Why Iran Getting the Bomb is Bad: The End of International Law and Decency?

Many people know that Iran getting the Bomb is bad, but exactly how bad is it? For non-students of international relations, Walter Russell Mead conveys in simple terms what will happen if Iran acquires nuclear weapons in the next year or two:

If Iran gets the bomb, the world will change in ways that are deeply destructive of everything President Obama cares about. A world in which nuclear weapons are widespread isn’t just a world in which the collapse of the non-proliferation movement has brought discredit on the concept of international law and binding treaties on security issues. It won’t just be a world in which the bad guys have learned that the good guys will blink if you stand up to them. It won’t just be a world in which emboldened Iranian adventurism will work more rashly and unscrupulously than ever to destroy our alliances and friends in the Middle East.

That brave new world that appears when Iran gets its nukes is an ultra-Westphalian world, a world of sovereign nation states forever emancipated from the dream of true international law. Nuclear weapons give every state — and every dictator — the ability to veto troublesome interventions in their affairs by treaty-citing busybodies and international lawyers waving documents and babbling about binding accords. If you have your finger on the button, nobody can make you do anything you truly don’t want to do: this is state sovereignty on steroids, and it is the what Barack Obama will leave as a legacy if he doesn’t stop Iran’s nuclear march.

Mead is correct- once a nation acquires nuclear weapons, there is no more bossing it around at all. Many people think that is a good thing- both liberals and conservatives feel that the US should mind its own business. I used to think that way, but now I fully believe that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by God with certain unalienable rights, and that those rights include the right to live, the right to live in freedom free from tyranny, and the right to earn and keep property.

All men are this way, and thus I don't fret too much when the US gets involved in defending human rights concerns in Iraq, Afghanistan, Germany, Japan, South Korea, etc. Iran will get nukes, its nuke scientists will help other nations get nukes, other nations will need nukes to defend themselves, and next thing you know, if the US tells a nation to quit butchering minorities or a particular religion, or to not kidnap or assassinate foreign nationals, or to not stone women or torture Jews, these nuclear armed nations will only laugh at the United States. The failure of the United States to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons will lead to a world that is less ordered, less law-abiding, and less able to be controlled by the Godly and righteous USA (and that's a bad thing- the US is a force of good in the world).

So, what is our great leader doing about Iran getting nukes? To be fair, George W Bush didn't do much about it- Democrats and liberals pounded the drum of 'negotiation' and 'no war' so often against his head that he wasn't going to do anything about it. So, that leaves it to Obama, and like most problems and issues that are left to Obama, he has decided to make them worse or vote present. Mead writes:

President Obama is probably hoping that luck or fate will spare him the horrible fate of presiding over the death of his dearest ideals and of being the American president who destroyed the credibility of the international system and let the nuclear genie loose in the most dangerous part of the world. Maybe sanctions will work; maybe the Iranians will change their minds. Maybe new technical problems will crop up and slow the Iranians down enough so that he can pass the problem on to his successor — as, indeed, his predecessors handed it down to him.

That doesn't make me feel any better for all those poor people who are soon to live in increasingly brutal tyranny- the one person who has the motive, means, and opportunity to stop this terrible fate is hoping luck or fate lets him push the problem on someone else's lap. But, elections have consequences, and everyone who sat home or voted something other than Republican on the ballots the last couple years had a part to play in this horrible comedy.