Nuclear nonproliferation and unavoidable hypocrisy

[Ravenman]

How many countries do you reckon Iran has intervened in during the same period?

[XT]

@Steken

There have been three American invasions in the last 25 years - twice in Iraq, once in Afghanistan. And quite a number of military incursions, air strikes, drone strikes, etc., in Pakistan, Libya, the Yemen, etc.

You probably missed this, since it wasn’t really in the news or anything, but we didn’t actually invade Iraq in the first Gulf War (we attacked things in Iraq and I think we moved troops through some parts of Iraq, but we didn’t invade in any meaningful sense). Most of it was fought in that Kuwait place (I know, it’s obscure and most people don’t know where that is)…which we didn’t invade. So, I’m seeing Iraq once and Afghanistan once, unless your definition of ‘invasions’ is different than mine.

Obviously it is, since air strikes and drone strikes, etc. aren’t invasions.

How high may be the chance be of an American attack on Iran sometime during the next 25 years? Hard to say. Perhaps one percent, two percent, three - maybe ten at the most?

Well, in the last 25 years of pissing us off we haven’t invaded them once, so I’m going to say the odds are low unless they do something spectacularly stupid. The odds of them getting an Israeli air strike because they continue to work on nuclear weapons, however, is a bit higher (maybe 25%), and it’s even possible they will scare/piss off the Europeans enough to get an air strike from them (maybe 1%). Having nuclear weapons is not going to substantially keep the tigers at bay…they have a MUCH better chance of avoiding US invasions or Israeli/US/European air strikes if they simply join the world community and play nice.

With Iranian nukes, though, that number would drop to something like 0.00001 percent. Which is nice I think, war being hell and all.

Doubtful. Because if they keep pushing on this they are going to invite the very thing they are (supposedly…I think this argument is only really used by folks trying to apologize for Iran, I think the Iranians actually have other motives for pursuing nukes) trying to prevent. While if they don’t and decide to grow up and put on their big boy pants then their odds of being attacked drop to somewhere around Belgium.

[BrainGlutton]

Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun, writes:

What if Iran actually did develop nuclear weapons? Is there any reason to believe that they would use them against Israel or the U.S.? The Iranian mullahs are willing to torture and oppress their own people and pursue policies I deplore toward Baha’I and other religious minorities. But they are not a self-destructive lot. They managed to end the hostage crisis in 1980 in a deal cut by America’s militaristically inclined Reagan regime, and they have backed away from wars with other countries. They will continue their attempts at subversion, just as the U.S. continues to try to subvert governments we don’t like (most recently in Venezuela, but in many other places around the globe as well). But they do know full well that a nuclear strike at Israel would lead to Israel using its current stockpile of 200 nuclear weapons to completely wipe out Iran. The mullahs want to preserve their Islamic regime and spread it, not end it in one spasm of death and destruction.

That’s why, even if the Iranians did develop nuclear weapons, they would only be joining a world where the U.S. has ten thousand of these or more, and where India and Pakistan also already have these weapons. The Soviets under Stalin were just as much a threat to our security, talked about “burying the U.S. and capitalism,” but of course never used their nukes because they knew the consequences. It is only the U.S. that has ever used nukes, and that was before we realized others could have them too.

I hope we won’t have to live with that situation. The Obama Administration is moving in the right direction to try to avoid it, creating safeguards and serious inspection regimens for Iran. But they may fail as long as Iranians feel that the U.S. is under the sway of Israelis like Netanyahu. Obama is offering something to the Iranians, but my fear is that it is too little, too late. Netanyahu and the Israelis who support him are not the only paranoid force in the Middle East.

What is really needed is a dramatic break from the way the U.S. (and Israel) have dealt with those whom we believe do or might threaten us. For 5,000 years “the realists” have preached war or other forms of domination and power-over others as the path to security. And it hasn’t worked. Over and over again those who believe that whoever they’ve decided is “the enemy” of the day can only be dealt with by force (economic, diplomatic, cultural but ultimately military) have ended up in devastating wars.

[Ravenman]

You left off the most interesting part:

But is there an alternative? We, at Tikkun and our interfaith and secular-humanist-welcoming Network of Spiritual Progressives, have become advocates for a Strategy of Generosity. We’ve developed the details of a Global Marshall Plan that would:

Have the U.S. lead the other advanced industrial countries in each dedicating 1-2 percent of their Gross Domestic Product each year for the next twenty to once and for all end both domestic and international poverty, homelessness, hunger, inadequate education, and inadequate health care and repair the global environment;

Overturn all the trade agreements (and stop the TPP currently being negotiated in secret by the Obama administration) that have favored the interests of Western globalized capitalist firms …;

Create local community-based economies outside the control of national governments or large corporations to make sure that this doesn’t turn out to be another pointless give-away program …

Someone raise their hand if they think these are realistic answers to Iran’s aggression in the region.

[BrainGlutton]

@Ravenman

You left off the most interesting part:
Someone raise their hand if they think these are realistic answers to Iran’s aggression in the region.

Perhaps, very eventually. But pols usually can’t afford to deal in “very eventually.”

[Ravenman]

I commend you for your honesty in saying that the commitment of $6 trillion in taxpayer funds (2% of GDP times 20 years) could “perhaps” have its intended effect.

[BrainGlutton]

@Ravenman

I commend you for your honesty in saying that the commitment of $6 trillion in taxpayer funds (2% of GDP times 20 years) could “perhaps” have its intended effect.

[shrug] “Perhaps” is all we ever needed before to spend that kind of money on war. Therefore, a proposal to spend it on peace should not have to meet even that high a standard.

[Steken]

@Ravenman

How many countries do you reckon Iran has intervened in during the same period?

Utterly irrelevant to the question on whether or not Iranian nukes would lower the risk of yet another American attack, this time on Iran.

@XT

You probably missed this, since it wasn’t really in the news or anything, but we didn’t actually invade Iraq in the first Gulf War (we attacked things in Iraq and I think we moved troops through some parts of Iraq, but we didn’t invade in any meaningful sense).

Fair point - the first Gulf War wasn’t an invasion.

@Ravenman

Well, in the last 25 years of pissing us off we haven’t invaded them once

Of course, that’s no guarantee that it won’t happen in the next 25 years. Iranian nukes, however, would be a guarantee, or at least as close to one as you’re going to get.

@Ravenman

The odds of them getting an Israeli air strike because they continue to work on nuclear weapons, however, is a bit higher (maybe 25%), and it’s even possible they will scare/piss off the Europeans enough to get an air strike from them (maybe 1%).

No doubt the chance of an attack would increase in the process of getting nukes. Once built and fully functional, however, the chance would drastically decrease. So it’s tricky like that.

@Ravenman

they have a MUCH better chance of avoiding US invasions or Israeli/US/European air strikes if they simply join the world community and play nice.

“Just do as we say, and maybe we won’t hurt you.”

[Ravenman]

@BrainGlutton

[shrug] “Perhaps” is all we ever needed before to spend that kind of money on war. Therefore, a proposal to spend it on peace should not have to meet even that high a standard.

That’s just not true, but it’s hardly worth discussion.

@Steken

Utterly irrelevant to the question on whether or not Iranian nukes would lower the risk of yet another American attack, this time on Iran.

No, it is relevant to Iran’s behavior, and whether it would get worse if they believed they were immune from a massive counterattack for doing something stupid. I understand you don’t want to talk about that issue, but surely you must admit that it is a factor that must be taken into consideration.

(Also, please note that I was not the author of the last three quotes in your previous post, XT was.)

[Nema98]

Ideally no nation should possess nuclear weapons, and I hope within my lifetime the international community moves to ban and destroy these terrible weapons.

The track record is good in that no nation after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has used it on a rival, whether U.S or the defunct USSR, or Pakistan and India.

Some nations are more responsible than others, I know about Japan and it was terrible, but I still prefer the U.S have thousands of nuclear weapons than the likes of Iran have just one.

A country of Iran’s nature should have no such weapons.

[Steken]

@Ravenman

No, it is relevant to Iran’s behavior, and whether it would get worse if they believed they were immune from a massive counterattack for doing something stupid. I understand you don’t want to talk about that issue, but surely you must admit that it is a factor that must be taken into consideration.

In that sense, yes, fair enough - it’s certainly relevant, and I’d be glad to talk about it.

I think Iran’s behaviour falls within what is expected from an aspiring regional power, pursuing a foreign policy of rational self-interest. It supports its Shi’a allies in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and the Yemen. It’s an ugly business - in Syria, especially, it’s downright vile - but that’s Realpolitik for you.

With or without nukes, this policy would surely continue, slowly and surely and patiently. Iran wouldn’t suddenly do “something stupid” - the country is, as The Atlantic has argued, both thoroughly rational and distinctly “non-suicidal”:

That’s why the Bush administration’s 2007 National Intelligence Estimate said Iran is “guided by a cost-benefit approach.” It’s why Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in 2012 that “we are of the opinion that Iran is a rational actor.” It’s why Benny Gantz, then head of the Israel Defense Forces, declared the same year that “the Iranian leadership is composed of very rational people.” It’s why Meir Dagan, the longtime head of Israel’s intelligence agency, called the Iranian regime “rational” in an interview with 60 Minutes. And it’s why Ron Burgess, the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told Congress that “the agency assesses Iran is unlikely to initiate or provoke a conflict.”

Let me point out, by the way, that I don’t see it as a moral issue: I am certainly not claiming that Iran is somehow morally superior to the U.S.

I am simply claiming that with nukes - and mind you I’m nowhere near convinced that the Iranians pursue them - the Iranians would be spared the very real possibility of an American attack, which in turn is a very real possibility, rightly and understandably feared by the Iranians.

@Ravenman

(Also, please note that I was not the author of the last three quotes in your previous post, XT was.)

My apologies to the both of you, sorry about that.