Donald Trump said he wants to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran and sent a letter to its leadership on Thursday saying he hoped they would agree to talk.
“I said I hope you’re going to negotiate, because it’s going to be a lot better for Iran,” the US president said in the interview with Fox Business Network broadcast on Friday.
“I think they want to get that letter. The other alternative is we have to do something, because you can’t let another nuclear weapon.”
The letter appeared to have been addressed to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The White House did not immediately respond to a request about that, Reuters reported.
Having nuclear weapons isn’t a counter to a nuclear-armed country. Having second strike capability is. I don’t think that Iran is going to get second strike capability vis-a-vis the US anytime soon.
You don’t need to have full mutually assured destruction for nukes to operate as a deterrent. It’s a matter of degrees, rather than some sort of all-or-nothing safety.
Safety is relative. A nuclear capacity doesn’t make them safe, especially in a world dominated by an unhinged US. But, it does make them vastly safer than not having it by raising the potential cost of any proactive strike against them. Direct military implications for the US are minimal. But that’s not the case for US clients and US interests in the region.
What US policy has demonstrated is that US belligerence is a constant, regardless of whether Iran enters treaties or not, and regardless of whether Iran pursues nukes or not. Under those conditions, having nukes is pragmatic.