When I was in Washington a few weeks ago, I had what amounted to a six-hour layover in downtown DC, which is a fancy way of saying I missed the morning bus and was stuck with nothing to do and lots to carry. So I walked over to the White House, where a group of protestors had set up shop were educating tourists about nuclear non-proliferation.

Over the years, I've changed my attitude about nuclear weapons several times. In high school, I was unilaterally against development, deployment, or stockpiling in any case. But when I went to university, I saw the virtue of mutually assured destruction–it had kept the world safe from all-out nuclear war for generations. Even though it was a tough pill to swallow for a conscientious objector like myself, you have to admit that MAD played a very important role in keeping the cold war from becoming hot.

But by the time I graduated, it became clear to me that the advantages of MAD really only applied to stable states and regimes. The tide started turning while I was learning about Russia's <i><b>prikh</b>vatizatsya</i> (which means looting, as well as being a play on the Russian word for privatization, "privatizatsya"), where the state assets were seized by the same corrupt bureaucrats who founded (though some might prefer 'perpetuated') Russian organized crime. With hundreds of nukes on the loose, the breakdown of the Soviet Union heralded a new era of international relations, one were MAD could not be assured (and is therefore no safeguard) in the case where one of the parties with the bomb doesn't have any territory to protect.

MAD is a fairly delicate concept, one that relies on constant advances in second-strike capabilities between two more-or-less evenly matched opponents. When a state breaks down, the only people guarding those weapons are soldiers who just lost their job, a recipe for disaster if I ever heard one.

Let's return to the present for a moment. Currently, America is worried about Iran's possible (and North Korea's declared) nuclear capabilities. Even with the whole "Axis-of-Evil' meme out there, many Americans don't seem to realize that Iran's rush to get the bomb (not to mention everyone else's) is directly tied to the invasion of Iraq. Much to the delight of military contractors, we have started a whole new arms race.

I've been thinking about Iran's potential nukes in light of the leaked British memo which stated once and for all that the whole WMDs-as-rationale-for-war was totally fabricated. But then, if you think about it, we had to have known that from the get go. There's something that didn't wash about the case Bush set out for the American people: if "the goal of this war is peace," as he (and Orwell) said, why were we provoking a doomsday scenario with a country who wouldn't hesitate to use every weapon at their disposal against us?

We all know why countries get the bomb–it's the only thing that will stop the U.S. from invading you. The way Bush went after Iraq (particularly after the "Axis of Evil" speech) was an explicit demonstration of this principle. Why don't we send the Marines over the DMZ? MAD at work, my friends. So what we really accomplished in the rest of the world was basically to exhort countries who felt threatened to develop WMDs <b>post haste</b>.

The dangers of increased nuclear development are the same today as they were in 1990. If our goal is really to foment a destabilizing chaos in the Middle East from which democracy might blossom, shouldn't we be taking into account the possible negative effects of that chaos as seriously as we do the potential positive effects? Our rose-colored glasses are not going to shield us if Islamist 'counter-revolutionaries' in a collapsing emirate get a hold of WMDs.

I'll end this post the way I started it, by quoting Tom Lehrer's "Who's Next":
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First we got the bomb, and that was good,
<br>'Cause we love peace and motherhood.
<br>Then Russia got the bomb, but that's okay,
<br>'Cause the balance of power's maintained that way.
<br>Who's next?
<br>…
<br>Egypt's gonna get one too,
<br>Just to use on you know who.
<br>So Israel's getting tense.
<br>Wants one in self defense.
<br>"The Lord's our shepherd," says the psalm,
<br>But just in case, we better get a bomb.
<br>Who's next?

Luxembourg is next to go,
<br>And (who knows?) maybe Monaco.
<br>We'll try to stay serene and calm
<br>When Alabama gets the bomb.
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