Biological agents, nerve gas, dirty bombs and other scary weapons get all the press these days, but the weapon with the most destructive power remains the nuclear weapon. Though the attention paid to nuclear threats has waned, the danger of nuclear arms has only increased in the years since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Much of this danger is the fault of horizontal proliferation - the possession of nuclear arms by a wider number of states. While the bipolar structure of the Cold War guaranteed stability, an increasing number of ad hoc coalitions and rogue states offers no such security. Proliferation is most dangerous when the recipient nation is in an unstable region. One of the most worrisome examples of this is proliferation in Iran.
In Michal Zapendowski '07's column ("Public ready to invade Iran," Feb. 16) he suggests that allowing Iran to acquire nuclear weapons would stabilize the Middle East, citing the examples of the Cold War and India and Pakistan's dispute over Kashmir. However, these instances misconstrue the sinister nature of proliferation to Iran.
Iran possesses the Shahab-3 missile, a rocket with sufficient range that any nuclear warheads Iran might develop could certainly reach Israel. This capability would be tremendously destabilizing. Even more dangerous is the prospect that Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations backed by Iran might strike Israel without fear of reprisal. Israel would certainly be more reluctant to attack terrorist camps within Syria's borders if the threat of nuclear escalation were on the table.
Even attempted acquisition of nuclear arms by Iran could cause serious tension with Israel. It's quite likely that Israel, realizing the potential threat of Iranian nuclear weapons, would opt for a pre-emptive strike to disable Iran's nascent nuclear program. In fact, Israel undertook a similar move in 1981, destroying Iraqi nuclear reactors to slow that country's nuclear development. Such a move could easily lead to a serious international crisis or even war.
Zapendowski also argues that "launching a nuclear weapon is a decision that no modern state ... is willing to take," an argument based on the assumption that all states behave as rational actors. However, what is rational varies among states and circumstances. This, combined with miscalculations of the international political situation, can lead to a wide spectrum of possible "rational" actions. The Norwegian rocket incident in 1995 is a perfect example of this. Russia, thinking a Norwegian weather satellite was the beginning of a nuclear attack, nearly launched a massive retaliatory strike. Such miscalculations by nuclear weapons states are extremely dangerous, and states in which the decision-making powers are concentrated in one man's hands - autocracies like Iran - are even more likely to make such errors.
History is an important guide to action. But it is wrong to assume that precedent will hold forever. The precedent of nuclear non-use is still fragile. Principles that seem to hold firm for bipolar power structures such as the Cold War or the India-Pakistan standoff cannot be applied to the complex balance of power in the Middle East. To do so, and to allow Iran to develop nuclear arms, is foolish and potentially deadly.
Will Guzzardi '09 and Nick Greenfield '09 think Tehran is trouble.
