This brings us to the grand pappy of all rouge countries- the United States of America. We have nukes out the kazoo. Big nukes and little nukes, clean nukes and nasty ones. The other rogue states are to date just bullies filled with radioactive braggadocio. America, the land of liberty, has demonstrated its lack of moral compunction about the use of weapons of mass destruction. The current leader of the US has abrogated the long standing policy that America will never use nuclear force first, never preemptively, even though it has done so in the past. George Bush says he can nuke whoever or whatever he wants to nuke and write it off to national security. The author of the war in Iraq and the savior of the city of New Orleans with nukes in his incompetent but unstable and homicidal grasp does not inspire one to luxuriate in the notion of tranquility.
Life is not overwhelmed by fairness. The big critters eat the little critters and the little critters gang up and eat the big critters. And God is on Its throne and all is right in the universe. But there does seem to be this phenomenon: countries don't get pushed around, Iraqed as it were, if they have nukes. How long will this hold up? No one knows. India recently let it be known that they can survive a nuclear swap with Pakistan whereas the Pakistanis or most of them will become dead. Sure the Indians would lose millions of its citizens but when a country has so many spare people, what the hey? This should make the West proud it is shipping jobs and its kid's futures to places with such creative ideas on human welfare. I can imagine Gandhi's ashes turning in their watery internment. It also might be noted that the West's record on human rights is less than sterling.
So the nuclear powers, to this juncture, make nice with one another, or at least, snarl at one another with their fanged dentures still in a glass of water, bedside. Thank God for that, although competing versions of God might well be the lack of reason for a future nuclear war. Even North Korea doesn't get stomped on or occupied or covertly or overtly invaded as say, the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Viet Nam, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama, Grenada, Haiti and to make the US not the only bad guy let's throw in Tibet, Chechnya, and more recently Lebanon. So why then would Iran or Syria or Venezuela or Cuba for that matter not want nuclear capacity?
The question morphs into this: might the world in general and the Middle East in particular become more peaceful and just if Iran has a whole gaggle of nukes? If that were the case would the Western powers and Israel still feel obligated to torment, invade, torture and murder people in this part of the world whenever the mood strikes them? Or, is this thought of the utility of nuclear expansion just more of the chic and total insanity of the present world. Would deranged Islamic extremists in Iran use nukes to nefarious and murderous ends? Deranged Christian extremists haven't done so again in over sixty years. Would a balanced playing field bring about negotiation rather than hijacked planes flying into buildings and people getting dosed with cluster bombs and white phosphorous? I don't know.
Is there other choices rather than nations who love to bomb people and nations who oppress their peoples and celebrate honor killings of teenage girls? Maybe not. Do we really live in a world where the spread of nuclear weapons and the horror attendant to that is actually the best we can do?
