Security In Nuclear Possession?

"If Ken Waltz were a democracy activist living in Tehran or the mother of three living in Tel Aviv or Abu Dhabi he'd probably think differently about the prudence of an Iranian bomb.  He has the luxury of theorizing from thousands of miles away."  Karim Sadjadpour, Iran expert, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Kenneth Waltz is an academic at Columbia University in New York.  He is also a professor at the University of California Berkeley.  It's the latter connection, not necessarily the former that informs the reader of his political/social delusion.  Advocating for his view that nuclear weapons bring stability to the international community.  A state that owns a nuclear weapon challenging another nuclear-weapons-possession state knows all about nuclear deterrence, as he would have it.

It's called MAD, 'mutually assured destruction', and that knowledge that were one state to unleash the horror of an atomic mushroom over another state, the initiating state would find itself immediately just as inundated by nuclear winter following the atomic blast as the other.  That thought, presumably, makes its indelible impression on the intelligent practicality of those who have their index finger perpetually posed over that incendiary red button.

It worked for the United States and the Soviet Union during their adversarial Cold War connection.  But much as the Allies spoke loathingly of the Kremlin and the sinister activities of the Soviet Union and the threats to world peace seen to emanate from it, they were hard-headed realists.  Even so, there were conflicts that almost caused each side on occasion to authorize the use of nuclear weaponry, recalled at the very last moment.

The Ayatollahs of the Islamic Republic of Iran, presumably, have no wish to see their country become one vast cinderblock surrounded by grey ash.  For they themselves would then be reduced to the ashes and dust that the universe is comprised with, called stellar dust by the romantics.  They do speak of meeting their Maker, it is true, but there are normal, instinctual prohibitions against self-destruction.  Or so common wisdom has it.

Except, except in the Middle East.  Where the heritage of the divine order of Islam teaches full surrender and that includes the blessings of martyrdom.  That ultimate surrender of being.  For the glory of Islam, and the resonantly indescribable beauty of full encapsulation and transport into Islamic Paradise with its tempting rewards for the creatures whom the Prophet Mohammad has inducted into the wisdom of full-blown jihad.

So, no, if one takes into account the delusional lunacy that runs so counter to our inherited genetic disposition to embrace life fully through the imperative of survival, and shun the prospect of death which prevails in the Middle East steeped in the values of the glorious station in death that martyrs succeed to, the logic that Professor Waltz expounds does not necessarily follow which might be considered a normal emotional trajectory.

His essay "Why Iran should get the bomb", appearing as the feature in the latest edition of Foreign Affairs has elicited quite a number of responses.  It cannot be ignored, for he has a reputation as a leading American foreign policy expert.  And when he claims that permitting Iran to develop atomic weapons, rather than the West concentrating on efforts to persuade the country to put an end to its nuclear ambitions, it deserves a response.

The concern is huge, and it isn't going away in a great hurry.  A Pentagon assessment warning of the "large strides" toward fulfillment of Iran's nuclear intentions has been leaked.  Not to put too fine a point on it, American foreign policy experts other than Professor Waltz feel uneasy to queasy at the prospect of the Republic's testing of an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking North America; America, to be fastidiously precise.

"The danger of a nuclear Iran has been grossly exaggerated", Professor Waltz insists.  It "would probably be the best possible result; the one most likely to restore stability to the Middle East", he claims, having Iran achieve its goal.  Iran's leaders, he believes and states, are not at all irrational as they are seen to be.  Far from using those nuclear weapons, they would become becalmed, less threatening - because of their own concerns about initiating a nuclear conflict.

Obviously, Professor Waltz does not take seriously the sacred halo of light that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was surrounded by when addressing the United Nations, conscious of the presence hovering above, of the Hidden Imam, 12th Imam Mahdi.  Whose promised reappearance is poised in its imminence to bring about Armageddon.  Which will elevate the true believers of Shia Islam to their honoured presence in attendance upon Allah.

A nuclear conflict would only accelerate the blessed event.  And put a deserved end to the pernicious, Islam-insulting presence of the State of Israel in the Middle East, and its puppet-master, America.  Contrary to Professor Waltz's theories, there is a hugely prevailing difference in perspective, attitudes and beliefs, particularly in the Middle East. Although long in possession of a nuclear arsenal, Israel has never posed a threat.

As for having the effect of "restore(ing) stability to the Middle East", how so, since Saudi Arabia has stated unequivocally that it would be in the market to acquire nuclear weapons productions should Iran be successful.  As for speaking of the positive effect that resulted between the violent antipathy of India and Pakistan when both were nuclear-armed, the comparison does not hold any parallel to reality.

Nuclear-armed Pakistan is a viciously violent, unstable country, dabbling in state-approved terrorist attacks against India.  Nuclear-owning Pakistan teeters on the brink of social disorder of a type that could very well see violent Islamists take possession of some of Pakistan's nuclear facilities.  Its military has been infused with the ideology of Islamism and it and the country's intelligence services are infiltrated by jihadists.