President Obama is scheduled to make a visit to Israel in a couple of weeks, his first in his presidency. Israel is a very important ally to the US, as the president stressed. But he also called the alliance "eternal". Obama's use of the word "eternal" is very rhetorically powerful, but also assumes that the US will eternally be a super-power. The reason Obama is being so reassuring towards Israel is because he wants to convey the message that he is on their side in the Iran nuclear facility events.
Iran has recently been making strides in their nuclear capabilities, supposedly. They claim that they are very close to being able to make a nuclear bomb, but many countries are skeptical of that claim. Nonetheless, Iran and Israel have a very heated relationship over land disputes.
But this brings up an interesting thought - why can the US have nuclear weapons, but deny other countries theirs? Though Iran may seem like an irrational actor, increasing economic sanctions to prevent the development of weapons may actually fuel the fire. This is similar to what Mr. Bolos said a while back - why does the US get to criticize Iran on its horrible treatment of women, when it took the US 200 years for women to get equal rights?
Though I do think Iran with nuclear weapons could be extremely dangerous. I do not know why the US gets to control them. What do you think - does the US have the right to boss around other nations? Why or why not?
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