iran’s involvement in funding separatists in the Syrian Civil War, according to the wiki on Iran/KSA relations. Allegedly, the case of Iran wanting dead the KSA ambassador to the US, probably didn’t help either.. At least the Kingdom has said so publicly, calling for an alliance against Iran and ISIS. (The last one is hilariously cynical to include, IMHO. They can stop ISIS just nicely if they and the other Gulf states would stop cutting them checks and sending them recruits. Oh right, ISIS is supposedly funding itself from oil wells it has captured…)
Ibn Warraq, I LOL’d at your Ukraine reference. As to world nuclear disarmament, ironically, the U.S. would have the least to lose in such a situation, as the U.S. would still have the capability to cause equivalent destruction via its conventional arms superiority. I.e., the U.S. doesn’t need nukes to kill and destroy everybody and everything in a given location, just sufficient will and time. This is not the case for almost every other global actor outside of their regional power base. Irrelevant, as disarmament and non-proliferation verification is already astoundingly difficult (e.g., 1991-2003 Iraq, North Korea since basically 1953, etc…) even with every country acting in concert to determine those answers from international pariahs.
They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. How many times has Netanyahu warned us about Iranian nukes? Its always just a few years away, isn’t it? Convenient, since we must act now, instead of waiting for a few years and admitting our error. He’s warned us in the 90’s, the 2000’s, and a few times in this decade. None of it has ever come true. Now it may be that it will come true this time, and that all of the times he was wrong was just a precursor to him being right, finally, this time. But like you asked, “how do we know?” Why should we trust him now any more than we did before? Netanyahu has long run out of credibility on this issue, even his supporters know he’s a hawk. And hawks never underestimate the potential threat. The reason I don’t care to listen to him now is that there is no evidence he’d change his tune if the facts change, so he’s no different from 1996 Netanyahu or 2004 Netanyahu
I mentioned that I don’t think a nuclear Iran would change the calculations for any of the surrounding countries and I stand by it. Despite their publicly stated desire, I think most nations have to say that if others get nukes, they will, especially those around the Middle East. If the Saudis wanted it, I think, they would be going for it, because coming in 2nd in a nuke race is almost as bad as not being in the race at all.
Iraq and Syria are jokes. They couldn’t get nukes before and they certainly can’t get any now. Even if Israel goes public with their nukes and points them at Baghdad and Damascus, both countries don’t have the capabilities of getting nukes. Nothing would change with a nuclear Iran.
Asking whether a nuclear Iran would spur a nuclear arms race is the wrong question to ask especially if its true that the Saudis seem capable of obtaining nukes at any time. If Iran’s program makes the Saudi’s pursuit public, I find that no more dangerous than Israel’s hidden nukes and acknowledging whether or not they are for real. As we’ve seen in North Korea, nukes are a pretty good safety net to prevent invasions, and if they’re all afraid of each other, paradoxically, this might make things more peaceful in the ME. I’m not one of those people who think that Iran’s a crazy regime that is one epileptic seizure away from nuking everyone. Even Pakistan, that country that protected Osama bin Laden hasn’t gone off and nuked New Delhi. If the ME countries get nukes, I think they won’t use it for offense, only defense, and I’m fine with that. I think what we’re truly afraid of is the possibility of the nukes falling into terrorist hands and if Pakistan can keep it safe, I think Iran, whose a much bigger and stable country, can do that too
To be perfectly honest, I think interstate conflicts will decrease if both of them have nukes. Israel’s real worry is that they don’t have the weapon advantage anymore. So far, they’ve been able to get away with bombing other countries at their leisure and if Iran has nukes, they won’t be able to do that anymore, or would at least think twice.
The New York Times claims otherwise. Is it wrong? (Honest question.)
There’s the nub and the rub. A lot of people do seem to think that.