Tulsi Gabbard says Iran could produce nuclear weapons "within weeks", months after she testified before Congress that the country was not building them. The US Director of National Intelligence said her March testimony - in which she said Iran had a stock of materials but was not building these weapons - had been taken out of context by "dishonest media".
I would happily give up all our nukes if everyone else agreed to do so as well.
As nice as that would be, the unfortunate reality is that’s just not a realistic solution. You can’t put the cat back in the bag, so to speak.
The technology is already known; If everyone agreed to disarm, each party would just be even more worried about nations potentially ignoring that agreement and their now lack of defense against it.
The biggest reason I’m not all that concerned about Iran having nukes is the fact that so many nations are already nuclear armed. The use of nuclear weapons is so hated globally that they can only really be used in defence. If any individual nation chose to use their nukes offensively, the inevitable response from everyone else would mean the decision is suicide.
If Iran acquired nukes, then used them on say, Israel; America at the very least would turn Iran into a nuclear wasteland. I’m sure there are other nations that would join in, even if just on principle.
So, I agree with everything you said, I’m just not as confident as I would like to be that Iran would stay their own hand. I agree that it’s an idiotic idea, actually using a nuke, which is part of why even North Korea hasn’t used theirs, but I’m just not that confident Iran could resist the temptation once they’ve got it. Making Israel disappear is high on their priority list, even if it’s a stupid idea.
I’m not dedicated to the preservation of Israel or anything, but part of preserving the taboo against nukes means making sure that we never actually have to retaliate after a strike. Like you said, the cat is out of the bag as far as owning nukes goes, we don’t want to end up in a situation where we have to say “okay, WWII and then that time Israel disappeared but we’re serious, no more nukes?”