The will of Zeus: The "Iran Deal" and Nuclear Proliferation

In Greek mythology Zeus withholds fire from mankind, only to have it stolen by Prometheus  who shares this powerful source of energy with humanity.  Enraged, Zeus instructs other gods to create an enchanting  woman, Pandora, who is offered to Prometheus’s brother, Epimetheus.  Prometheus implores his brother to refuse Zeus’s gift, but is rebuffed, and Pandora becomes his brother’s wife.  As a wedding present, Zeus gives Pandora  a large Jar (often characterized as a box) that, in ancient times was used to store grains, wines, oils and other valuable items.  Large enough to hold a human body, the jar was also used to bury the dead.  The jar was decorated and lovely to behold, but the gift was given on one condition, that it not be opened.  Pandora resisted the temptation to see what was in the jar again and again, but eventually her curiosity compelled her to open the jar, and she released the evils and maladies of the world that we know today, among them, death, disease and discord.     

The eternal truth of the Pandora myth is that humanity continues to invent and discover new and powerful tools that can be used for the benefit or destruction of humanity.   Each new secret revealed, from fire, to metal, to dynamite, from airplanes, to missiles and to nuclear energy will ultimately be as much a part of our world as the natural wonders of earth, sky, water and the animals and plants upon which our existence depends.  We can no more withhold these new secrets from one another than we can deny our fellow humans air, water or sustenance.

The reality is that nuclear power, whether for useful or destructive ends, has been released from Pandora’s jar, and is now a part of the world we inhabit.  The only feasible way forward is to share its benefits, and restrain its use as a weapon.  But to do this, there must be a world order in which nations can be held accountable for their management and use of nuclear materials.  This is the direction offered by the nations negotiating with Iran; nations that represent the legacy of victory over the axis powers of World War II (US, Great Brittan, Russia, France, China).  Unfortunately, these very nations are themselves only marginally accountable for their stockpile of weapons.  The very structure and governance of the United Nations, in which these five countries serve as permanent members of the UN Security Council establishes the status quo of what constitutes national prestige and power.  Having nuclear weapons is enshrined as the very epitome of this national prestige, making it all the more likely that other nations will seek to acquire nuclear weapons for themselves.  Thus the list continues to grow, now including India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.  These nations are even less accountable, as some have not signed the nuclear proliferation treaty, and others, such as Israel, do not officially admit to even having nuclear weapons.

It is good policy to negotiate with Iran to allow them to pursue the peaceful benefits of nuclear energy, and good policy to hold them accountable for throttling the development of nuclear weapons.  But until all nations agree to dismantle their nuclear arms, and agree to prevent any nation from having the capability to build them, there will always be the threat of their use, and a desire for other nations to acquire this technology for themselves. 

One of the contents of Pandora’s jar remained at the bottom, it was not released in the world, but was available to it.  That item was, and is, hope.  Hope is needed for us to have the opportunity to share the great abundance of earth’s resources that all of us depend upon.  Hope offers us the opportunity to further our well-being and the well-being of our families, and our descendents.  It is hope and our common humanity that will allow us to achieve a secure and abundant future.  This hope is not blind, but held with a wary eye toward betrayal, with safeguards and a plan to intervene should one nation decide to jeopardize the welfare of others.  The “deal with Iran” is a step in the right direction.  But until other nations destroy their stockpiles of nuclear weapons and agree to the same terms of peaceful use, a lasting solution to the proliferation of nuclear weapons will elude us.

Reflections on the Nuclear Age

Originally posted in October, 2006 but still relevant today....

I was born almost four years after the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I had no direct experience of the era leading up to World War II, and my knowledge of its fateful conclusion, like that of most “baby boomers”, was limited to seeing flickering, grainy newsreels as I sat in a school auditorium. Whether newsreel or sci-fi flick, the opening scene was always the same; an image of a surging column of smoke and ash that embroils itself upward in a thick billowing stalk and then ponderously crescendos downward to form the familiar shape, and most notorious symbol of the nuclear age, a mushroom cloud.

Like the twin towers of the World Trade Center, this image was repeated with a frequency and repetition that seared the image into the mind’s eye, and imprinted the soul with something akin to a generational scar; a scar which branded a generation with the knowledge that whatever passed for security before was no longer true.

The official version in news reels was that ‘the bomb’ was a testament to the marvels of science and American technological ingenuity. They gave them ‘cutsie’ names like ‘Fat Man’ and ‘Little Boy’ and quickly changed the topic to the promise of a nuclear future with plenty of cheap, clean energy.

But the rosy spin of government propaganda doesn’t last long in the hands of a popular culture. Science fiction movies quickly saw another future, one that was dark and foreboding, as the earth as we knew it was annihilated. The legacy of the next nuclear event would be stark and decimated landscapes where even the very atmosphere and weather were forever altered and human beings, the few that remained, reverted back to a desperate tenuous survival that was far from assured.

Out of the rubble of WWII, and the spectacle of a nuclear holocaust, came a renewed determination to create a world body that would prevent a repeat of the past. The United Nations was formed to rectify the failure of its predecessor, the League of Nations, to contain national aggressions and prevent another world war.

The United States of America, much to its shame, never signed on to the League of Nations. Only as one of the victors of WWII would it emerge from its former isolationism. The charter of the UN, like the declaration of independence for the US, proclaims a number of noble ideas about the rights of people and of nations. Yet the structure of the UN was immediately flawed and unbalanced as it established the victorious nations of WWII as permanent members of the Security Council. It was only a matter of time until each of the member nations followed the technological lead of the United States and tested their own nuclear weapons.

Then, ten years after China unveiled their first nuclear test, India too, became a member of the nuclear club. Pakistan, India’s rival, was not to be outdone, and by 1998 had developed nuclear weapons of their own. It was largely through Pakistan that North Korea gained the technological “know-how” for the development of their nuclear program. No one has admitted that Israel has conducted a nuclear test, but most believe that this nation, too, holds an arsenal of nuclear weapons. And Iran is not far behind.

Robert Oppenheimer, on seeing the first US test of a nuclear bomb in the New Mexican desert was reported to have quoted from the Bhagavad Gita:

If the radiance of a thousand suns

were to burst into the sky,

that would be like

the splendor of the Mighty One—

I am become Death, the shatterer of Worlds.

Oppenheimer advocated that no individual nation should hold the power of the atom but that it was necessary for an international body to serve as the sole authority for the management and use of nuclear resources. The United Nations was never given a clear mandate to serve as this authority, but it is clear that the limited role it has played in this effort has failed. We have been on a continued path toward nuclear proliferation, and now the rate of such proliferation is increasing. The ‘war on terror’ and the war in Iraq have been distractions that have taken our eye “off the ball,” have led to a misguided use of resources and have blinded us to seeing who are our friends and allies and how best we could secure the safety and future of our people and the people’s of the world.

American Terrorists

You awake to the headline “70,000 killed by a new weapon of mass destruction.”  More than 25 times those killed at the world trade center on 9/11.  Horrific.  You read further.  It wasn’t us.  Wasn’t Americans who were killed.  Thank god for that.  But wait, it was Americans who killed the 70,000? How can this be?  Americans killing tens of thousands of civilians, old and young, men, women, boys, girls, infants, indiscriminately?  This can’t be.  You read further.  America, in an effort to end the 14 year war on terror takes a decisive step to terrorize those who terrorize, and their supporters, as well as their communities, their families, their friends and all of those who live and work near them.   ISIS, Al-Qaeda , black robed beheaders, and IED makers, terrorists of all stripes and persuasions, told in no uncertain terms that they and their aggression, their jihad, will not be tolerated.  We will annihilate you!   And if you have any doubts, here is the proof, not only of our resolve, our determination, but of our capability to destroy you.  Surrender or suffer this – we can mass murder better then you.  We can kill 70,000 in a blinding flash of nuclear destruction.  So give it up, now. 

If we could locate the heart and soul of those bent on our destruction, on those terrorists who insist on carrying out  their hellish nightmare of suicide attacks and bombings, would we?  Could we?  What would it take to justify the killing of innocent civilians as we did to end the war with Japan in 1945?

Is there a justification?  Can we, in hindsight continue to say that what we did to end that terrible war was morally justified?  And if we can, then is it not within reason to say that any nation or group that believes their way of life is threatened can take whatever means necessary to protect themselves and their loved ones? 

70,000 were killed when the second atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki; a city purported to have little military significance, yet having a civilian population of 250,000.  

Then president of the United States, Harry Truman justified the bombing of Hiroshima, three days earlier saying “The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base.  That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, in so far as possible, the killing of civilians.”  The military base, which resided in a city of 350,000, had approximately 43,000 troops. By some estimates, over 100,000 died.

Truman said nothing about the bombing of Nagasaki.

We are approaching the 70^th anniversary of the only nuclear bombings of civilians in the history of the human race.  We won the war, and so we control the narrative.  And our narrative has been that the massive destruction to civilians was necessary to end that war.  The allied bombing of the German city of Dresden and the fire bombing of Tokyo that preceded the nuclear attacks might suggest that the precedent was already in place to terrorize civilian populations to win the war.  Only the method and the magnitude of this intention were advanced by the use of atomic weapons.

I am not advocating a massive mei culpa for forgiveness (though I am not opposed to this, either). But I think there is value in reframing our narrative, in looking back and asking how things might have been done differently? Can we reflect on what we did then and ask “is it still within our moral framework now? “ And if the answer is yes, then sadly, I contend that the war on terror will be endless.