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Eight Reasons Why Waltz Theory On Nuclear Iran Is Wrong

A recent article in Foreign Affairs by Kenneth Waltz made the provocative claim that Iran should possess nuclear weapons — for the sake of global stability. Hossein Mousavian and Kaveh Afrasiabi strongly disagree. They argue that Waltz's argument relies on erroneous assumptions about Iran that generate "a dangerous fallacy."
Laura Rockwood, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) legal officer, Herman Nackaerts IAEA Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Safeguards, and Iran's IAEA ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh (centre L-R) brief the media ast they attend a news conference after talks at the U.N. headquarters in Vienna June 8, 2012. The U.N. nuclear watchdog and Iran began a new round of talks on Friday in an attempt to seal a framework deal to resume a long-stalled probe into suspected nuclear weapon researc

In a recent influential article in Foreign Affairs, Kenneth Waltz has challenged the conventional wisdom on Iran’s nuclear program and asserted that Iran “should get the bomb.”

Written by one of America’s most influential international-relations theorists, Waltz’s article makes a strong case for Iranian nuclear proliferation. He argues that this would bring more stability to the Middle East by ending Israel’s destabilizing nuclear monopoly and introducing a much-needed nuclear balance in the turbulent region.

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