10/09/2006: President Bush is talking tough while backpedaling in his nuclear rhetoric with North Korea. However, his remarks could be construed as a threat of eventual war with Iran. This portion should be reason for concern:
The transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or nonstate entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States, and we would hold North Korea fully accountable the consequences of such action
Keeping up with the Bush policy–that Iran cannot be allowed to have nukes–is a lose-lose proposition.
What Bush fails to understand: sovereign nations will pursue the weaponry of their choice. That is why we call them sovereign. We have nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, in addition to daisy-cutters, MOABs (Mother Of All Bomb), JDAMs (Joint Direct Attack Munitions), and other conventional weaponry that could lay waste to towns and cities.
Our nuclear arsenal includes intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), tactical nuclear devices (T-nukes), and even Small Atomic Demolition Munitions (SADMs, often called “suitcase nukes”).
I’m not saying we are wrong for having those weapons–far from it, as they are deterrents to other nations who may otherwise opt to risk war against us–but rather that our possession of such weapons is a function of our sovereignty.
It would be ludicrous for us to insist that Iran and North Korea cannot have nukes when in fact we have them.
The issue is not whether nations have WMDs, but rather ensuring that proxy armies–such as Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and Al Qaeda–do not obtain such weaponry from sovereign nation-states.
THAT is the objective that Bush should be pursuing.