“Iran Can’t Have a Nuclear Weapon,” Says Trump. Why The Hell Not?
EDITORIAL, 30 Jun 2025
#905 | Richard E. Rubenstein – TRANSCEND Media Service
The question that nobody wants to talk about – not even Congressional opponents of Trump’s potential war against Iran – is why the Iranians can’t have a nuclear weapon if they want one. This is not discussed because US citizens have been taught to believe that there are good and evil nations and regimes, and that Iran is an evil, “rogue” state that only wants nukes so that the Ayatollahs can use them to destroy Israel.
What a crock! Iran is a state like most others, vesting the power of an elite while calling itself a republic. They have their Ayatollahs and we have our Oligarchs. The actual reason Iran wants nuclear weapons (or at least the right to threaten to develop them) is so that their country – an industrialized, middle-income nation of more than 90 million people – can hold its own with Israel and avoid becoming another dependent subject of the US Empire.
It is not as if possessing nukes were a privilege reserved to a few peaceful do-gooder nations. Pakistan and India have them, as do Russia, China, and North Korea. The United States used them against an already-prostrate Japan. And the State of Israel, which has repeatedly attacked and invaded neighboring nations, is estimated to possess between 200 and 300 nuclear warheads that can be delivered anywhere in the region by airplanes, submarines, or ICBMs. A nuclear or near-nuclear Iran would have the ability to deter possible doomsday strikes by Israel, and could negotiate about military, political, and economic issues on a plane of equality rather than being subjected to U.S.-Israeli domination. As the largest, most “developed” nation in the region other than Israel, it could compete with the Jewish State for regional and international influence.
That, and not some future military threat by the Ayatollahs, is the situation that Israel aimed to “preempt” with its recent attacks. The current bombing campaign against Iran is an elaborate, wildly destructive diversion of attention from this question: If you want Iran to give up its quest for nuclear parity with Israel, why not insist on Israeli nuclear disarmament as a quid pro quo? Wouldn’t putting Israel’s Dimona complex out of business resolve the whole issue?
The U.S.-Israeli response, of course, is that the Jewish state requires nuclear dominance to avoid being attacked and liquidated by Iran. But this makes no sense. The idea that if the Iranians had nukes, they would commit national suicide by using them to attack Israel is farcical. Their quest for a deterrent to Israel’s overwhelming military superiority may be mistaken, since it is far from clear that deterrence actually deters, but it is neither irrational nor aimed at annihilating Jews.
Let’s be clear about this. An unconventional war between Israel and Iran has been going on for decades, with each side committing violent acts and making bloodthirsty threats against the other. But Israel and the U.S. have always had a choice. They can assume that hostile acts and threats by Iran indicate a permanent, existential danger to their people and resolve to “destroy them before they can destroy us.” Or they can recognize that such actions and threats on both sides are part of a vicious cycle of aggressive acts, and that pacific action can blunt or eliminate the apparent threat. Yasir Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization threatened for years to annihilate Israel – and ended by recognizing it in exchange for promises (never fulfilled) of national autonomy. Iran entered into the JPCOA nuclear agreement with the U.S. and five other countries and adhered to it until Donald Trump tore it up.
The Israelis’ “tunnel vision” when it comes to Iran is at least understandable. They and the regime in Teheran have distrusted and menaced each other for a long time. But Trump has absolutely no excuse for his deliberate misreading of Iranian intentions. Iran constitutes no danger whatever to the North American people – that state is a threat only to the empire-builders who seek to control the entire region and its mineral wealth by setting Jews against Muslims, Sunnis against Shiites, nation against nation, and tribe against tribe. The Iranians and their allies dare to stand up to the United States and its allies –- that is why Trump hates them as much as Bush hated the Iraqis and Biden the Libyans.
Should Iran have nuclear weapons? Of course not! No nation should possess nukes – least of all the imperialists who use their near monopoly of weapons of mass destruction to force poorer and weaker peoples to do their will. Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the other nuclear oligarchs need to give us all a break. They need to stop bombing Iran and calling for its disarmament when they have absolutely no intention to disarm themselves.
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Richard E. Rubenstein is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment and a professor of conflict resolution and public affairs at George Mason University’s Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution. A graduate of Harvard College, Oxford University (Rhodes Scholar), and Harvard Law School, Rubenstein is the author of nine books on analyzing and resolving violent social conflicts. His most recent book is Resolving Structural Conflicts: How Violent Systems Can Be Transformed (Routledge, 2017).
Tags: Atomic Weapons, Hegemony, Imperialism, Iran, Israel, Middle East, Nuclear Free Middle East, Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear club, Trump, USA
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 30 Jun 2025.
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