Hacker News Reader

Comment by tristanj | Hacker News Reader

You've got the wrong premise. Iran was actively developing nuclear weapons, and officials even admitted to it when interviewed.

https://www.memri.org/tv/former-iranian-majles-member-motaha...

Former Iranian Majles member Ali Motahari said in an April 24, 2022 interview on ISCA News (Iran) that when Iran began developing its nuclear program, the goal was to build a nuclear bomb. He said that there is no need to beat around the bush, and that the bomb would have been used as a "means of intimidation" in accordance with a Quranic verse about striking "fear in the hearts of the enemies of Allah."

"When we began our nuclear activity, our goal was indeed to build a bomb,” former Iranian politician Ali Motahari told ISCA News. “There is no need to beat around the bush,” he said.

View on HN

Read the last two lines of that interview. Khamenei interpreted Islam as forbidding even building the bomb, and he is the moral authority on this, like it or not.

Japan could also have built a nuclear bomb, but chose not to. They decided that out of nothing else than their moral beliefs.

You simply don't want to accept than other cultures can be (in some respects, and even regardless of what individuals think on average - that's probably similar for large enough groups) more ethical than your own.

Iran enriched over 450kg of uranium to at least 60%.

There's no need for anything over 5% for powerplant use. They were preparing HEU for weapons; whether those weapons were to be built now or in 20 years is irrelevant.

Per international agreements, it was their right. The idiotic thing about this argument is that now everyone knows they want nukes and that not having ones is strategic mistake. Because Iran and Ukraine did not have one. Meanwhile, countries with nukes are safer.

Yes, I agree, except it's not irrelevant whether they built functional nuke or not, because this is used as a justification for war. (Not to mention, as a justification for war, "they could have built a nuke" is even more barbaric than "they have built a nuke".)

Still, that doesn't counter the fact they didn't actually make a nuclear bomb out of the material, nor the fact that their highest moral authority banned them from doing that, so it doesn't do anything to disprove that culturally they are more civilized (in that respect).

(Maybe an example from a corporation would clarify this better - the fact that there is a group of people in it doing things unethically doesn't mean that the company as a whole condones this behavior, even if structurally - how the corporation or capitalist society is constructed - might lead to some people doing it internally off the books. But once it is known to the CEO - the highest moral authority in a corporation, if he is not to be implicated in this, he must tell them to stop.)

It's frankly just moving the goalpost in an attempt not to accept your own barbarism. Is your culture OK with using nuclear weapons, even in self-defense? If yes, how do you dare to judge?

> their highest moral authority banned them from doing that

This means nothing. Iran says one thing publicly, then privately does another. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said his country will not develop ballistic missiles with a range exceeding 2,000 kilometers [0]; yet they secretly developed missiles with a range of 4,000 km [1].

[0] https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2017-12/news/irans-leader-se...

[1] https://www.sipri.org/commentary/topical-backgrounder/2026/w...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com