It’s not hypocritical at all, as the whole point is to maintain an imbalance of power and capability in one’s own favor. The public reasoning and ceremony around why we prevent others from getting this capability may be run through with hypocrisy, but the real reason isn’t.

> the whole point is to maintain an imbalance of power and capability in one’s own favor

That’s one strategy. Another, once the nuclear cat is out of the bag, is mutual assured destruction (MAD). If that’s your strategy then it is hypocritical because then the point is that everyone has enough power to destroy everyone else so no one will make a move.

I personally think that both strategies are stupid. The former will just breed current and future resentment and the latter is vulnerable to one unstable person with authority to use the weapons.

But I don’t have any sort of alternative so it seems like preventing others from getting nukes and then falling back to MAD is just the way the world is working.

MAD is about having sufficient alliance networks with enough power to guarantee mutual destruction, not having everyone with lots of nukes. And usually “alliance networks” meant the old US/Soviet divide.

The whole point of nukes is that any given nation can take responsibility for its own defense and is not dependent on allies who may throw them under the bus if it is useful to do so.

Alliance networks are what gave us WW1.

I mean, might makes right and all that, I agree.

The point is that the reason given is to protect the free world, when it is doing anything but. It’s just keeping the same people comfortably in power, capable of stepping on their enemies at will.

Our foreign policy incentivizes gaining access to nuclear weapons and WMDs. It's one of the best ways to guarantee your continuing sovereignty. Nuclear countries are powerful enough that even the US is reticent to invade or destabilize them. Gaddafi gave up Libya's weapons programs and was dead within a decade. Iran gave up theirs, and the US reneged on the treaty almost immediately.

Every country's primary purposes are to guarantee continued sovereignty & obtain military superiority (or at least credible deterrence).

This is why major nuclear power invasions of non-nuclear powers are incredibly dangerous: they incentivize nuclear weapons development and disincentivize adhering to the NPT.

Where the NPT really failed was in handling actors with expansive, violent regional influence aspirations like Iran and Pakistan.

If you're inevitably going to come in conflict with the US and/or international community, your obvious move is to develop nuclear weapons. The NPT provides no carrot to balance out that reality.

Iran in particular has stated repeatedly, unequivocally that their goal is to annihilate Israel.

So of course Israel wants to do what it can to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear state. This would be in its top 3 foreign policy goals.

> I don’t think we should prevent any country from doing so.

Even countries ruled by theocratic leaders who promote hate and obscurity ?

If those in power are the qualifier for if a country should have nuclear weapons or not, then the US should immediately destroy their entire stockpile. Giving power to launch nuclear weapons, to someone who is clearly not mentally well, is insane.

Given that there are a few nuclear powers that could meet that criteria, I really don't see a reason why Iran is a special case, especially when comparing it to Pakistan, for example.

Iran is a special case for Israel. Israel isn't directly threatened by Pakistan having nuclear weapons.

Israel isn’t directly threatened by Iran having nuclear weapons either unless the leaders are willing to give up their lives and country for their goal.

If I was Israel, I wouldn't bet that they aren't.

The problem with populist-leveraging theocracies with bad economies is that you need a shared national boogie man. For decades, Iraq, Israel, and the US have been that for Iran.

Exactly. You need the boogie man. You can’t exactly nuke it .

It’s like NK and the US. They keep bellowing about their rockets, but they’ll never fire them.

Well, you need the boogie man if you're the dog and your goal is to keep your country under control.

But if the tail gets ideas about wagging you? And your populace demands you eliminate the boogie man threat with all means at hand, because you've spent decades inculcating hatred in them and blaming ills on the man?

Well... better the boogie man's head than yours on the chopping block.

I think if people had been able to at the time, they would have stopped Pakistan getting nukes.

> Even countries ruled by theocratic leaders who promote hate and obscurity

Does not seem that different from the past 4 years in the US? If NK can have nukes, I don’t see who can’t.

Not sure obscurity was the word you were looking for?

> Aside from that, this machine is disturbing, but not more so than a reaper drone. I’m not quite sure why they’d go through the trouble.

If I understood the article correctly, it's because the Mossad didn't want to reveal it was them, which is why the gun attempted to self-destruct after use.

Who need nukes when you can assasinate a single person in any country. From the same people who brought you Pegasus spyware (tm).

Assassinating scientists makes you happy?

He was assassinated for his role in leading the Iranian nuclear weapons program, not for his scientific achievements.

> He was assassinated for his role in leading the Iranian nuclear weapons program, not for his scientific achievements.

Recall that America withdrew from the anti-nuclear weapons agreement with Iran, that Iran's Ayatollah has declared a religious prohibition against nuclear weapons and that while Israel does have nuclear weapons, Iran is instead pursuing a nuclear power program for civilian energy.

> According to Gareth Porter writing in Foreign Policy, Iran's aversion to nuclear and chemical weapons is sincere because of the "historical episode during its eight-year war with Iraq", and Iran never sought revenge for Iraqi chemical attacks against Iran, which killed 20,000 Iranians and severely injured 100,000 more.[2] According to Khalaji, the fatwa is also considered to be consistent with Islamic tradition.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Khamenei%27s_fatwa_against...

> Iran is a theocratic dictatorship running a terror proxy war against its neighbors.

Hmm, at least it’s a proxy war eh? I know only one country that has started any major wars in the past 20 years.