What would Iran actually do with a nuclear weapon?

If Iran had a nuclear weapon, would it use it? Of course not. That would be suicidal. Then why do the United States and Israel fear that Iran might create a nuclear bomb? That is the question Glenn Greenwald asked and answered today:

That Iran will use its nuclear weapons against the US and Israel is rather obviously the centerpiece of the fear-mongering campaign against Tehran, to build popular support for threats to launch an aggressive attack in order to prevent them from acquiring that weapon. So what, then, is the real reason that so many people in both the US and Israeli governments are so desperate to stop Iranian proliferation? Every now and then, they reveal the real reason: Iranian nuclear weapons would prevent the US from attacking Iran at will, and that is what is intolerable. The latest person to unwittingly reveal the real reason for viewing an Iranian nuclear capacity as unacceptable was GOP Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the US's most reliable and bloodthirsty warmongers.

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Old fashioned Republicans and arms control

Jonathan Granoff of Reader Supported News points out that Reagan Republicans had a different attitude toward weapons of mass destruction than modern day Republicans:

Listening to today's candidates --at any level -- one would not know that, historically, Republicans have been instrumental in advancing arms control, nonproliferation, and nuclear disarmament. That is, until the recent Bush administration. In fact, active Republican leadership was essential in obtaining the Biological Weapons Convention, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, and the Chemical Weapons Convention, to name but a few. However, the current Republicans running for offices, both high and low, have forgotten this legacy of success in making America and the world safer based on the US value of the rule of law.

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The oldest living things in the world

At TED, Rachel Sussman describes her travels in search of the oldest living things in the world. They include lichen that grown only 1 centimeter every 100 years. They also include a clonal colony of quaking aspen trees, which is 80,000 years old. You'll see a photo of a 9,550 year old Swedish spruce, the location of which is kept secret in order to protect it. I had never before heard of the "underground forests" of South Africa (up to 13,000 years old). In the U.S. we have clonal creosote bushes and Yucca plants (both of these up to 12,000 years old) in the Mojave Desert. Spoiler alert: Th eoldest living thing seems to be Siberian actinobacteria (between 400,000 and 600,000) years old. I really enjoyed this talk, though it was distressing how often Sussman mentioned that human activity is threatening these ancient living life forms.

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