Why I Don't Want Iran To Develop Nuclear Weapons
Maybe I should be disappointed that the first photo to go up on my
blog is one of Ahmadinajad, but I found this image (from Reuters)
pretty striking. To me, actually, with the accompanying post title, it
says a lot of what I want to say (a thousand words indeed). On the
other hand, not everyone intuitively shares my thoughts, so I should
write a thing or two.
As anyone who's watching knows, the political maneouvering over Iran's
nuclear program is continuing, with threats of war and annihilation
coming from various parties. If you believe that even a nuclear-armed
Iran may not be as bad as another war in the Middle East at this
point, or possibly even another war anywhere, for that matter, then
this is a time to be worried. As far as I'm concerned, especially
considering the lack of evidence of a nuclear weapons program, keeping
the peace (or as much of it as we can with what's happening in Iraq
and elsewhere in the region) should be our priority, rather than
"stopping Iran at any cost."
On the other hand ...
The idea of Iran developing a nuclear bomb worries me. One of the few
things that I can imagine that's worse than war is nuclear war. While
I'm still skeptical, I don't deny the serious possibility that Iranian
regime could really try to "wipe Israel off the map" given the chance.
Ahmedinejad's rhetoric certainly suggests it, making for one of the
only cases where maybe we should be glad that in Iran, the elected
President's power is as limited as it is. (In my understanding,
although my knowledge of Iranian government is far from exhaustive, he
can be overruled by the clergy on just about anything.)
Then again, considering that the notion of wiping Israel off the map
was apparently inspired by Ayatollah Khomeini himself, it's possible
that enough of the clergy share Ahmedinejad's potential goal. One
reason why I'm skeptical, though, is that I don't buy the argument
that the leaders of Iran are crazy, suicidal, or both, and you'd
almost certainly have to be that in order to start a nuclear conflict.
I'd try to demonstrate that they're not, but it's difficult to prove a
negative. All I can say is that I've seen little evidence of a
positive. Bottom line, though, is that I'd rather not see the regime
control nuclear weapons, and only be able to speculate as to whether
or not they would choose to use them. And I wouldn't wish a nuclear
attack on anyone ... Arab, Israeli, or what have you.
There are also other potential concerns, such as an emboldened Iran
seeking to dominate the Persian Gulf and/or Middle East, with noone
being able to effectively deter it. However, if I were one to call for
all-out war against any country that would use military superiority to
dominate the Arab world and attempt to impose its values on it, then
the United States would be just as deserving of my attacks as Iran, if
not moreso, and yet here I am not calling for war against them either.
It's not that I don't care ... far from it. I would just rather
confront threats peacefully so long as there is an opportunity to do
so.
But there's another reason why I'm concerned about Iran developing a
nuclear weapon, and that's the possibility that it might provoke a
Middle Eastern nuclear arms race. This has been brought up by a number
of people, of course. The idea is that Sunni Saudi Arabia, for
example, would never accept to be that much weaker than Shi'ite Iran,
and so would develop or buy its own bomb. After that, Egypt wouldn't
stand for Saudi Arabia (its rival for Arab leadership) being
militarily superior, and so it too would develop a bomb. And after
that, as Tom Lehrer would say, "Who's next?"
Being Egyptian, Arab, and Muslim, this scenario doesn't worry me from
the "There's no way we can let those people get the bomb" perspective.
My concern is a little more abstract than that. To put it simply, it's
a question of national character.
One of the four theories of morality that I know of, as outlined in
Western philosophy, is Aristotle's virtue- or character-based
morality. This can be summed up humourously in Forrest's Gump's
"Stupid is as stupid does" or inspiringly (and more accurately) in
Ghandi's "You must be the change you want to see in the world." Much
like the other three theories (Kant's duty-based morality, Hegel's
social contract theory, and utilitarianism) I see this as more of a
guideline than a provable definition of what is moral. However, I have
to say that character-based morality appeals to me, and that I think
it can apply to nations as much as individuals.
Based on this, what can we say about the "character" of a
nuclear-armed country? At the risk of over-generalizing, I would argue
that such a character would be marked by increased fearfullness,
aggressiveness, and perhaps even arrogance, just to name a few
negative qualities. An interesting contrast here would be the
difference between the United States and Canada. I'm not saying that
America (nuclear-armed) is fundamentally fearful, aggressive, and
arrogant, whereas Canada (not nuclear-armed) never demonstrates the
slightest hint of any of these qualities. But from what I've seen,
America displays more of these qualities than Canada does, certainly
in its foreign policy, if nowhere else.
Why doesn't Canada develop nuclear weapons, one might ask? After all,
is its neighbour to the south not the only country in history that has
used nuclear weapons? And even if relations between Canada and the
U.S. are excellent, does it not make sense to prepare for the worst,
if things should turn nasty in the future? After all, America also has
a history of violent intervention in countries possessing "vital"
resources, namely oil for the last 50 years or so. They say that in
the future, water will be the "new oil," and Canada (if memory serves)
may just have the largest supply of fresh water in the world.
On that note, I remember attending the local candidates' debate here
in Kingston before the last election (saw Peter Milliken in person and
everything), and hearing both the Green Party and Canadian Action
Party (never heard of the latter before that day) candidates say that
it would be naive to assume that America wouldn't turn its eyes to our
water when things got serious. However, neither of them said anything
(to the best of my memory) about militarily (let alone nuclear-ly)
arming ourselves to prepare for such a prospect. Nor did any of the
other candidates.
The reason, I'd like to think, is that as Canadians, we wouldn't allow
ourselves to become the sort of country that pursues the capacity to
kill millions for no better reason than "just in case." Speaking for
myself, I can say that I don't like what that would say about us. If
we give in to that fear of a far-from-confirmed future, and assume the
most aggressive conceivable response accordingly, then we would be
affirming negative character traits that would then have an increased
influence on all of us.
But what if we're not doing it "just in case," or to be able to impose
our will on others? What if there is a clear threat that necessitates
such an armament? If we're talking about morality, there's an argument
to be made that what one does out of necessity, with a gun to the
head, for example, cannot really be taken as an indication of one's
moral character, since questions of morality come hand-in-hand with
having a choice (let's temporarily ignore the choice to die in the
'gun to the head' scenario).
The question is: what constitutes a 'gun to the head' scenario? Is it
when a person threatens to hurt you, when that person threatens to
kill you, when that person is holding a gun, when the gun is aimed at
your head, or when it's aimed at your head and you know for sure that
the person is willing to shoot? The answer to that question requires
several value judgements, and those value judgements are
representations of one's morality.
Bringing this back to Egypt: when do we decide that it's necessary to
develop nuclear weapons? When our next-door neighbour, a country with
a history of violent expansion, develops the power to destroy us while
refusing to assume the responsibility of admitting to possessing that
power? When the world's largest super-power seems to be losing its
inhibitions when it comes to military intervention in our
neighbourhood? When regional rivals develop them? Which of these
developments would make it worth our while to go from being a voice of
moderation and reconciliation in our region (for the most part) to a
hand waving a big, threatening weapon?
Personally, I don't know if it would ever be necessary for us, us
being Canada or Egypt, to pursue this course. I also doubt that it's
necessary for the nuclear armed countries around today to keep their
weapons, although I don't believe that there's any chance of
convincing them to scrap those. However, I can hope that at least some
of us can avoid the temptation of that sort of power. And insofar as
moral character is important, I believe we will be better for it.
And since we're talking about Egypt, let me end with a quote from
Ahmad Shawqi, a 19th/20th century Egyptian poet, and easily one of the
most famous in Egypt's history:
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