The Terrible Logic of Nukes

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That is precisely why today we cannot allow bad guys like Saddam to get their hands on nukes: not merely because a crazed Saddam might actually use them on us but also because a rational Saddam, one not interested in committing suicide by attacking us out of the blue with nukes, could nonetheless use them as accessories to aggression.

How? Imagine that Israel had not destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981. What would have happened when Iraq invaded Kuwait? With a nuclear arsenal at Saddam's disposal, would the U.S. have attacked? As it was, war against a nonnuclear Iraq was authorized by the U.S. Senate by a mere five votes. Had Saddam had nukes in 1991, he would probably today be king of all Arabia.

We are in a race against time. Were Iraq to acquire a deliverable nuclear weapon, it would gain a measure of invulnerability. This is not because its nuclear arsenal could ever match America's but because the threat of just a few nuclear weapons, delivered by missile or terrorist to, say, New York City or San Francisco, would allow an aggressor to commit whatever depredations he fancied, calculating that America would be deterred from intervening with its otherwise overwhelming conventional power.

Nukes are not weapons of insanity. They have a logic. The U.S. showed it during the cold war. Pakistan showed it this year. Saddam would like to show it tomorrow. Which is why time is short. Nukes do not have to explode to be useful. Their value lies in mere possession. Possession creates an umbrella of inviolability. And there is nothing more dangerous than an inviolable aggressor.