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On August 2, [[France]], [[Britain ]] and [[Germany ]] announced that they might cut off negotiations with [[Iran ]] and pursue punitive sanctions if the country followed through on its threats to resume its uranium enrichment program. The announcement came a day after the <i>Washington Post</i> reported that American intelligence agencies believe the country is a decade away from producing a [[nuclear weapon]] -an assessment that differs with earlier timetables cited by Bush administration officials, who estimated that Iran was only five years away from such a weapon. Responding to the <i>Post</i> story, State Department spokesman Tom Casey dismissed the divergent timetables, noting that both the [[United States ]] and [[Europe ]] have concluded that Iran’s nuclear ambitions pose “a "a threat for the entire [[international community]].”"

But are nuclear arms in the hands of Iran’s Iran's rulers really a threat to international peace and security? To answer the question properly, one has to locate it in its [[:category:politics|political ]] and [[:category:ideology|ideological ]] context.

Every [[power structure ]] has to rely on an underlying [[implicit threat]], i.e. whatever the oficial [[democracy|democratic ]] rules and [[law|legal ]] constraints may be, we can ultimately do <i>whatever we want</i> to you. In the 20th century, however, the nature of this link between [[power ]] and the [[invisible threat ]] that sustains it changed. Existing power structures no longer relied on their own [[fantasy|fantasmatic ]] [[projection ]] of a potential, invisible threat in order to secure the hold over their [[subjects]]. Rather, the threat was externalized, displaced onto an Outside [[Enemy]]. It became the invisible (and, for that reason, all-powerful and omni-present) threat of this enemy that legitimized the existing power structure’s permanent [[state of emergency]]. [[Fascism|Fascists ]] invoked the threat of the [[Jewish conspiracy]], [[Stalinism|Stalinists ]] the threat of the [[class ]] enemy, [[United States|Americans ]] the threat of [[Communism]] -all the way up to today’s “war "[[war on terror]].” " The threats posed by such an invisible enemy legitimizes the logic of the [[preemptive strike]]. Precisely because the threat is [[virtual]], one cannot afford to wait for it to come. Rather, one must strike in advance, before it is too late. In other words, the omni-present <i>invisible</i> threat of Terror legitimizes the all too <i>visible</i> protective measures of defense-which, of course, are what pose the <i>true</i> threat to [[democracy ]] and [[human rights ]] (e.g., the London police’s recent execution of the innocent Brazilian [[Brazil]]ian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes).

Classic power functioned as a threat that operated precisely by never actualizing itself, by always remaining a threatening <i>gesture. </i> Such functioning reached its climax in the [[Cold War]], when the threat of [[Mutually Assured Destruction|mutual nuclear destruction ]] <i>had</i> to remain a threat. With the “war "[[war on terror”terror]]", the [[invisible threat ]] causes the incessant actualization, not of the threat itself, but, of the measures against the threat. The nuclear strike had to remain the threat of a strike, while the threat of the terrorist strike triggers the endless series of <i>preemptive</i> strikes against potential [[terrorism|terrorists]]. We are thus passing from the logic of [[Mutually Assured Destruction|MAD ]] ([[Mutually Assured Destruction]]) to a logic in which ONE SOLE MADMAN runs the entire show and is allowed to enact its [[paranoia]]. The power that presents itself as always being under threat, living in [[mortality|mortal ]] danger, and thus merely defending itself, is the most dangerous kind of power-the very model of the Nietzschean [[Nietzsche]]an <i>[[ressentiment]]</i> and [[morality|moralistic ]] [[hypocrisy]]. And indeed, it was Nietzsche himself who, more than a century ago, in <i>Daybreak,</i> provided the best analysis of the false moral premises of today’s “war "[[war on terror”terror]]":

<blockquote> No [[government ]] admits any more that it keeps an [[army ]] to satisfy occasionally the [[desire ]] for conquest. Rather, the army is supposed to serve for [[defense]], and one invokes the [[morality ]] that approves of self-defense. But this implies one’s own morality and the neighbor’s [[neighbor]]’s [[immorality]]; for the neighbor must be thought of as eager to attack and conquer if our [[state ]] must think of means of [[self-defense]]. Moreover, the reasons we give for requiring an army imply that our neighbor, who denies the desire for conquest just as much as our own state, and who, for his part, also keeps an army only for reasons of self-defense, is a hypocrite and a cunning criminal who would like nothing better than to overpower a harmless and awkward [[victim ]] without any fight. Thus all states are now ranged against each other: they presuppose their neighbor’s bad disposition and their own good disposition. This presupposition, however, is inhumane, as bad as [[war ]] and worse. At bottom, indeed, it is itself the challenge and the cause of wars, because as I have said, it attributes immorality to the neighbor and thus provokes a hostile disposition and act. We must abjure the doctrine of the army as a means of self-defense just as completely as the desire for conquests.</blockquote>

Is not the ongoing “war "[[war on terror” terror]]" proof that “terror” "[[terror"]] is the [[antagonism|antagonistic ]] [[Other ]] of [[democracy]] -the point at which democracy’s democracy's [[plurality|plural ]] options turn into a [[singular ]] [[antagonism]]? Or, as we so often hear, “In "In the face of the terrorist threat, we must all come together and forget our petty differences.” " More pointedly, the difference between the “war on terror” with previous 20th century worldwide struggles such as the [[Cold War ]] is that the enemy used to be clearly identified with the actually existing [[Communism|Communist ]] [[empire]], whereas today the terrorist threat is inherently [[spectral]], without a visible center. It is a little bit like the description of Linda Fiorentino’s character in <i>[[The Last Seduction]]: </i> “Most "Most people have a dark side … she had nothing else.” " Most regimes [[regime]]s have a dark oppressive spectral side … the terrorist threat has nothing else. The paradoxical result of this spectralization of the [[enemy ]] is an unexpected [[reflexive reversal]]. In this world without a clearly identified enemy, it is the [[United States]], the protector against the threat, that is emerging as the main enemy-much like in Agatha Christie’s <i>[[Murder on the Orient-Express]],</i> where, since the <i>entire</i> group of suspects is the murderer, the [[victim ]] himself (an evil millionaire) turns out to be the real criminal.

This background allows us to finally answer our initial question: Yes, nukes for [[Iran]]-and [[Noriega ]] and [[Saddam ]] to the [[Hague]]. It is crucial to see the <i>link</i> between these two demands. Why are [[Timothy Garton Ash]], [[Michael Ignatieff ]] and other [[internationalist liberals]] -who are otherwise full of pathetic praise for the Hague tribunal-silent about the idea to deliver Noriega and Saddam to the Hague? Why [[Milosevic ]] and not Noriega? Why was there not even a public trial against Noriega? Was it because he would have disclosed his own [[CIA ]] past, including how the [[United States ]] condoned his participation in the murder of [[Omar Torrijos Herrera]]? In a similar way, Saddam’s regime was an abominable [[authoritarianism|authoritarian ]] [[state]], guilty of many crimes, mostly toward its own people. However, one should note the strange but key fact that, when the U.S. representatives were enumerating Saddam’s [[evil ]] deeds, they systematically omitted what was undoubtedly his greatest crime (in terms of human suffering and of violating [[international law]]): the aggression against Iran. Why? Because the United States and the majority of foreign states actively helped [[Iraq ]] in this aggression. What’s more, the United States now plans to <i>continue</i> Saddam’s work of toppling the Iranian government.

As to Iran and nukes, the surprising fact is that the [[MAD ]] logic still operates today: Why hasn’t the tension between [[India ]] and [[Pakistan ]] exploded into an all-out war? Because both sides are nuclear powers. Why have the Arab states not risked another attack on [[Israel]]? Because Israel is a nuclear power. So why should this MAD logic not work in the case of [[Iran]]? The standard counter-argument is that in Iran, [[Muslim fundamentalists ]] are in [[power ]] who may be tempted to nuke Israel. (Iran is the only large Arab state which not only does not diplomatically recognize Israel, but resolutely denies its right to exist as a state). Is, however, the Iranian regime really so “irrational”"irrational"? Isn’t Pakistan, with its nuclear arms <i>and</i> its secret services’ ties to [[al-Qaeda]], a much greater threat? Furthermore, two decades ago, Iran <i>was</i> brutally attacked by Iraq (with active U.S. support), so it has every right to feel threatened.

The last trump card of [[Western liberals ]] is that nuclear weapons would help sustain the anti-democratic rulers in Iran, thus preventing a democratic [[revolution ]] there. This argument got a boost a few months ago, with elections in Iraq and [[Palestine]]. Was perhaps [[Paul Wolfowitz ]] correct after all? Isn’t there a chance that (Western) [[democracy ]] <i>may</i> work and take roots in the [[Middle East]], and that this unexpected process will change the coordinates of the entire Middle East? Isn’t the ultimate unresolvability of the Middle East conflict the fact that the anti-democratic Arab regimes need [[Israel ]] as the figure of the [[Enemy ]] that legitimizes their rule? Consequently, isn’t [[Bush ]] merely accomplishing the work of [[Reagan]]? In the same way that Reagan was “naively” "naively" convinced that [[democracy ]] would undermine [[Communism ]] and that Communism would fall, thus proving all the skeptic specialists wrong, perhaps Bush will be proven right in his “naive” "naive" crusade for the democratization of the Middle East.

It is here that one approaches the crux of the matter: Such an optimistic reading relies on the problematic belief in a preestablished harmony between the global spread of multi-party [[Western democracy ]] and the [[economy|economic ]] and [[geopolitics|geopolitical ]] interests of the [[United States]]. It is precisely because this harmony can in no way be taken for granted that countries like Iran should possess [[nuclear arms ]] to constrain the [[global ]] [[hegemony ]] of the United States.