After President Donald Trump’s military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities with B-52 bombers, former MSNBC host Joy Reid appeared on the popular radio program The Breakfast Club, where she declared Israel wanted to be the sole superpower in the Middle East.
Reid argued that Israel initiated a war against Iran to establish regional dominance and that Israel’s claim that it was preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons was a pretext to attack.
Reid also contrasted nuclear-armed countries in the Middle East with Texas residents’ ability to carry firearms. Reid stated that Texas is a “polite society” because everyone is “packing” a firearm and that the Middle East would be more peaceful if all of the region’s main states had nuclear weapons as a deterrent.
Reid noted that Iran currently did not have nuclear weapons; her commentary indirectly questioned the United States’ right to prevent them if they did.
The facts can provide a response to Reid.
During President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidency (1953-1961), the Cold War tension between the United States and the Soviet Union was at its highest. The United States shared nuclear technology with allies seeking to modernize and identify with America to deter Soviet encroachment.
Eisenhower named the program “Atoms for Peace.”
Iran’s secular, pro-American monarch welcomed the United States to share its nuclear technology. As a result, Iran first obtained nuclear technology in exchange for becoming a strategic partner of the United States during the Cold War.
(Note: Israel initiated nuclear development after the Israeli War of Independence in 1949. The first prime minister of Israel declared that what Einstein and Oppenheimer, both Jews, created for the United States that ended the war in Japan may be replicated by Israeli scientists to prevent another Holocaust.)
Eisenhower’s long-term goal was to establish a nonproliferation agreement that would prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Then, Eisenhower hoped for regulations that would not only prohibit countries from developing more nuclear weapons but also allow nuclear technology to be used for positive endeavors.
What Eisenhower hoped for materialized between 1965 and 1968, when various countries negotiated the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, or Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Non-Proliferation Treaty identified nuclear-weapon states as those who acquired them before 1967. These nations included the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China. Nations that did not have nuclear weapons but desired the benefits of nuclear technology agreed to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty as non-nuclear weapon states, promising never to acquire nuclear weapons in exchange for nuclear weapon states sharing their nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
The Non-Proliferation Treaty was open for signature in 1968, with its enforcement scheduled for 1970. Israel did not sign the treaty. (India and Pakistan didn’t sign either.) The international community suspected that Israel developed nuclear weapons prior to 1967 because, since 1963, Israel has maintained a policy of “nuclear opacity,” in which Israel neither confirmed nor denied possessing nuclear weapons but pledged to “not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East.” In 1969, Israel came to an understanding with the United States that it would not declare or test its nuclear weapons.
Iran signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968.
The Iranian government that signed the treaty was overthrown in 1979 and replaced by a radical fundamentalist Islamic regime that renamed Iran the Islamic Republic of Iran. So, here lies the problem. Iran signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, but the Islamic Republic of Iran did not. The leaders of the new Islamic regime do not see any obligation to uphold a treaty that the previous government signed.
The United States, Israel, and other Middle Eastern countries disagree and reserve the right to enforce the Non-Proliferation Treaty, especially after the Islamic Republic of Iran has become the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism.
Reid conflated Iran (the nation) with the Islamic Republic of Iran (the regime), believing that the nation poses no threat to the United States. However, the U.S. government does not conflate the two and recognizes that it cannot risk a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic of Iran.
