September 2006

Will an Invasion of Iran Make the US Safe From Nuclear Attack?

For the sake of argument, let us say that Iran is 100% full of evil people and every so-called civilian there is actually a soldier armed to the teeth, with the exception of children under two years of age, who are secretly trained to be suicide bombers with remote controlled baby carriages. That allows every person in Iran to be a target. Let us furthermore say that we anticipate most of these so-called civilians to not really attack us as if they were soldiers so we could safely assume they'd behave like actual civilians in the event of a military invasion and occupation.

That's one helluva an assumption. Bear with me, though.

How would an invasion of Iran stop nuclear proliferation among the enemies of the United States? Will it stop North Korean nuclear development? Venezuelan nuclear development? Will it halt non-state actors from acquiring fissible materials for use in nuclear bombs?

I will allow the US as many troops as it needs to get the job done in Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan: I'll even let it have enough troops to invade and occupy Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia, just in case any of those nations wants to use petrodollars or narcodollars to buy nukes. I will even let the US have enough forces to invade and occupy Pakistan and India: China, too. And yet, there will be unsecured nuclear materials for the buying.

Look at Russia. We don't need to occupy that place. We need to get busy there and finish the job that has been started of securing its nuclear stockpiles and power plants. Two-thirds of the Russian fissible materials are not yet under proper security. Securing them can be done without a big invasion, yet Bush's administration has not properly funded US efforts to secure those materials.

Worse, the US government left it up to a group of private citizens, including ultra-Democrat Ted Turner to pony up the dollars needed to secure some black market nuclear materials up for grabs in the Balkans. This happened a year or two ago, IIRC. If the USG won't move in to take care of the easily secured materials, what in the world makes it think it'll be more secure from nuclear-armed terrorists by invading Iran or any other place mentioned above? Hell, I'll let the US own and occupy every square inch of England, France, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Japan, and every other nation with a working nuclear reactor - it still won't do jack for securing the Russian materials.

I say all this to point out how if the US were truly concerned with security from nuclear attacks, it would already be working with Russia to take care of business there.

Economics underlines the US' true intentions. The Law of the Declared Preference states that if an actor declares he wants something he does not have, he really doesn't. If he truly wanted it, he would already own it or he would be working towards acquiring it. The US claims it wants security from the possibility of nuclear attack, but it doesn't really. Therefore, the invasion of Iran would happen because of a different, undeclared preference.