As you know, I'm Israeli, and our great enemy is Iran. They develop nuclear bombs, and they are threatening to bomb us soon. I want you to reply and say what do you think about that.
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Reducing quantities of nuclear weapons (i.e. the START treaty between the US and Russia) is symbolic at best. Some nuclear weapons the size of a grapefruit are capable of killing over 500,000, and many nations already possess enough nukes to blow the world several times over. Nations agreeing to remove their weapons supplies entirely means there are fewer states that can threaten their use, to be sure, but it does leave nations providing the umbrella a bit tied behind their backs. Here's what I mean: Nation A agrees to give up its nukes and be under the nuclear umbrella of Nation B. Nation B may be more lenient on human rights violations/willing to veto UN resolutions condemning Nation A, out of fear that Nation A would rekindle their nuclear weapons program if the alliance wasn't constantly emphasized. The idea of nuclear weapons can't be killed, and I very strongly doubt a nuclear-free world is possible. It's probably not desirable either - a world with nuclear weapons may make the world safer, deterring unwarranted invasion and military force. In the case of Iran, reports are obviously limited, but based on a few news articles I've seen (as well as debate rounds I've had on the topic) Iran's nuclear program isn't very operational and has trouble with uranium enrichment. That probably doesn't matter in a world where Israel and western states are entirely willing to preemptively strike, especially if they could target nuclear facilities. The radiation from a first strike would devastate the Iranian people and exacerbate relations, especially as more nations were involved. I doubt Ahmadinejad is a rational actor, so figuring out whether he would risk a nuclear strike against Israel even if he had the resources is difficult. But if you felt like you were going to get struck no matter what, you'd probably be more likely to prepare weapons and strike ahead of time. The real problem I see is in Iran's regime itself - Iranians would be better off without a leader that sat on oil profits and allowed sanctions to decimate the population. The world would be better off with a more moderate regime that, even if it had weapons, would choose negotiation over pulling the trigger. For the time being though, an Israeli first strike is probably the bigger risk, something US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta admitted was entirely a possibility. |