> You're looking at it with a very north-atlantic centred perspective.
So? You say that like it is a bad thing.
I didn't say Iran is completely illogical in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. The comparison to North Korea is most apt. I don't want another North Korea situation, one is enough thanks. This one would be worse.
Why? Because Saudi Arabia and Egypt and others will then likely decide they have to get nuclear weapons too. I don't care about "fair", I want fewer countries with nuclear weapons not more - for obvious reasons.
There is a difference between unprovoked act of aggression against non-nuclear country for the sole crime of not wanting to associate with you and a literal theist dictatorship working on nuclear weapons who are open how exactly they plan to utilise them.
>"who are open how exactly they plan to utilise them"
Any sources on how? Have they declared that they will attack another country with nuclear weapons? Or it is simply them suddenly becoming immune from invasions / attacks?
It's not "not wanting to associate with you", it's more like:
Wanting to join an aggressive unfriendly nuclear-powered military alliance that's been expanding and approaching your borders for the past couple of decades.
That's not what caused the war. Interest in NATO membership came later, before 2014 there was basically no support for it in Ukraine.
What resulted in all this was that Ukraine was negotiating a very favorable trade deal with the EU. They had a presidential election, which was won by a guy who promised to be friendly with Russia, but also push through the trade deal. Only, when the trade deal was almost done, Putin called him, they talked for several hours, and at the end he declared that he was shutting down the deal, and would make one with Russia instead.
This was extraordinarily unpopular, because the terms of the EU deal allowed for Ukrainians to work as guest workers in EU. Doing that, you could earn more in three months doing unskilled labor than you could expect to earn in Ukraine with a degree in a year. Russia had nothing similar to offer. Because of this, there were massive protests. Then the president ordered troops to fire on the protests, and the protests escalated enough that the president fled. After that, Russia invaded Crimea and Donbass.
Two thirds of Ukrainians opposed NATO membership in 2013. Support only became a thing when there already were Russian troops in Ukraine.
Nope, not remotely the same as Iraq. I like how some whataboutists here are arguing that Iran was treated poorly and therefore "deserves a nuclear weapon" and at the same time that it is all a conspiracy and they aren't developing one - despite overwhelming evidence from none US sources.
You of course are referring to the deal that had the US air freight $400m in the middle of the night to close the deal, only for the Iranians to completely ignore the deal anyway?
Poor Ayatollahs. They surely deserve to be treated better. :(
And yet regardless of how poorly it was treated or "what is fair", which is all the whining is ever about, nobody can remotely come up with a reason for why Iran getting a nuclear weapon would be a positive development for anybody.
This is a dangerous game, regardless of your politics.
Astroturfing does not necessarily imply bots, comrade.
> nobody can remotely come up with a reason for why Iran getting a nuclear weapon would be a positive development for anybody.
Whether it's a positive or negative development really doesn't matter. What matters is what actually happens once that occurs.
When India and Pakistan developed and tested nuclear weapons, we didn't see proliferation or development of nuclear capability in the region. Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, etc. didn't start their own nuclear programs.
So in the event Iran gets nuclear weapons, it's likely nothing of consequence will happen.
> When India and Pakistan developed and tested nuclear weapons, we didn't see proliferation or development of nuclear capability in the region
Both hostile reactive (Pakistan against India) and (at least semi-)cooperative (Pakistan, or at least AQ Khan as a rogue actor, to other states) proliferation occurred as a result of the Indian and then Pakistani nuclear programs.
When India did it, it did lead to proliferation, specifically, in Pakistan. Pakistan’s program lead to (as well as their own bomb) proliferation through the AQ Khan network (to North Korea, as well as several states that never, at leadt yet, tested a weapon.) Myanmar also appears to have had a nuclear weapons program in the 00s, with assistsance from North Korea, which may or may not have since been abandoned.
Similarly, Israel's program contributed to the motivation for Iran's and Syria's programs (reactive [both of which appear to have also gotten cooperative aid from the Khan network and/or North Korea, which circles back to India/Pakistan]) and to technology for South Africa’s nuclear weapons (cooperative).
> When India did [nuclear weapons testing], it did lead to proliferation, specifically, in Pakistan.
And, in the end, neither of them has used those weapons offensively or defensively in close to 50 years (25 years for Pakistan).
> Myanmar also appears to have had a nuclear weapons program in the 00s, with assistsance from North Korea, which may or may not have since been abandoned.
Yet they haven't advertised it or tried to use them (if they ever had them) in any capacity. As for North Korea, while they do test missiles on occasion, they have not made use of any nuclear capability against another country.
> Similarly, Israel's program contributed to the motivation for Iran's and Syria's programs (reactive [both of which appear to have also gotten cooperative aid from the Khan network and/or North Korea, which circles back to India/Pakistan]) and to technology for South Africa’s nuclear weapons (cooperative).
Yet, all the focus is on Iran in terms of sanctions and fear/warmongering about them developing nuclear capability. Every single example in the past has shown that developing such capability has not resulted in any type of nuclear conflict.
> And, in the end, neither of them has used those weapons offensively or defensively
The goalposts moved pretty quickly from the original wildly false claim that their programs did not contribute to further proliferation in the region, to something like “well, neither they nor the states in the area of further proliferarion they contributed to have, to date, used nukes in anger, so it doesn't matter”.
I would suggest that waiting until after a nuclear war to take proliferation concerns seriously is... not a great idea.
> The goalposts moved pretty quickly from the original wildly false claim that their programs did not contribute to further proliferation in the region
My original claim was that nuclear weapons did not proliferate in the region beyond India and Pakistan (and there was a 24 year gap between India's and Pakistan's first nuclear tests). You claimed that:
>>> Myanmar also appears to have had a nuclear weapons program in the 00s, with assistsance from North Korea, which may or may not have since been abandoned.
But this wikipedia page[1] does not mention anything like that. Do you have a source for your claim?
> I would suggest that waiting until after a nuclear war
Again, this has not happened so far, and it doesn't look like the probability of that happening will change regardless of whether or not Iran has a nuclear weapons program.
> When India and Pakistan developed and tested nuclear weapons, we didn't see proliferation or development of nuclear capability in the region.. therefore... So in the event Iran gets nuclear weapons, it's likely nothing of consequence will happen.
Whether the domino theory is at play depends on the balance of power and specifics of each geopolitical region. It simply doesn't follow that because India-Pakistan was contained such a thing won't happen in the Middle East.
In fact you'd notice that is a pair. The counterparty to Iran having a nuke would be Saudi Arabia having a nuke, an extremely likely outcome.
Iran itself is an aggressive and expanding regional power. What is to deter Iran itself from invading others? Oh that's right, more nuclear weapons. So next Saudi Arabia will absolutely scramble to get one. 'etc.
