It was in the campaign of 2008, for example, that candidate Barack Obama repeatedly announced that he would “do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon—everything,” even as candidate Hillary Clinton insisted that Iran must be kept from getting the bomb “at all costs.”
Neither bothered to tally what “everything” might entail and what the costs might be, and both continue to make the same kind of pronouncements. But since the antiproliferation military effort in Iraq has led to the deaths of more people than perished at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined, perhaps it is time to consider the wisdom of polices carried out under the obsessive sway of worst-case scenario fantasies.
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There is one other neglected issue, and that is the prospect of completely discarding all international law in favor of law of the jungle. American commentators and politicians are discussing this issue as if in a Pax Romana vacuum; we might as well hear Santorum or Romney end every speech with "oh, and Iran delenda est". Iran must be destroyed. Placing aside the fact that even these threats levelled at Iran on daily basis are a violation of the UN charter, which is part of American law, as a ratified treaty- what would a strike against Iran by the US and/or Israel actually involve, legally speaking?- There is no possible interpretation under which Iran could be construed to be an imminent threat to either country. Preemptive war, the pretext under which Iraq was invaded, is therefore impossible.- The IAEA treaty, which permits all the announced activities of Iran in the nuclear field, would be shown to be completely abolished. Regardless of the opinions of the hundred or so other signatories, the US and Israel would have established the principle that nuclear power is available only to their friends. Any country that pursues nuclear power that is not their friend is subject to immediate attack, regardless of the non-proliferation treaty.US politicians are casually discussing breaking enormously important signed and ratified treaties.Will no one argue that the United States cannot be party to an attack on an IAEA state because the treaty prohibits it? Or are Americans simply so far gone that treaties are mere scraps of paper to be discarded when it's considered convenient?One might recall Truman's conversation with Molotov, in which Molotov said angrily, "You can't speak to me this way!" To which Truman replied, "Keep your obligations, and no one will speak to you this way."
The definitive rebuttal to the current Iran hysteria was presented by a physicist Youseff Butt in FP:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/20...