How to get a better deal with Iran

Americans are debating the merits of the proposed nuclear deal with Iran while the world observes the 70th anniversary of our bombing Hiroshima. We see our actions as more honorable than those of our adversaries. What do they see when they look at us?

The United States is the only nation to have used nukes. Historians have debated whether bombing Hiroshima -- on Aug. 6, 1945 -- a city with almost no military targets, was necessary, but hardly anyone defends incinerating Nagasaki three days later.

Reasonable people differ about these questions, of course. One of my parishioners was an allied prisoner of war in Hiroshima who survived only because he happened to be behind a huge boulder when the Little Boy nuclear bomb went off. A Long Islander I know was a young Marine waiting to invade Japan. Naturally, they see things differently.

We are also the nation that prepared for decades to launch a first strike. As others joined the "nuclear club," they generally threatened, "do unto me and I'll do unto you," the doctrine of mutually assured destruction, or MAD. The Soviets built monster missiles designed to retaliate against civilian populations, and the British relied on slow bombers and submarine-launched ballistic missiles that could survive a Soviet attack but could not deliver a pre-emptive precision strike.

The United States took a different approach, developing battlefield tactical nuclear weapons and missiles accurate enough to destroy Soviet command centers, missiles, and air fields, leaving them unable to retaliate. Our strategic posture was, "Send in tanks and we'll nuke you."

We also overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran and installed the brutal shah, and later invaded Iraq when it posed no threat to us. We distrust the regime in Tehran; they doubt they can trust the one in Washington. Or whoever is in power less than two years from now.

We have, thank God, backed away from the nuclear brink through arms-control treaties. The way world powers could get a tougher treaty with the Iranians is by agreeing to further reduce their own stockpiles. It is hypocritical, to say the least, for countries that threaten to destroy the world to act as if a new nuclear power is the real threat to peace.

One of these nations, Germany, possesses no such weapons. So, it is entitled to say whatever it wants -- well, unless you consider the deaths of 13 million people during the Holocaust. The United Kingdom is estimated to have 225 nukes. China has about 250 and France about 290. Both the United States and the Russians cling to thousands, though there are few scenarios in which either of them might conceivably use them.

An explosion of only a hundred small A-bombs, the size of the stockpiles that Israel, India, and Pakistan each possess, would not only kill millions of people immediately and irradiate cities for centuries, but also it would throw enough debris and ash into the atmosphere to trigger a worldwide agricultural catastrophe. Perhaps Israel needs a doomsday weapon to prevent its many enemies from destroying Tel Aviv, but does it need 100? Do we need 7,000?

We are right to worry about North Korea or Iran having weapons of mass destruction, but superpowers cannot hope to achieve peace through hypocrisy. South Africa, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine have given up their nukes, but no one expects Russia, China, or our next president to do the same. What we should expect from every member of the nuclear club is this: To reduce their stockpiles in exchange for others not acquiring them in the first place.

The Rev. Thomas W. Goodhue is executive director of the Long Island Council of Churches. He was an international fellow at Columbia University's School of International Affairs.