Iranian nuclear crisis / Iran should be allowed to have nuclear weapons
Position: Iran should be allowed to have nuclear weapons
This position addresses the topic Iranian nuclear crisis.
For this position
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"If Iran is bound and determined to have nuclear weapons, let it. The elimination of American opposition on this issue would open the way to genuine normalization between our two nations. It might even convince the Iranians that their country can flourish without nuclear weapons." | 
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"If I am right in thinking that an Iranian bomb is not only inevitable, but also corresponds to the wishes of the people of Iran, then perhaps we could turn this whole thing on its head. Perhaps it is time to end the sense of terror, and suspicion, and escalating menace. Perhaps the Americans could actually assist with the technology, as they assist the United Kingdom, in return for certain conditions" |
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From Give Iran the bomb: it might make the regime more pliable, by Boris Johnson (The Daily Telegraph, October 12, 2006) (view)
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"while it's seldom a positive thing when a new nuclear power emerges, there is reason to believe that we could readily manage a nuclear Iran... A Middle Eastern arms race is a frightening thought, but it is improbable... Iranian nuclear weapons could be put to three dangerous purposes: Iran could give them to terrorists; it could use them to blackmail other states; or it could engage in other kinds of aggressive behavior on the assumption that no one, not even the United States, would accept the risk of trying to invade a nuclear state or destroy it from the air. The first two threats are improbable and the third is manageable." |
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From We can live with a nuclear Iran, by Barry R. Posen (The New York Times, February 28, 2006) (view)
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"Military command and control is the prerogative of the clerical elite, which more than anything is concerned with preserving its own power structure. Even anti-Zionist posturing is rationally grounded in Iran's desire to increase its regional clout despite the limitation of being a non-Arab state. Militancy on behalf of the Palestinians is often just another instrument of statecraft, and a particularly cynical one. It isn't going to be pushed to the point where the Islamic Republic's survival is in jeopardy." |
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From Military action is dangerous fantasy. We could live with a nuclear Iran, by David Clark (The Guardian, August 14, 2009) (view)
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"Most experts agree that attacking Iran would, at most, delay an Iranian bomb by only a few years. And if there is one thing that would unite all Iranians, that would be it. There’s a chance now of political change in Iran in the coming years. There would be no such chance if Iran were attacked. An attack would consolidate the regime and provoke an even fiercer determination to build a bomb." |
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From Get ready to live with nuclear Iran, by H.D.S. Greenway (The Boston Globe, April 21, 2010) (view)
Against this position
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Mixed on this position
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