from the book 100 Days in Photographs
I heard Secretary of State Clinton speaking recently and she said that while Iran was welcome to have atomic power the country could not have atomic weapons. Now I don't pretend to be an expert on international relations, and I believe that most world leaders don't want Iran to have the bomb, but I have to wonder: what gives us the right to decide how a sovereign nation defends itself? How would we feel if the EU decided that the US should not have the bomb?
Atomic weapons are terrible things, and their proliferation should be stopped, but isn't that a decision each country has to make? France has the bomb; why do we not care? Israel reportedly has the bomb but you don't hear Sec. Clinton railing against them. South Africa developed the bomb and then dismantled the project; can't we work toward that goal in Iran rather than rattle our sabers at her?
And can we please remember that the only nation to ever actually use an atomic weapon against a civilian population was, oh yeah, the United States of America. Such arrogance.
I suspect the more we say "You can't have the bomb" the more determined they will be to do just that.
ReplyDeleteWe do not set a good example. We run our foreign policy the way parents too often raise children, with "Do as I say, not as I do". If I were Iran, I would want it to deter the United States from attacking me.
You must remember, the United States gives foreign aid with humiliating conditions and then is upset when we are not shown immense gratitude.
The CIA is only on record as the SECOND most ham-fisted intelligence entity, behind the Stasi of old East Germany. The KGB were even a bit more subtle than we were.
We will not make it out of our adolescence before we are in our dotage as a power, I am afraid.