Friday, August 20, 2010

Hitchens: 6 Reasons The World Cannot Allow Iran To Get Nukes

Writing in Slate, Christopher Hitechens argues that when discussing Iranian nukes, It's Not Just About Israel--that the repercussions of Iran having a nuclear bomb extend beyond just Iran and Israel.

Hitchens gives 6 reasons for his argument, which are summarized here:

1) International law and the stewardship of the United Nations will have been irretrievably ruined.

2) The "Revolutionary Guards," who last year shot and raped their way to near-absolute power in Iran, are also the guardians of the underground weapons program.

3) The power of the guards to project violence outside Iran's borders would likewise be increased.

4) The same powerful strategic ambiguity would apply in the case of any Iranian move on a neighboring Sunni Arab Gulf state, such as Bahrain.

5) There will never be a settlement of the Israel-Palestine dispute, because the rejectionist Palestinians will be even more a proxy of a regime that calls for Israel's elimination, and the rejectionist Jews will be vindicated in their belief that concessions are a waste of time, if not worse.

6) The concept of "nonproliferation," so dear to the heart of the right-thinking, will go straight into the history books along with the League of Nations.
Hitchens concludes:

Read the whole thing.
Is it not obvious that the international interest in facing this question squarely, and in considering it as "existential" for civilization, is far stronger than any political calculation to be made in Netanyahu's office?
Now we wait for an answer.

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