What gives us the right to pre-emptively attack Iran's nuclear infrastructure?

Great Debates
21

Remind me , what happened between 88 and now , that somehow made pre-emptive strikes , punitive raids , and general invasions of foreign nations ilegal ? Nada , zip , nothing.The only thing that will be different is the pretext for the action.
This is the real world , if a serving president deems a foreign nation a threat to the US , it will be dealt with regardless of right or wrong, if that means sanctions fine, if it means a raid , fine , if it means invasion and regime change , then so be it.

After 911 are you seriously going to ask if they have that right ?

As for Iraq , it sorta brings home the argument. In the first case Iran stopped em cold , and then slugged it out with them to an 8 year stalemate. In the second , Iraq invaded Kuwait and then was kicked out by allied forces in the subsequent desert storm.

In both cases they had that right , according to surprise surprise , themselves. In the first case , the world could care less if they bashed each other about , it was only when they started involving others in the tanker war ,that others bashed back , with praying mantis. In the second , Iraq deemed that the world would not care ,and thus invaded, they were kicked out but it took a stronger power to do it.

Until that stronger power comes along , the US has the right , not only to invade someone , but to get away with it as well, if you believe its ilegal.
Declan

22

It is kinda like the Iraq “war”. The UN Charter allows a nation to use force to defend itself without UN approval. That’s part of what we claimed we did with Iraq. However, that claim as regard Iraq was/is EXTREMELY doubful. But- who gets to decide whether or not a nation went too far in “defending itself”? Why, the UN security Council! Where we have a veto. Ipso facto- nothing we will do will be “illegal” even though it would be illegal if any nation not packing a Veto power seat did so.

Now- “what gives us the right?” Nothing and everything. What gives even the UN "the right’ to use force against a non-member nation? (which I believe they have done). Nothing except the fact that the UN says it has that right. And no one can say different and make it stick. Well, other than us. So -“what gives us the right?” Nothing & everything. No one has the right to stop us either- other than Iran itself, of course. And- no one CAN stop us, of course.

So “what gives us the right” is a damn silly question, because even if we went in there with full UN authority why would that be “right” just because many other nations said “Go get 'em!”?

At least- with Iran - the nukes would be a real danger to the USA. Iraq- was not so in any way shape or form. Sure Saddam was a danger to his own people, and an evil torturing bastard, but he was a danger to us.

Note that I asked this as a GD thread once- would we have had the “right” to invade Nazi Germany if we had known about the death camps but Germany had stopped it’s aggression before Poland? Damn, that’s a tough one. I’d like to thionk we’d have done *something * significant.

23

Note that should be “…but was NOT a danger to us”. If any kindly Mod want to fix that and delete this, fine by me. :o :smack:

24

The allied powers would not have needed poland as an excuse , the invasion of czechoslovakia , the annexation of Austria , the Versaille treaty violations , building up arnaments , military forces etc.

All of those would have been justification for military action.

The death camps were started after the second world war had offically begun , the use of force to deal with ongoing pogroms would have been a different matter, and with the then current political reality , the jews would have waited for hell to freeze over.

However , what you say has actually occured with respect to a foreign nation deliberately invading another country to put an end to it ,and do a regime change. No threat to the invader existed , no legal reason to intervene, the UN completely ignored it, every individual nation turned the other way.

Any guess as to who the two nations were ?

Declan

25

What authority are we using as the basis of determining whether any nation has the right to bomb Iran’s nuke program? Are we using non proliferation treaties as the authority? International law? (does that even exist?) A UN charter?

The only reason for a non proliferation treaty is to prevent nuclear weapons development. Unless the treaties are actually enforced, they’re worthless. I think that NOT destroying Iran’s nuclear programs might be more illegal than destroying them is.

Besides, who cares about all of this anyway? Nobody’s debating whether Iran having nukes is a good idea, because nobody’s stupid enough to think that giving nukes to a religious/fundamentalist dictatorship can result in anything good. The bottom line is that Iran with nukes is a very dangerous situation, and would do nothing but escalate problems exponentially, and could potentially cause serious devastation on a catastrophic, worldwide scale.

Are we seriously debating whether preventing that is right?

26

Well, the ‘right’ involved here is self defense. Our right to bomb Iran hinges on Irans actions.

I think the debate here is really about the level of threat Iran is/will be, and whether or not that threat level justifies pre-emptive self defense. Of course the debate is then also about various little things such as can any govt, individual or whatever be trusted to act as some kind of seer or whatever.

So, to answer your question; literally, do we have the right to bomb Iran, Id say yes if the evidence is conclusive enough that such a thing would be an act of self defense. But personally I think it would be very hard for any govt in this day and age to be able to produce such evidence.

27

Precedent does not establish “right,” Declan. And I think this thread was started to debate our “right” to attack Iran in an ethical as well as a legal sense.

28

You think? What about Muslims all over the world who will sympathize with the Iranian cause in this instance even if they’re not Shi’ites or fundamentalists?

29

Nothing, since 1988. But such things are forbidden by the UN Charter, which the U.S. was bound by from the UN’s founding, and which we are still bound by.

30

Please tell me you didn’t really mean that. :mad:

31

As noted above, I think this thread was started to debate our “right” in an ethical as well as a legal sense.

32

I am.

Had to answer this one. It would be a very good thing if Iran had nuclear weapons. It would be their only guarantee against further adventurism and imperialism by all those arrogant superpowers in the world.

Like somebody already said earlier, they themselves would never use them in a first strike. It wouldn’t be in their interest.

Look, it worked between the U.S., Soviet Union and China (and U.K. and France) during the Cold War, right?

33

In anticipation of the inevitable responses to my previous post:

How many countries has North Korea invaded? none.

How many countries has the U.S. invaded? Iraq, Grenada, Haiti, Cuba(failed), Vietnam? How many more?

The Soviet Union also has tried a few.

No country that has nuclear weapons has ever been invaded. (Did israel already have nuclear weapons when the Arabs last tried to invade them? Not quite sure about that.)

Conclusion: Deterrence works. Nuclear weapons prevent frivolous wars. The fewer frivolous wars in the world, the better.

And I hope it goes without saying that none of this means I support the gruesome authoritarian regimes in Iran or North Korea. I don’t.

34

Umm, remember that little thing in the 50’s called “the Korean conflict”?

And, the Bay of Pigs was us trying to invade Cuba. If we had gone it, we woudl have succeeded. Well, in the initial invasion, only of course. And we didn’t invade Vietnam- South Vietnam asked us for our help. That pretty well leaves Iraq, and there really is not excuse for that. Other than Saddam was an evil torturung bastard.

35

“And, the Bay of Pigs wasn’t us trying to invade Cuba.”

36

Irrelevant to Frankenstein Monster’s point – neither NK nor SK had nukes, then.

37

Huh?

A successful invasion is still an invasion.

38

The USA didn’t try and invade Cuba- it supported Cuban dissidents trying to invade. You might think that point is fine, but a D-Day style invasion would have worked. The Guerrilla war that would have followed is quite another thing.

39

I think the situation is the same as when Israel destroyed Iraq’s OSIRAK nuclear reactor. Recall that Saddam Hussein had:
-announced that the reactor would be used to make plutonium
-told the world that the resulting nuclear bombs would be used against Israel
So, there was a lot of huffing and blowing at the UN…but everybody (including Iraq’s neighbors) were pretty happy that the Israelis removed the threat.
How much would it take to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability? I wouldhope that a CIA spy could plant a radio beacon in that plant…and one high explosive missle should be enough to do the job! :wink:

40

Weren’t there some American troops involved? Whose release had to be negotiated afterwards? I recall a period cartoon by Bill Mauldin: A group of U.S. GIs in combat fatigues are arriving at a stateside airport. One of them is using a payphone. Caption: “Where was our air cover?”