Nuclear Iran

William Pfaff in the IHT adds his voice to the chorus of those who believe the US position on nuclear non-proliferation to be unsustainable.

America’s determination to stop nuclear proliferation produces perverse results. At a period of mounting instability in the Middle East and U.S. engagement in two wars in Islamic countries, it increases the allure of nuclear weapons to governments that do not have them, and reinforces their perceived value as political assets and as deterrents against foreign attack.
Nuclear proliferation does not itself promote aggression. Take the alarmist scenarios routinely cited by American and Israeli officials. There is no imaginable way by which nuclear aggression by Iran against Israel could have other than catastrophic results for the attacker. The same is true for any attack by North Korea on an American base in East Asia, or by India on Pakistan, or Pakistan on India.
The existing nuclear states, on the other hand, could attack a non-nuclear nation and escape military retaliation, although not huge political and moral opprobrium. Since everyone sees this, it adds to the perceived injustice of the American position defending the nuclear monopoly of these states.
John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, an eminent member of the “realist” school of policy analysis, notes that everyone understands that the implicit aim of U.S. nonproliferation policy is to prevent limits being placed on America’s freedom of action in dealing with other countries. He writes, “The country that acquires nuclear weapons becomes unattackable. It is precisely for that reason that it wants them.”

Michael Portillo was arguing a similar line yesterday in the Sunday Times:

Supposing Iran is intent on getting nuclear weapons; how frightening is that, given that it would not be the first scary state to do so? The chances are that it would never use them.

I can see the force of these arguments if you assume that Iran would only ever use nuclear weapons stamped with a “Made in Iran” sign, and fired from somewhere inside Iranian territory – though even that makes me a little nervous, given the president’s recent musings on the glory of martyrdom. But Iran has links to terrorist groups like Hezbollah. Does it really need spelling out?