The Wall Street Journal-20080119-Put a Stopper in the Nuclear Genie-s Bottle
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Put a Stopper in the Nuclear Genie's Bottle
In regard to "Toward a Nuclear-Free World" by George Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn (op-ed, Jan 15): The danger is not nuclear weapons per se. Nuclear weapons in the hands of advanced, responsible democracies such as Britain, France, India and (allegedly) Israel contribute to stability by preventing war. However, nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran, North Korea, Egypt and other authoritarian regimes increase the chance of war because the regimes, not the warheads, are unstable.
The authors suggest a recapitulation of the SALT process, a diplomatic feeding-frenzy that enabled cheating by an authoritarian and aggressive regime, the Soviet Union. Instead, advanced and responsible democracies should cease all nuclear cooperation with authoritarian regimes, and with countries that provide nuclear assistance to authoritarian regimes.
Russia and China would reconsider nuclear cooperation with Iran if their scientists and companies were denied Western nuclear research. As with divestment from Iran, American companies, scientists and universities could undertake such action without a directive from the U.S. government. Absent an embargo, Russia will continue to build a nuclear reactor in Bushehr, Iran.
The approach suggested by the authors ensures further military encounters between the West and authoritarian regimes seeking nuclear weapons, such as those that occurred recently in Syria, as well as in Iraq in 1981 and 2003.
Nathan D. Wirtschafter
Rehovot, Israel
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"Developing a cooperative multilateral ballistic-missle defense"? Mr. Shultz and his old money-wasting buddies are living in another century. Middle Eastern fanatics would use a regularly scheduled flight on American Airlines.
John Booke
Longmeadow, Mass.
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I feel it is too late for these Cold- or post-Cold-War world order warriors to deal with this issue. Perhaps if they provide apologies to the non-Western world their argument would be more persuasive. I'm able to say this because of my background: I graduated from China's Tsinghua University's Engineering Physics Department (which was once part of the Nuclear Industry Ministry) in the last decade of the Cold War. Once, Deng Xiaoping visited our department to thank us, saying, "Without you, I cannot say China is one pole of the tripartite political world."
I fully understand how these Americans inspired the whole world to go nuclear.
Jing Zhao, Ph.D.
US-Japan-China Comparative Policy Research Institute
Dublin, Calif.
