Does Iran have a point?
Or: Why would 'I have my ball, and I say no one else should get one' work as a global policy?
The Iranians did, obliquely, bring up a point that has interested me for many years now.
But Iran's chief IAEA delegate, Sirus Nasseri, argued earlier that all countries should be permitted to produce their own nuclear power plant fuel to prevent being "dependent on an exclusive cartel of nuclear fuel suppliers — a cartel that has a manifest record of denials and restrictions for political and commercial reasons."
Laying aside the irony (Iran is a member of OPEC) one is moved to wonder how it came about that nuclear capable countries played such a big role in helping decide that no one else should become so.
Then again, at some point, one has to deal with the irony...
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That and a dose of straight realpolitik--the side with the advantage desires to keep that advantage.
why is it such a surprise when some countries look at the ease of informational access; which has sharply recuded R&D costs in all sorts of arenas. nuclear technologies being no exception whatsoever; and say to themselves,,,
why are we a party to this treaty?
Of the countries which have signed on, more than one has apparently come to views the treaty as being worth... approximately the paper on which it is printed.
The US built and used nukes to end a war that the overwhelming majority of our citizens wanted nothing to do with until we were sucker punched in an attack claiming almost as much loss of life as on 9/11 ... and then we expanded the nuclear arsenal to protect ourselves and the world with a policy called Mutual Assured Destruction, or MAD. The basic idea was that if anybody fired nukes at anyone else they'd merely assure their own destruction as the other side had far and away enough nukes of their own to turn the productive area of the aggressor's country into radioactive glass. Now that the Soviets are a bad memory and the Cold War status quo turned upside down, we're negotiating the nukes down as far as we can. President G.H.W. Bush, in one of the greatest and least reported achievements of his Administration, inked the START II treaty with Russia reducing Strategic Nuclear Forces by two thirds. It took the Russians a little over 7 years to ratify it, but it's a huge leap in the right direction. Yet at the time, building nukes was responsible defense for the big powers of the post WWII era.
www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iran/x-55.htm
Now let's look at Iran. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that Iran successfully builds 12 bombs for the cruise missiles they bought from the Ukrainians and uses them on the US. As catastrophic as that would be, we'd recover ... and without whoever's left in charge displaying more restraint and anger management than any human should ever be asked for, Iran would cease to exist within a few hours or so without even scratching the surface of US nuclear capabilities. Even failing that, we would yet remain in a position to wage a war of retribution too terrible to contemplate. The same would go for Russia or Britain. An Iranian bomb isn't a viable defense, it's merely a really good way to blackmail people that lacked the courage and conviction to take it away from them before it became a threat, as the Israelis did to Saddam (see "Osirak"). The problem, from the Iranian perspective at least, is that Bush and Blair are made of sterner stuff.
Black widow spiders are native to North America ... but I doubt any of us North Americans here have ever seen a live one. The reason is that a bite from one can easily kill ... so we kill the Black Widows without a second thought when other spiders get gently put outside because they possess a destructive power far beyond their need and ability to responsibly use. Let's all say a prayer that the Iranians are smart enough not to put themselves in a similar position.