I just finished reading this article in the New York Times about the multinational Security Council's efforts to adopt a nuclear arms measure. All I could think the whole time was how the Security Council basically has the social structure of a middle-school. Here’s the gist, with an amazing metaphor that I feel is semi- accurate:
France, Britain, and America are all close buddies and Iran is making them look stupid because they don’t seem to be able to keep Iran from bullying all the other nations and making nuclear weapons. Russia, on the other hand, is being wishy-washy about its opinion on the matter, since it wants stay in good graces with everybody...especially after its rough patch with America *cough* Bush *cough*. Meanwhile all the other countries are secretly talking crap about Israel and its “unacknowledged nuclear arsenal”. So, bravo Security Council, you have been my entertainment for the day.
6 comments:
Just reading the gist was a bit entertaining.
I'm not too sure if my historical knowledge is completely correct, but doesn't this sound a lot like the Cold War with the Soviet Union and the whole Nuclear Arms Race deal? If I am not mistaken, the Soviet Union started making nuclear weapons to display its power causing the U.S. to enter in this Arms Race trying to match the Soviet Union in its nuclear developments. To me, it looks like Iran is a lot like the Soviet Union.
After reading the article, I do see that there is a lot of chaos and disorganization going on at the security council. However, I applaud the fact that they are dealing with the Iran issue at the U.N. level. At least it shows improvement towards restricting nuclear weapons in a more peaceful manner. Especially compared to what we were doing only 25 years ago in the Cold War. That's a lot better than the U.S. entering in another arms race and implementing policies like the Strategic Defense Initiative to prevent nuclear weapons. That could mean the Cold War and the Collapse of the Soviet Union all over again.
But then again, my historical understanding could be wrong.
-Michael Chan
Riley, the truth is, this was the best day at the UN in years. While the UN has many institutional problems and has lost credibility over the years, it can never be any better than its membership, and on nuclear issues some states are just not willing to cooperate. At least in this case, progress was made to close a gaping huge loophole in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. I'll take it. Revising the NPT has been an issue at many a Model UN conference over the years and while I am not sold on Obama's stated hope for a nuke-free world, tightening controls on rogue states is a definite good. He got more done at the Security Council than the Bush administration did in 8 years. Actually, that's not fair, the Bush administration laid the groundwork for this and Sarkozy has been far more helpful than Chirac was, and Bush did get through a resolution about weapons inspectors in Iraq (but was unwilling to accept their lack of findings.) Still, an actual resolution.
Michael, the situation with Iran is not really like the Soviet Union, at least not if you mean in terms of the type of threat posed by their prospective arsenal. They could never build a 2nd-strike capability, and I doubt they could build a truly threatening 1st strike capability, especially if the technology for missile defense ever makes a final leap. They could, however, threaten Israel, hand off a weapon to a radical terror cell, or become emboldened with its conventional military.
Obama is moving forward with missile defense even though he pulled a particular system that was to be installed in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Some would argue that the Strategic Defense Initiative, economic escalation of the arms race as it was, helped convince Gorbachev to just give up the arms altogether instead of continuing to be an economic basket case. If Iran had the technology to get in an arms race with us (they build offense, we build defense; we already have several thousand warheads of offense) and thus choose to spend a huge part their national resources on that instead of developing their domestic economy, well, I wouldn't be surprised if that undercut support for the Iranian regime. Economic mismanagement is underneath much of the tumult in Iran during the past few months.
Well no I dont think America really 100% cares that Iran has nuclear weopns because we have more and we will always have more.
"Well no I dont think America really 100% cares that Iran has nuclear weopns because we have more and we will always have more."
America cares because starting a nuclear holocaust doesn't sound like fun.
America cares for a lot of reasons, but probably the biggest one is that Israel REALLY cares.
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