Iran and Nuclear Weapons

There’s a lot of talk in the media about stopping Iran by whatever means necessary from developing nuclear weapons. I can understand the international concern. Who wants a country with more than its share of influential Muslim fanatics and led by a president who says Israel should be wiped off the map making nuclear bombs and possibly selling or giving some to Osama & Company?

But, having said that, I wonder what right the USA or any other nuclear power has telling Iran that they shouldn’t or can’t join the nuclear elite. “We have ours, but you can’t have yours,” doesn’t strike me as being very fair or as carrying a lot of moral weight. I suppose we could say that we don’t want nuclear weapons in the hands of Muslim nutcakes, but why should the biggest and deadliest nuclear arsenal in the world be held by the only country that has ever used nuclear weapons against innocent people, and why should they lie under the command of a simpleminded Christian fundamentalist like George Bush?

What it seems to come down to is that if the world or some part of it has the might and determination to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, it will do so or spark a cataclysmic war trying. But as long as those who are trying to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons already have them themselves, they lack a certain moral standing to take the action they do unless and until Iran threatens to use these weapons against others in unjustifiable ways. So far, I’m not aware of them having made any such threats. Of course, it’s pretty difficult to threaten to use weapons one says one doesn’t even have any intentions of developing.