Persistent Illusions

There's not a fight
And I'm not your captive
--Radioactive, The Firm

Deterrence is the art of producing
in the mind of the enemy... the FEAR to attack
--Dr Strangelove (1964)
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At the May UN conference on the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the U.S. via Secretary of State Hillary Clinton continued its efforts to rally the UN Security Council to impose new sanctions on Iran for its uranium enrichment program. President Dmitry Medvedev said this Monday that Iran is close to having the potential to build a nuclear weapon (Russia Warns Iran Mean Near Nuclear Weapon Potential).

Meanwhile, the U.S. reports the size of its nuclear arsenal at 5,113 weapons, an 84% reduction from the 1967 peak of 31,255 warheads. Though a reduction, surely enough to destroy civilization many times over. Even in the case of a misfire, surely this is a superfluous amount of nuclear weaponry.

With this sort of overkill potential, how can the U.S. claim moral authority versus Iran's efforts to gain or build a nuclear weapon? What allows the U.S. to have such a stockpile while denying the same sovereign principle to any other nation?

The percentage of U.S. reduction in nuclear weapons is meaningless, as the number still exceeds rational levels. In fact, if one is Pro-Life in any sense, having any nuclear weapons is an irrational concept.