[amingilani]

I’m curious as to why that is. I understand that the regime is loathed by plenty but why should a portion of humanity be excluded from nuclear weapons when their enemies have it?

Genuinely asking because I’m curious, and not trying to flamebait.

[cm2187]

Because they love to destabilize the region through their proxies. Look at their good work now: Yemen at war (they sponsor Houthi rebels), Israel at war (they sponsor Hamas and Hezbollah) and look at the state of Lebanon now (they also played a major role in Syria but I wouldn't say they were contributing to destabilising it, ISIS backers and the anti-Al Assad western coalition probably did more harm).

Iran can at least be pressured now with retaliations. Once it becomes a nuclear power, even the US will be forced to trade carefully.

Now some hope that nuclear armed states become "responsible" as a result of feeling safe, and don't sponsor terrorism. But that clearly didn't work with Pakistan (major backer of the talibans, and by extension of Al Quaeda) and North Korea (aggresses South Korea regularly and issues random threats to attract attention).

And nuclear deterrence only works when the parties do no want to die. When their religion tells them it's great to die for Jihad, I don't think their is any deterrence, it's a completely different dynamic.

And with ethnic tensions all over the middle east, and Iran's stated objective to destroy Israel, no one in the middle east is really keen to be threatened by Iran's nukes.

[turquoisevar]

This is by no means to be taken as “Iran is good actually” but this doesn’t seem much different than the US who loves to destabilize regions via proxies.

Current day Iran, as ironic as it is, is a direct product of this. Yemeni Civil war, with the Saudis and UAE propping up the PLC, both proxies of the US, Iran-Saudi proxy conflict with the US backing the Saudis, Israel-Palestine conflict, the former is heavily sponsored by the US, etc, etc and that’s just that region and current day.

There’s the whole Arab Cold War that originated a lot of the current day issues because the US didn’t want the USSR gaining influence because of scary socialist (yet secular) leaders gaining popularity in a lot of countries.

The same motivation lead to, what is euphemistically called “interventions”, by the US in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

Again, ironically, a good chunk of what is currently deemed “evil” is a direct product of these interventions like Iran, because it often either backfires or comes back to bite the US in the ass.

> Now some hope that nuclear armed states become "responsible" as a result of feeling safe, and don't sponsor terrorism. But that clearly didn't work with Pakistan (major backer of the talibans, and by extension of Al Quaeda) and North Korea (aggresses South Korea regularly and issues random threats to attract attention).

Funny you mention Pakistan and the Taliban, the latter very much a product of the US with the aid of Pakistan. Pakistan has been an important strategic ally to the US on and off, but the Islamization of Pakistan is again a direct result of US interventions, not in the least the US’ role in the 1977 coup.

North-Korea is a bit of an outlier and doesn’t fit the theme that well because of some complex pre-Cold war Japanese fascist influences and while there’s a kernel of truth in the anti-US propaganda they tell their citizens, based on the war crimes committed by the US that killed 20% of their population, it’s an entirely different beast for another time.

> And nuclear deterrence only works when the parties do no want to die. When their religion tells them it's great to die for Jihad, I don't think their is any deterrence, it's a completely different dynamic.

I think you make two main mistakes in this part of your comment and it comes across a little bigoted. The first mistake is that you have this notion about a religion, a caricature if you will, and you’re applying it to this situation as if the religion you speak of is one big monolith, which it isn’t. The other one is best described as underestimating the will to live of the people in power, regardless of whatever propaganda they might disseminate.

To put it directly: I don’t think the current leadership of Iran is any more eager to die then you or I.

Personally I’m in favor of total nuclear disarmament of all parties involved. But until such a time, I don’t think it’s morally better for one side to have nukes over another side. All sides think they’re the paragon of virtue and have reasons to dislike the other.

All sides involved are also sovereign nations and as such none of them have an inherent right to inhibit the others when it comes to arming themselves imho. Especially when taking into account that none of the main players on the stage have clean hands.

[ben_w]

I asked an Iranian coworker if the Iranian government is serious or if it's just a bad translation when we hear them call America and Israel "the Great Satan". Apparently they are entirely sincere about that.

[pazimzadeh]

Well the US did help Saddam Hussein target Iran with chemical weapons in the 80's, and helped Britain remove Mossadegh from power in 1953.

It seems like the main thing Iran has done against the US is through proxies, which reflects modern US strategy.

[goestoo]

removing Mossadegh was the worst thing the US did to Iran, followed by helping the current regime to get into power.

[whatisyour]

I mean, US/UK did demolish the democracy in Iran due to their greed for oil. So, its not like their anger is completely out of thin air.

Having said that, it doesn't condone the actions of the Iranian regime as well.

[ben_w]

That they're now a theocracy makes them sincerely calling anyone "satan" an even worse thing to pair with them having nuclear weapons.

[jjgreen]

Err, "the focus of evil in the modern world" then?

[ben_w]

If this was a game of telephone, yours would be the mildest interpretation I can imagine of my conversation went with my coworker, but my main impression from them was the Iranian theocracy sees the US as the actual literal devil incarnated.

[jjgreen]

President Reagan's rather than mine (hence the quotes).

[varjag]

The policies of Iranian regime are in the least bit affected by longing for lost democracy.

[whatisyour]

yes, but regaining democracy is a hard battle. So, when you destroy it in the first time, it is not a surprise that warlords keep getting control of power till by some random fluctuation, the tide changes. In western world, it took almost 300 years for democracy to be stabilized.

US also helped current regime when it first gained power.

[varjag]

Fair point!

[WinstonSmith84]

If you're a random terrorist/military group and opposes the west, you will get automatically sponsorship from Iran. It's quite concerning what Iran would do if they had nukes

[dragonwriter]

> If you're a random terrorist/military group and opposes the west, you will get automatically sponsorship from Iran.

No, you won't.

Now. If you are either an Islamist group opposing Israel specifically, and/or a specifically Shi’a Islamist group opposing Israel or any Sunni-dominated Arab government, then, yes, your odds of getting Iranian support arr pretty good.

[cm2187]

No they mostly back Shia groups. You won't see then supporting ISIS.

[WinstonSmith84]

They are not supporting ISIS because it's a Sunni group, it's because ISIS is very much anti Shiites, that Iran doesn't have a choice but to fight them, too. Hamas is Sunni and Iran is perfectly fine with that.. Al Qaeda is Sunni too, and while they are not best buddies, it's enough for Al Qaeda to be anti west for Iran to support them through hidden channels.

[fmajid]

Hamas is Sunni

[ioblomov]

All politics aside, the more countries with nukes there are, the likelier one gets used, whether intentionally or by accident.

[amingilani]

I do resonate with this perspective. Iran could be the most evil group within humanity but that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t act rationally and acquire weapons her enemies have.

[drdeca]

Because they should lose their conflicts, because they would do bad things if they won.

This isn’t like, a game, where we want all sides to have an equal chance of winning?

If a robber comes to your house armed with a knife, and you have a sword with good reach, you don’t toss the robber a sword out of some sense of sportsmanship.

[amingilani]

Thank you for this, I would want that to happen either. But why is Iran like an armed robber? I guess I’ll need to research a bit more.

[t0mas88]

There is a difference between Russian and American deterrent use of nuclear weapons and a North Korean and Iranian wish to have nuclear weapons as a tactical option. Using nuclear weapons as a threat in international interactions is far crazier than the Russian / American self defence stance.

Still in principle I think we should strive for nobody to have nuclear weapons, but given that that is far away the next best thing is to not let any new actor add nuclear weapons to their arsenal.

[dave4420]

Careful with that analogy. Russia has been talking about using nukes as part of their attempted conquest of Ukraine.

I agree with your general point though.

(I guess that’s another reason to not want more countries to get nukes: they might seem reasonable now, but they could be batshit insane by the time you start drawing your pension.)

[t0mas88]

You're right, and indeed that's another big reason to be against any more countries getting nuclear weapons.

[goestoo]

The second Iran government has access to nuclear weapons, they're going to nuke Israel and that's not going to be the end of it! I remember watching the news a couple of years ago, The president of Iran at the time said we don't have any problem with the Israeli people, it's only the Israel government, the next day Iran's supreme leader said, Israeli people are also responsible and we condemn them! these people don't even care about their own people, in Iran's last protest, they basically killed thousands of high school and college kids!

[dragonwriter]

> The second Iran government has access to nuclear weapons, they're going to nuke Israel

No, they won't.

> and that's not going to be the end of it!

It literally would be, if by “it” you mean “the Islamic Republic of Iran”, because Israel has its own nuclear arsenal.

[UberFly]

You are trying to flamebait. Why is the regime loathed by plenty?

[amingilani]

Asking questions to gain a better perspective ≠ flamebait. Plenty of people have their own reasons to hate the regime. It doesn’t matter to me personally since I have no stake in Iran or her politics.

[wkat4242]

Oh I don't know. Perhaps murdering women because they refuse to wear a piece of cloth?

[boeingUH60]

Nobody wants nuclear weapons in the hands of crazy Islamic extremists who have vowed to destroy their neighbor.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/hailing-hamas-iranian-presiden...

[amingilani]

I don’t care much for Iran or its neighbours. If you’re framing Israel as the victim here, it probably does have nuclear weapons. I suppose a follow up question is: why is Iran evil for having a secret nuclear weapons program and Israel isn’t for its program?

[goestoo]

one is a democracy and the other one is a dictatorship.

[boeingUH60]

Because Israel isn’t run by terrorists who openly call for genocides and have shown they’re willing to go any mile to achieve their extremist delusions.

Can’t believe people try to place Israel and Iran on the same pane when the latter is run by extremist psychopaths that fund mass destruction across the Middle East.

[amingilani]

I’m sorry I don’t want this to spill into a debate about Israel but saying Israel isn’t genocidal is disingenuous.

In this last conflict so far there’s been 1.4K Israelis killed while 23k Palestinians killed. It’s disproportionally high on the Palestinian side. The majority are civilians. I couldn’t care less why this is so: military bureaucracy? Racism? Dehumanization of the opponents? But the numbers clearly paint Israel as the country “run by terrorists who openly call for genocides and have shown they’re willing to go any mile to achieve their extremist delusions”.

Why is Iran any different?

[t8sr]

Moral relativism refuses to die. A democratic society has done some bad things, therefore a homicidal theocracy with medieval attitudes towards women and gay people gets to be morally equivalent?

How does this argument keep coming back? It’s obvious that line of reasoning leads to just might-makes-right, if we’re all so morally equivalent.

[boeingUH60]

> But the numbers clearly paint Israel as the country “run by terrorists who openly call for genocides and have shown they’re willing to go any mile to achieve their extremist delusions”.

No, they aren't. Hamas invaded first and triggered the conflict.

Anyone who tries to equivocate Israel, the sole prosperous democracy in the Middle East, with Iran, a theocracy whose biggest export is mass destruction, is heavily misinformed at best and at worst a whataboutery propagandist.

[amingilani]

Hamas isn’t a country it’s a terrorist organization. It didn’t invade, it terrorized.

Anyone who ignores disproportionate, egregious civilian murders to explain their perspective that Israel is good makes a better case for a misinformed whatabouting propagandist.

That said, I genuinely don’t want this to be an Israel vs. Palestine conversation and more a conversation about why shouldn’t even “evil” theocracies have a right to defended themselves?

[Ygg2]

To answer your question with a question: What is so bad about giving a regime that (re)invented suicide bombings a nuke?

[fmajid]

If the Iranians get the bomb, so will the Saudis, and that is a genuinely terrifying prospect.

[simion314]

I think that countries with an imperialistic or aggressive neighbor should have the nuclear weapon, but this countries should be democracies, otherwise an insane or fanatic dictator/regime can just use it even if it will wipe out his country since he might think they go to heaven and get their rewards there.

I understand that countries that already have their weapon do not want the smaller countries to get it, and a lot of people from big countries are OK if small countries get genocided if it prevent ww3 or if it keeps the bills down.