Since the advent of the nuclear age, only two nuclear weapons have ever been employed, both in August of 1945 on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

While many will argue that their use was required to avoid directly invading the Japanese islands, an effort that the government and military at the time claimed would cost the lives of upwards of a million US soldiers, the reality was that most of Japan has been decimated by conventional fire bombing, that the government of Japan had been attempting to negotiate a surrender all that summer, and that the people of Japan, despite news reels shown in US movie houses, were not on the streets in force training to repel US forces. They were, in truth, in the grips of near total economic and civic collapse.

The bombs were, in all honesty, dropped for post-war geopolitical reasons. The Soviets, who had coveted most of Eastern Europe in their advance towards Berlin, were viewed as a threat to Western post-war interests. Thus, individuals such as Dean Acheson urged the use of the bombs to demonstrate US military might, a position that was completely abhorrent to the likes of then General Dwight Eisenhower and the majority of the scientists that had worked on the Manhattan Project. They were dropped nonetheless, ushering in a new age of permanent global nuclear proliferation.

From the second that Little Boy detonated above Hiroshima unleashing the equivalent of 16 kilotons of TNT, decimating everything in a 1.6 kilometer radius, evaporating every living thing within the bomb’s primary blast radius, and killing some 140,000 people (during, and by way of radioactive fallout), deterrence immediately became the primary purpose for possessing a nuclear capability. That reality has not changed in the 63 years since.

The Manhattan Project placed the United States at the forefront of the nuclear arms race, but their position as the planet’s lone nuclear power would end when the Soviet Union successfully tested First Lightning, referred to as Joe 1 by US intelligence, on August 29th, 1949. The rest, as they say, is history.

Reason And Emotion

That’s not to say that the world hasn’t flirted with the possibility since. Fortunately, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, for example, cooler heads prevailed. Then again, it should be noted why they prevailed.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, both Washington and Moscow had their fair share of Hawks pressing for a confrontation. Thankfully, a handful of individuals on both sides possessed the emotional fortitude to examine the realities of what would become of the world in the aftermath of posturing that had but one outcome. The United States would ultimately view it as a victory, but the reality is that it was nothing more than a victory over political arrogance. Of course, little mention is ever given the role played by then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, a veteran World War Two Commander who witnessed first hand the horrors of Stalingrad. Khrushchev was no stranger to the realities of war, and in his first transmission to President Kennedy during the crisis made that point very clear – that both he and Kennedy knew full well the ramifications, betraying an emotional state that was extremely uncommon for as Soviet leader.

Emotionality is something that many view as extremely dangerous when it comes to the nuclear equation, but it is perhaps the one thing that perseveres when it comes to facing the realities of mutually assured destruction. Reasonable men can find excuse enough to destroy the world on any given day. It is not until emotionality enters into the equation that the reality of nuclear war becomes abundantly apparent.

The Inescapable Outcome

There is no winning a nuclear contest – that is, not a contest between two or more nations that possess nuclear weapons. The reality is that the modern destructive power of a single nuclear weapon is such that the devastation wrought is not something that can be justified with regards to proportional or superior responses. The loss of hundreds of thousands of lives simply cannot be viewed as acceptable compared to the loss of a million or more lives in response. No citizen of any nation on earth would think that acceptable given the lasting affects of even a single nuclear weapon on a specific city or location.

In the case of Iran, were the Iranians to possess a weapon and use it, or even three, against Israel, they would be facing a nation with approximately one hundred times their nuclear capability. In short, while the Iranians would be able to, for example, strike Tel Aviv, killing multitudes, the Israelis could eradicate every major city in Iran, not to mention a list of other targets.

There is also the political question of approximation to consider. Were Iran to target Israel, the conventional response against groups in Palestine and Gaza would most likely be as immediate as possible, decisive, and unrelenting. Under the circumstances, collateral damage, including the death of civilians in large numbers, would most likely occur. Given the state of mind that the IDF would be in, were such a thing to occur, I do not think that that is at all a stretch.

All of that, of course, is without involving the United States and what their nuclear response would be were Iran to strike Israel. Compared to Israel, the United States possesses vastly more advanced delivery capabilities, the most lethal being the use of Ohio Class Submarines that have the ability to strike multiple targets within minutes if their proximity to those targets is within a certain radius. As it stands now, given that two US battle groups are in the Gulf, there are certainly nuclear boats with them, making their proximity to Iranian targets minimal. A single such boat carries a compliment that could completely wipe out the population of Tehran.

Given the magnitude of both Israeli and American capabilities, even the most crazed lunatic in Iran would be faced with the reality that their nation would be utterly devastated in response to any attack made against Israel. Their family, the families of their friends and counterparts, all would be killed. The government of Iran, along with its entire military, civic, and religious infrastructures would cease to exist. The majority of Persia, as we know it, would basically be gone.

It’s one thing to believe that a group can exist that believes self-sacrifice is required for some greater, albeit fanatical, purpose. It’s entirely another to believe that the government of a nation would sacrifice the majority of its population for the sake of ideological fanaticism and nothing more, with no endgame or stratagem involved. To believe the Iranian government stupid enough to employ nuclear weapons as a first strike option requires the inclusion of the belief that they have no goal other than to ensure their own destruction, that they not only have no regard for the lives of the Iranian people, but their own as well. Even were they to gift a weapon to a terrorist group, the ramifications would be the same, because they would be held responsible. In fact, were Israel attacked with a nuclear weapon, no matter where that attack originated from, Iran would still be the victim of nuclear reprisals, and it is rather unintelligent, in my opinion anyway, to think that the government of Iran isn’t aware of that fact.

In essence, the current position of the United States, Israel, and others, is that the Iranians are seeking to obtain an offensive nuclear capability. Such a position all but promotes the fundamental tenets of the Bush Doctrine, the cornerstone of which is the use of preemptive, unilateral force to deal with those deemed a threat to US national security, its interests, or allies. Mind you, the US is not alone when it comes to such policies. The Israelis also partake in such practices when it suits their purposes, such as violating Lebanese airspace and conducting over-flights over Beirut, which they recently did.

I have said it before, and will exhaustively say it again now – what constitutes a ‘safe’ nuclear power? One that discloses its nuclear practices? The Iranians have been repeatedly accused of hiding their program by nations that have never allowed the IAEA to inspect theirs. Israel, as I have pointed out in the past countless times, has an estimated 300 nuclear weapons, though denies to this day that it even has a weapons program at all and refuses to allow its facilities to be inspected by the United Nations.

So what exactly makes Israel a ‘safe’ nuclear power? They continue to diversify their delivery systems, such as through the acquisition of submarines, and have even been caught stealing nuclear secrets from the United States – something that has, to this very day, never really been addressed by the highest levels of the US government. And yet the world is supposed to believe that the Iranian government is bent on not only acquiring a nuclear capability, but also actually being ignorant enough to employ it knowing full well that the consequences of such actions would result in their destruction?

Why? Because the current Iranian regime refuses to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist? I’ll not disagree that that’s a ridiculous position, but it is by no means provides justification for initiating a nuclear exchange that would be tantamount to suicide.

Given the realities of modern nuclear age, are we to believe that the Iranian government, or even a radical faction within its military, is so consumed by madness that it would use nuclear weapons against those that possess the ability to retaliate in an overwhelming fashion? And if we are, then how are we to view the last 63 years since their first employment and the overwhelming proliferation that followed? As nothing more than a game played by sane men using the most insane weapon ever conceived to play an elaborate game of global chess? And if we are, then what exactly does that make us?

Pawns or Kings?

Gareth Porter goes to town regarding the recent Hormuz incident and the Pentagon’s involvement in sensationalizing it…

“Senior Pentagon officials, evidently reflecting a broader administration policy decision, used an off-the-record Pentagon briefing to turn the Jan. 6 U.S.-Iranian incident in the Strait of Hormuz into a sensational story demonstrating Iran’s military aggressiveness, a reconstruction of the events following the incident shows.

The initial press stories on the incident, all of which can be traced to a briefing by deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs in charge of media operations Bryan Whitman, contained similar information that has since been repudiated by the Navy itself.

Then the Navy disseminated a short video into which was spliced the audio of a phone call warning that U.S. warships would “explode” in “a few seconds.” Although it was ostensibly a Navy production, IPS has learned that the ultimate decision on its content was made by top officials of the Defense Department.

The encounter between five small and apparently unarmed speedboats, each carrying a crew of two to four men, and the three U.S. warships occurred very early on Saturday Jan. 6, Washington time. But no information was released to the public about the incident for more than 24 hours, indicating that it was not viewed initially as being very urgent.

The reason for that absence of public information on the incident for more than a full day is that it was not that different from many others in the Gulf over more than a decade. A Pentagon consultant who asked not to be identified told IPS that he had spoken with officers who had experienced similar encounters with small Iranian boats throughout the 1990s, and that such incidents are “just not a major threat to the U.S. Navy by any stretch of the imagination.”

Just two weeks earlier, on Dec. 19, the USS Whidbey Island, an amphibious warship, had fired warning shots after a small Iranian boat allegedly approached it at high speed. But that incident had gone without public notice.”

Interestingly, where was the President at the time? Making speeches in the Middle East. The incident was then used to up the administration’s rhetoric, not to mention grossly over amplify the issue domestically.

The Straight Of Hormuz has once again played host to an idiotic event, this time involving Iranian and American military forces. According to the Pentagon, the world’s most trusted source with regards to the actuality of events, the USS Port Royal, USS Hopper, and USS Ingraham were swarmed by Iranian gunboats which came within 200 metres of them, one of which allegedly radioed them the message – ” I am coming at you; you will explode in a couple of minutes”.

Somewhere, Dick Cheney is having a Cognac and smiling ear to ear.

The Americans were, according to reports, moments away from firing on the Iranian vessels.

According to the Pentagon, the Iranians were in the midst of a mine laying exercise.

Despite claims that the three US vessels were in international waters, no officially recognized boundary exists in the straight, and hasn’t for some time. The irony, of course, is that through that 34-mile gap flows 45 percent of the world’s oil.

Now, there’s no defending the actions of the Iranians if they were, in fact, playing silly buggers. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if they were. Then again, it also wouldn’t surprise me if the three US vessels had, for the sake of pushing buttons, strayed ‘off course’ somewhat. Let’s not forget, it wasn’t long ago that the US planted a carrier off the coast of Iran and conducted ‘exercises’. Of course, little mention was given that despite the fact that it was an entirely provocative and aggressive undertaking.

Either way, the lot of them are morons.