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Comment by nielsbot

19 hours ago

Does Iran not have the same rights of self-defense and sovereignty as the US and Israel?

> The point is preventing another North Korea style nuclear blackmail state

The US and Israel are currently nuclear blackmail states. The rational move for Iran to prevent itself from being bullied is to have nukes like North Korea.

> In this situation it is a fair request by the US

Fair if you're the US, sure.

190 countries signed the non proliferation treaty for a very good reason, so no they don’t have the right to it in any sense of the word on the international stage.

Especially not when they’re mass murdering protestors and funding islamic extremism left and right

  • They actually do. And I say it as a European and I think the Iranian regime is as bad as it gets, and won't shed a tear if they all get executed.

    What recent months show us, is that it's a rough world - there are no friends. I'm rooting for European countries to accelerate their nuclear weapons programs. In an ideal world, of course I would be against. But the world is far from ideal. The current alternative is being dictated the rules by Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin. Thanks, but no.

> The US and Israel are currently nuclear blackmail states.

Neither of these states have at any point said anything on the modern era that can be implied to be a threat to nuke anybody.

Part of that is because it would be a bad strategy for them, but nonetheless "nuclear blackmail state" and "nuclear state" is not the same thing.

Iran signed the NPT.

The NPT did not exist at the time of the US developing nuclear weapons, and it explicitly allows US (and other pre-existing nuclear powers') weapons.

Israel, like India and Pakistan, simply never signed it, forgoing the international nuclear technology market as a consequence but also avoiding a treaty obligation not to develop them.

  • That was before the revolution. The revolutionary government still honored the deal, but that's been obviously a losing move for a while. The whole Middle East recognizes that, just look at how many countries Pakistan has sharing agreements with recently.

> The rational move for Iran to prevent itself from being bullied is to have nukes like North Korea

North Korea invaded South Korea, stole a US Navy ship (the Pueblo, which they still proudly exhibit), dug large infiltration tunnels under the DMZ, kidnapped hundreds, or even thousands people from SK (and Japan, to a lesser extent), and have assassinated, or attempted to assassinate, multiple SK heads of state, and perpetrated acts of terror like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Flight_858

What did the US or SK do to them before their nuclear program that constituted "bullying?"

No such right exists, except in moral terms, but if you are going to invoke morals, the Iranian regime does not hold up well. So no, they do not.

Perhaps you will argue that the US or Israel or Pakistan or North Korea have conducted themselves in a way where they do not have that moral right either, but that is a different debate, and either way it is moot because they do have them.

> Does Iran not have the same rights of self-defense and sovereignty as the US and Israel?

Iran signed Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

  • The former government, a US puppet regime. Why should they honor a deal that doesn't benefit them when the US and Israel refuse to play by the rules?

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>Does Iran not have the same rights of self-defense and sovereignty as the US and Israel?

No. If they wanted self-defense and sovereignty they should have become stronger not weaker after the revolution.