John Bolton, John Kerry and A Dangerous Nuclear Nuance

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(Originally published: September 6, 2015)

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Nuclear Nuance and Kerry’s Dangerous Quandary:

What Would President Kennedy Do?

“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time,

but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”- John Lygate

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There, are Those Who Feel That the Iran Nuclear Deal is Flawed. They Might Be Right.

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An Alternative View

If It’s Going to Happen Anyway, Control It

Oftentimes, in protracted political discourse the premise least explored might be the one most likely meriting consideration. The present time is the eve of final international adoption, inclusive of the United States approval, of a so-called “Iran Nuclear Deal”. The premise of the action is manifold. The penultimate objective of the exercise is to forestall the development, by Iran, of a nuclear device.

The ultimate objective is roundly accepted as being unlikely reached: total denial of the nuclear device possession by the dissident state. There seems no alternative to the ultimate fate of Iran actually possessing a device.

There might be an alternative to the manifold premise, however. Consideration of that alternative could conceivably engender a more stable Middle East.

If You’re in the Game, the Other Team Will Eventually…Get the Ball

Anyone who pays even the most tenuous attention to competitive athletics knows that the “other team” always gets the ball. What that team is able to do to advance the ball is often dictated by the degree of preparation of the opposition.

The analogy likely holds true in the real world of international relations. It is quite impossible in the context of fairness to expect that the “ball” will not pass to the opposing side in international relations. In the Middle East it is a foregone conclusion reached by the well-informed pundits that there is little doubt, Iran will have a nuclear device at one time or another, in one, way or another in the not-too-distant future. Iran will eventually have the “ball”. There is little doubt.

“Territorial Imperative”

With most matters in Nature, where there is greater parity of power a beneficial stasis is more likely to prevail. This stasis appears to be what keeps the wild plains and jungles of Africa balanced; at least as far as the animal kingdom is concerned. In a place geographically near Africa, the Middle East, a balanced existence among the human population could bring less threat and more, lasting peace.

Détente Works

Generally speaking, in the wider world, the sordid lusting for nuclear proliferation is checked, by détente. Without the forced equanimity that the concept of parity of power engenders, the tense, half-century-long, bi-lateral stasis of the nuclear states of, the U.S. and former USSR would likely have erupted into global conflagration; it need happen only once, of course.

The stasis of a benign standoff defined by agreement and practiced via détente is encouraged by mutual knowledge that without balance in such a situation, mutual destruction is assured. Thus, was birthed an uneasy but workable peace that became the “Cold War”. The much wider, post-Cold War U.S./Russia existence is a stable one…to date.

The more, international parties in the nuclear arms scenario “on the field” probably the better. The concept of “ball control on the field” has a grave and urgent meaning. Respect for the potential destruction of an unfortunate “end-game” is enough to engender balance.

Beyond the really big players in the nuclear arms world are the other major nuclear powers, which are, each, wary but eager participants in the regular application of the essential salve to the real and perceived societal wounds inflicted and borne by nations. The salve is: détente.

The threat of mutual destruction is the key to the balance between and among the participants in this essential practice. The answer to the existential threat is détente.

Armed Enemies in Check

With present participation in detent by the big nuclear powers as well as with the participation of the wider international community a unique solution could be the only true solution to the tense, escalating standoff in the Middle East. A possible way to construct and maintain, a more lasting peace in the region, might be to provide Iran with one nuclear device now.

The true test of the intent of the Iran government would be had in its acceding to definitive concessions. Imposing the same demands made and acceded to among the responsible nuclear states via détente Iran would be forced into conformity with the interlaced obligations of all the other powers.

A declination by Iran of the terms of détente would instantly signal bad intentions of the government. An enthusiastic endorsement and re-doubling of sanctions and worse by the rest of the world powers ensemble would be an easy result. Iran, acceding to détente terms along with a concomitant regime change as the ultimate bargaining chit if need be, would quell much of the doubt of the intentions of Iran among the regional and other international powers, which all together cautiously abide by the concept and letter of detente.

Every Major World Power Must Join to Be a Specific Benefactor to Iran: “Ball Control”

Let the entire international community-at-large coordinate the effort: with each nation invested in the success of the venture. Address the real problem with delicacy and not war. If Iran is going to “get the ball” anyway sometime down the road, become a “nuclear state”: take the advantage now while it is available and regulated and prepare the proper “defense for the play”. Control the “ball” from the outset.

Nuclear Weapons Are Dangerous; Détente is Not

A strange, perverted, parity could ensue, were this wider détente consummation to take place. Though Israel is believed to presently possess roughly the same number of nuclear warheads, as does the country of India, and perhaps many more than have the known rogue states of Korea and Pakistan, one, just one, nuclear device in the possession of Iran would stop saber rattling by any and every world power large and small. Moreover, with the proper and full participation by the International Community, Iran would be confined from “saber-rattling” itself.

Conventional Weapons Can Beget Nuclear Results

The execution of even one conventional-weapon, preemptive attack on Iran by any area power would be devastating and the greatest excuse for unchecked escalation. It would seem most prudent to avoid such a foolhardy scenario at all costs. A war to stop a bomb is unnecessary and ill advised.

President John F. Kennedy

“Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike…”

An aggressive, provocative, preemptive attack in the tinderbox that is the Middle East region today, purportedly to check the advancement of procurement of a nuclear device by Iran would work only to escalate the extant problem. Where global détente has been proven as the only reliable, workable, worldwide answer to the ultimate incendiary question, the neglected Middle East, perhaps, should no longer be neglected. Bring the Middle East into the “civilized” nuclear world with a seat at the table with formal accountability to every other nuclear state: ‘friend and foe alike’.

When Is a Conflict More Likely?

With the history of détente as the measure, a defensible argument might be made that until Iran has nuclear “capability” a war will more likely be in the offing. In the throes of continued existential paranoia Israel, for one, is feared by most peaceful nations as being more likely to take aggressive, profound, dangerous, reckless, conventional military steps at an early time.

The likelihood of opportunity for such an untoward event within the next 15 years is heightened immeasurably. To, avoid the ascendancy of another area nation to the status of an equal military-political threat the time for attack would likely be considered to be before parity in the context of nuclear arms capability for any neighbor nation of Israel.

With Iran a “nuclear state”, however, Israel is effectively checked in any aggressive intent and beneficial stasis is more likely maintained. The natural territorial imperative tendency is used such that defense capability balance is re-established.

Détente is the only thing that has avoided a nuclear war in the world for the past generations; since the Japanese surrender in WWII. When all is said and done, détente will be the only thing that will truly defuse the explosion that might well be a spark away from being primed in the greater Middle East arena as well.

Iran Will Eventually Become a Nuclear State; Control and Form It Now

In the nuclear rogue state “Sweepstakes”, the question that looms: Is Iran more the rogue-state than are: Korea, Russia, Pakistan, or India, or…China? That it is more the rogue is a very difficult argument to posit but one worth considering.

It is a foregone conclusion quietly held by the parties at the issue closely assembled as well as the parties who give distant opinion, that Iran will in fact, eventually become a “nuclear state”. It is possible that the only way to address this ascendancy is to control the situation.

Moreover, the only way to avoid a war in that region might be for the greater global community ensemble to present Iran with a nuclear device in vivo attached therewith all the terms and conditions that govern every nuclear state in the world today. Treat Iran as a mature nuclear sibling right now. Détente.

Of course, the quid pro quo, for such a grand and momentous presentation would be based on there being no further need for such nuclear engineering by Iran; open inspection at all times would be easy and welcomed by all. As a condition precedent to the momentous presentation of one nuclear device by the collective hand of an entire international nuclear community, a convenient, acceptable regime change in Tehran could also be in the offing.

Equality Has Its Own Seeds of Peace

By fostering greater equality in the region, peace would arguably be administrable. Initiation into the Middle East the kind of tense and dangerous peace that has pervaded and preserved the rest of the industrialized world for six decades and counting might be the only check to unilateral nuclear procurement and proliferation within Iran. To date there has been no better solution. Why not employ the best solution right now?

There is always a greater chance that the threat of mutually assured destruction will cultivate a conscience of compatibility. The motivation couldn’t be higher. A forced attack initiated against Iran by any nation, so that Iran won’t go nuclear will topple any structure for peace that exists at this point and likely unravel extant security as well as derail important potential for true beneficial stasis in the region.

‘There Is No Time Like the Present’

“How do you take advantage of those 15 years?”-

Dennis Ross, former Bush, Obama Administration Official

According to nonpareil Opinion Writer for The Washington Post, David Ignatius, Dennis Ross, a former administration official “who knows Israeli leaders well”, asked about the very brief delay that the present deal carves out: “How do you take advantage of those 15 years?” To put the Ross question in perspective, the more important question might be: “How did you take advantage of the past 15 years?”

Not more than ‘wink in the eye of eternity’, if the next 15 years passes as quickly as did those since the very proximate year 2000, our present is already ‘prologue’. Moreover: ‘The Future is here and now’; Time waits for no man’ and ‘There’s no time like the present.’

The World Community is Greater Than the Middle East

The world community beyond the Middle East is at risk here and has a vested interest in full participation in the success of stability. To start even a conventional war now to ‘stop a bomb’ would truly be ‘mischief afoot’. Providing the balance of power historically insured by international détente could well assure peace in the Middle East for many generations to come.

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Posted 8th May 2018 by DILULIUS, King of Troy

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Posted 3 minutes ago by DILULIUS, King of Troy