According to this, U.S. says that “all bets are off” if Iran continues to flout the wishes of the world and presses ahead with making nuclear weapons.
Does this mean that the U.S. gives a damn about “wishes of the world”?
If charity starts at home, how about ACTION by the U.S. to respond to this wish of the world:
Start getting rid of the nuclear weapons in the US, making the following also to get rid of theirs:
UK
Israel
Pakistan
India
Russia
China
France
Huh? You did read that article, right?
Seems to me to say the opposite of the OP. But if you seem to think that the UK and France having nukes is just as dangerous as Iran having them, well, I think we have a failure to communicate. And I speak as one who agrees with the engagement approach to Iran–they’re theocratic but it looks like we can talk to them.
The “wishes of the world” are best haracterised by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1968.
This treaty allows nations having nukes before 1968 to keep them. the US, UK, France, Russia and China signed this treaty.
A nation without nukes which signs this treaty promises it will not seek them. Iran signed this treaty, making any pursuit of nukes illegal. Israel, Pakistan and India did not, making their pursuit of nukes legal.
North Korea signed the treaty, but has now pulled out of it, allowing it to pursue nukes legally. (Article X only allows this after “extraordinary events”, but North Korea argued that aggressive overtures by the US constituted such - Iran can presumably do the same).
It is not for the US to decide whether Iran is in violation of the treaty: it is the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran can also plead Article IV.1, which states that peaceful energy technology can be pursued unhindered.
I recall a treaty regarding ABM defense which US had signed with Soviet Union and then unilaterally backed out of it. So why can’t Iran decide it can’t back out of that treaty?
It had WMD used against it during the war with Iraq. US had said any use of WMD against its troops would justify any response; meaning the use of nukes was on the table.
So applying the logic used by the current administration that we can’t sacrifice national security to appease other nations regadless of how negatively the course of action is viewed by them, Iran has a moral obligation to develop nuclear weapons to ensure no one else ever uses WMD against it.
Therefore Iran is just following US’ lead in these matters.
Mehitabel,
With regards to whether Iran having nukes is more dangerous than US, Britain, etc., or vice-versa, I suppose it all depends on where you live.
From their point of view countries that have nuclear weapons have coup d’etat in your country to install a brutal dictator and armed the country (Iraq) that attacked them unprovoked. This scenario pretty scary.
Posted by SentientMeat:
International-law question, if anybody knows: After a country has a revolution, is it bound by treaties of the old regime?
Because it’s better to have a thermonuclear armed ICBM and not need it than to need one and not have it?
There is a category of treaties which are called dispositive. These are treaties which do things like set borders and the like. Traditionally, other (non-dispositive) treaties become null at the expiration of a state.
For example, there were some conservatives who argued that the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty passed into history when the Soviet Union collapsed. There was some force behind that idea, although the US and Russia signed an executive agreement stating that they would both consider the treaty to remain in force.
Are the “wishes of the world” today the same as 35 years ago when there was a Soviet Union and a cold war going on, let alone the Vietnam War. 35 years ago, a club of 5 was formed, all of them holding nuclear weapons. No other country had them except those 5. They became the permanent members of the “security council” with the right of veto.
In 2003, we are now in the 21st century. The time has passed for “business as usual”. Time to get rid of the 5 permanent members, with their nukes and right of veto. The “wish of the world” is now global nuclear disarmament. As the world’s indisputable superpower, is the US ready, and does it have the leadership to move towards elimination of nuclear weapons, not only in North Korea and Iran, but also in Israel and Pakistan, as well as China, Russia, India, the UK, France, and the US itself.
One could say that the offenses of the current 8 nuke nations, holding 180 other nations hostage, are more grievous than the faults of their opponents branded as “terrorists”.
I think that after the US’s misadventure in Iraq, it doesn’t have a hope in hell of getting anyone else to agree.
The “wish of the world” is now global nuclear disarmament.
Allow me to be the first to congratulate you on interviewing 6 billion people! Truly amazing!
I agree with your sentiment, WUC. I would like to see the veto surrendered and the nukes to power a spaceship.
However, they will never be “got rid of” except by their own volition. The only means of acheiving this is by trying to convince the electorates of these countries that surrendering the veto and disarming will make the world a better place. Using words like “must” instead of “should” will hinder you in this regard.
I do not need to interview 6 billion people to reach the conclusion that over 90 % of the people on this planet do not like to eat dog poopoo.
I would have thought that was obvious, unless you can challenge the obvious and prove otherwise. In that case, I’d be the first one to congratulate you.
Could you please expand on what you mean by “Truly amazing”.
Lets get down too it, shall we? First off, how would you propose to do it? Short of war (which would most likely involve the very nukes you hate) how do you propose to have countries like China, India, Pakastan, North Korea, etc, give up their nukes? How is the US to go about that task? Unilateral disarmerment? I’m sure that, seeing our example, these countries would just jump on the bandwagon and disarm voluntarily in the spirit of brotherhood…not. Leaving this impossible tast asside, how would we get the major powers to disarm? Why would the European powers disarm for instance?
Finally, say that by some miricle you got everyone to disarm. How would you inforce the ban from then on? After all, everyone knows how to make the things. Sooner or later, someone is going to get them again. And if you have them and no one else does, whats to deture you from using them? Love of mankind?
While its a great dream, and I for one would love to see them all gone never to return, I see it as nothing more than the pipe variety. Its not ever going to happen. If it did happen, I’m not even convinced it would be a good thing to be honest. I think having nukes are what keep the major powers from having the most vicious kinds of total war we’ve seen in the past. Instead we have the proxy wars which, while horrible in their own right, are nothing like a WWIII scenerio. The nuclear powers know that if they get into it with another nuclear power, the possibility that someone will play the nuke card goes up and eventually, when one side or the other feels they are losing, they will certainly consider it. Look at India and Pakastan for a good example…they are both chomping at the bit to kill each other, but so far have avoided war because they both realize that if they start off conventionally, they will probably end up nuclear…with horrific effects as densely populated as they are.
As to your assertion that this is the worlds wish, I can give two answers. First off, its a funny thing that, since it seems like MORE countries are getting the things. Its a funny thing that the two most populated countries in the world HAVE the things (China and India) and I don’t see wide spread anti-nuke protests in either country. You might be able to make the case that there is wide spread sentiment for disarmerment in EUROPE, and probably in countries that dont have nukes, but I challenge your assertion that this is something the majority of people on earth want. I’d say more realistically is that the majority of people on earth are apathetic towards them, having no great liking or disliking for the things…just resigned to the fact that they are there, like death and taxes.
The other thing is, even if it IS something that the majority of people on earth want…so what? Why does that matter one bit? I fail to see that disarming the major powers achieves the stability we currently have. So, if the majority of people want it, but its a stupid or unrealistic thing to do, who cares?
After all, we’ve had the things for over 50 years now and they’ve been used exactly twice in a war…and that was pretty much before we knew what exactly they would do. I think that, for humans, thats an unbelievably good record for a weapon system. Why screw with that kind of record?
-XT
Definitely not. 55 years ago, a club of 5 was formed, and only one of them was holding nuclear weapons.
You’re hinting at an unexisting link between being a permanent member of the UNSC and having nuclear weapons. There are certainly reasons why all the permanent members currently have nuclear weapons, but you shouldn’t post such a misleading statement.
Merci, clairobscur. I was worried I’d have to point that out.
I agree. To expand on my earlier post, I also feel it is better for a few countries to have hundreds of nuclear weapons that are never used then to have millions killed in a war to get rid of them.
Maybe Wake up call will wander back in at some point and expand on some of the questions asked of him and what his thoughts are on some of the subsequent posts.
-XT
There are many ways to do it, none of them requiring a war.
Let’s start off with the 7 specific actions described by Jonathan Dean in the Union of Concerned Scientists. If that is too complicated, how about a simple solution in layman terms, or the one offered by Representative Dennis Kucinich via congressional bill HR 2459.
If you do not like the above peaceful solutions, how about other peaceful solutions offered by China, the most populace nation in the world with the nukes, or India, the second most populace nation in the world with nukes.
There are also peaceful solutions from Canada, Australia, and even Scotland.
If the above cites do not provide you with enough answers, then maybe you want to try here, or go to Washington DC on December 10 and attend there.
OK. I missed one word in my statement. The word was “already”. If you insert that word, then my statement is correct. It reads:
“35 years ago, a club of 5 was already formed, all of them holding nuclear weapons. No other country had them except those 5. They became the permanent members of the “security council” with the right of veto”.
Would you care to share with us what those “reasons” are, and why are they legitimate in today’s world.
Intersting cites. Might be too much for my inferior brain (which is throughly befuddled with fine whiskey tonight), but I’ll give it a shot all the same.
Union of Concerned Scientists: Basically the big plan here is to buy off the other nuclear powers, especially Russia. We would basically bribe the Russians into selling us the fissionables and warheads, as well as possible rogue states like North Korea into selling fissionable and delivery systems. We would basically say that other forms of WMD are not a truely credible threat nation wide, and we could respond to any such attacks with purely conventional arms, making sure that the public was aware that, say, the loss of New York wasn’t as bad as a full attack by the old Soviet Union with nuclear arms. We would generally ignore other potential rogue states that MIGHT get nuclear weapons, based on the assumption that they have no credible delievery system.
On the surface, this all sounds reasonable (well, some of it does anyway). Instead of paying the money we spend currently on development of new nuclear capabilites, and missile defense systems, we would instead simply buy off the majority of countries with nuclear arms (there was no cost comparison though…I’ll assume they are roughly comparable, unless someone less drunk wants to take a shot at actual numbers, with the paying off part costing more, but it being a one time good deal, as opposed to residual payments to upkeep of our current nuclear arms). I suppose the OTHER nuclear powers (i.e. the nuclear armed European powers, Israel, etc) would simply jump on board and gladly give up their own arms. The paper is a bit vague on this aspect, simply petering out at the end with this lame statement:
From Overcoming Current Obstacles to Nuclear Disarmament
I’m sure groups like AQ would gladly sign up for this. Basically if there are no more wars, the other nuclear armed powers will gladly give up their nuclear arms joyfully, as they won’t be threatened any more.
Over all, I find this paper to be a pipe dream, though it has some good points. I simply don’t think that paying off either Russia or rogue states like North Korea deals with all the problems associated with disarmerment. Nor do I think that by America disarming, it follows that the rest of the ‘allies’ will follow suit. Whats in it for them? Unless the author thinks America should also pay them off as well.
Down grading the credibility of other WMD, while a good thing and credible point, is over emphasized in the paper IMO. I don’t think that America keeps a nuclear arsenel because it fears chemical or biological attack solely, but as a deterent to any other power attacking it with nukes…or just as a deterent. Which is why the OTHER powers keep THEIR nuclear arsenel too. The genie is simply out of the bottle, and its fantasy to think we can all just put it back and forget about it. Someone, somewhere, WILL open the bottle back up at some point…be it a nation state or a terrorist group. If that case happens, at the minimum you will see nuclear blackmail initially, and then another arms race as countries scramble to catch back up. At worst…you will see smoking holes where New York, London, Paris, etc once stood, depending on who gets the nukes and what axes they have to grind. It will be cold comfort to those folks turned into radioactive slag that the conventional forces or the US or other power nuked subsequently wiped up the rogue state that decided they were annoyed enough to roast them.
Finally, the proposal to totally down grade the US’s conventional military is simple not going to happen. Even in the year 2000 it wasn’t going to happen…certainly its not going to happen in the current environment.
From Overcoming Current Obstacles to Nuclear Disarmament
I’d take a shot at your other cites, but frankly Ii’ve had one glass too many of Glen Levits tonight and can no longer feel my lips. If this thread is still extent tomorrow, and if no one else has stepped up to the plate to look at and analyze them, I’ll give it a shot then.
Reguards,
XT