In response to Professor Kontorovich, what you are describing is the insurance policy that all nuclear states have and that they all use in a deterrent sense to get away with pernicious and illegal things (e.g. the US/UK 2003 Iraq war, the Israeli West Bank Wall and settlements, the illegal Israeli assaults in Gaza, NK’s torpedoing of a SK vessel, Pakistan’s aiding and abetting of terrorists and proliferation of WMD, and the list goes on). Simply because Iran may potentially use its eventual nuclear weapon insurance policy to do things it sees to be in its interests, but other states may view as pernicious, doesnt seem to me to be a principled reason for the West and Israel to breach international law (e.g. introduction of the Stuxnet virus by the US and Israel, targeted killings of Iranian scientists by the Israeli Mossad, potential Israeli airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities) in an attempt to prevent Iran from getting the same insurance policy that they themselves have and use for the same kinds of acts. I’m just trying to get us to be circumspect and objective here, and not forget what the West and Israel – Iran’s chief detractors – have done with their nuclear insurance policies, and question whether these states have any principled basis on which to ground their concerns about Iran’s potential acquisition of nuclear weapons. They can, of course, rationally maintain unprincipled bases, like their own national interests, upon which to ground their concerns and actions. But these should be admitted as such, and not clothed in a hypocrisy of principle and law.
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