One major reason behind the joint U.S.–Israel attack on Iran is Tehran’s steadfast refusal to abandon its nuclear advancement program, one that could eventually enable it to produce a nuclear weapon and join the ranks of nuclear-armed states.
Yet both the United States and Israel themselves possess nuclear weapons. The U.S., in fact, was the first to use atomic bombs in 1945, in Japan, an act that still casts a long moral shadow over global nuclear discourse.
They are not alone. A small group of nations, often referred to as the “Nuclear Club”, either possess nuclear weapons or have the capability to develop them at short notice.
Since 2006, this exclusive club has included nine countries: the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel. Most of these nations have held nuclear arsenals or are capable of producing them since the mid-20th century, with Israel believed to have developed its capability in the late 1960s.
The critical question, then, is not just who has nuclear weapons, but who gets to have them. For decades, that decision has largely rested with Western powers, led by the United States, which has drawn the lines of nuclear legitimacy.
Is this not, at its core, a discriminatory global order, one that Iran has consistently refused to accept? That defiance, arguably, lies at the heart of the present conflict, now spilling across the wider region.
-Promod Puri
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