Mueller's argument in his current work, as outlined in an article in The National Interest last year, is as follows:

1. The "obsessive quest to Control nuclear proliferation — particularly since the end of the Cold War — has been substantially counterproductive and has often inflicted dire costs." Examples include the Iraq War, which was sold by the Bush Administration as the only preventative act to keep nuclear and other WMDs from Saddam Hussein's weakened state of Iraq. The sanctions in the 1990s which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children could also be included, as well as a potential conflict with Iran.
2. While the fear that terrorists themselves would obtain atomic weapons and/or other WMD has taken root in the national security community, it is "highly improbable" that either a rogue nation would give these terrorist groups these weapons, nor that the groups themselves could develop them. If a nation gave these weapons to a terrorist group, and the source was discovered, "international retribution could be unfathomably fierce." It is also incredibly unlikely that a rogue group could obtain all the necessary materials to create such a weapon, or gain access to the facilities to put it together, and then control it thereafter. Even when examining the supposed evidence that Al-Qaeda is seeking out the bomb, it is clear that they haven't even come close to the first steps.
3. Countries that do obtain nuclear weapons do so either for prestige (France) or deterrence (Israel, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea). While Mueller emphasizes that he does not like nuclear proliferation, and is clear the he considers "dissuading more countries from obtaining nuclear weapons to be quite a good idea and preventing terrorists from getting them to be an even better one," many of the actions performed in the name f nuclear proliferation have caused more harm than good. While we would rather Iran did not have such weapons, there is no reason to believe that if they got them, they would actually use them.

The Seminal: Do the politicians and security experts who perpetuate the importance of the issue of nuclear proliferation really fear it, or do they just see it as a beneficial issue for themselves?

John Mueller: They really are genuinely afraid. When the issue is raised, people get hysterical — but countries that do get the bomb never use it. Even "unstable" countries like China at least so far have not used theirs. They basically use it for deterrence and prestige. Sure it would be nice if they didn't get the weapons, but if the policies to prevent them from getting them cause hundreds to thousands of deaths, then the strategy must be rethought.

The Seminal: Do you think that these so-called "unstable" countries are more apt to try to get nuclear weapons due to the actions of the U.S. and other developed countries in the name of non-proliferation?

John Mueller: If that includes real or assumed threats — it is hardly surprising that these countries may feel the need to get nuclear weapons. the best way to reduce their incentive is to not threaten them. An example of this is putting Iran in the "Axis of Evil." After Iraq we basically have been saying to Iran, "You're Next." In 2003 John Bolton said about Iran, "Take a Number." So Iran's reaction isn't surprising.

The Seminal: Are there any major threats to our security or issues of concern to America;s safety that we are under-reacting to?

John Mueller: No. Since World War Two we have consistently over-exaggerated threats. Nasser was another Hitler. Sukarno was another Hitler. Qaddafi, Khomeini, and of course Saddam Hussein have all been called the next Hitler. None of them are good people, but to put them into the same class as Hitler is absurd.

The Seminal: What about Chemical Weapons or Biological Weapons?

John Mueller: Chemical weapons are not really WMD. Despite the view of them, only 7/10 of 1% of World War One deaths were caused by chemical weapons. They are very unstable and unpredictable. Biological weapons, in most cases, are very difficult to work with and control. To think that some rogue groups will be able to successfully use them when developed countries still don't view them as viable weapons, is unrealistic.

The Seminal: Is there a sensible approach to controlling Nuclear Weapons and other threats?

John Mueller: We should definitely keep an eye on biological developments and scientific knowledge in those arenas. There should also be more on the ground policing of chemical plants and other sites of concern. We can use normal safety precautions to address them. You don't leave dynamite lying around, there is control over guns — that kind of thing.

I also believe this to be true of nuclear power, yet another ill-conceived "solution" to the dual fossil fuel-shortage/climate change conundrum in which we presently find ourselves.

In fact, harnessing nuclear energy may qualify as an even stupider idea than harnessing biofuels, only because it represents humans' repeating the exact same mistakes they have made with respect to fossil fuels.

Here again, primarily for my own benefit, is a rapid review of human history: Humans discover what they believe to be an endless source of energy-intensive materials buried in the Earth, in the form of coal, natural gas, and crude oil. They begin extracting and burning these so-called "fossil fuels," slowly at first but then at an exponentially increasing pace, thereby growing a massive, unprecedented global economy. Then they realize these fossil fuels (a) are not in fact endless, and will soon run out, and (b) emit, when burned, gases with dangerous climate-warming potential, which are rapidly double-glazing and overheating the atmosphere in such a way that will soon make their planet uninhabitable.

"Shit," they say to themselves. "We're going to have to find another source of energy."

So what do they do? They look into the ground and find a different material, this time called uranium, which they again determine to be abundant in supply. They learn how to harness its energy, and when they discover it can be done without releasing any of those climate-warming gases, they cry "hallelujah!" They start extracting and using these new materials, slowly at first, and then more and more rapidly, giddy with the thought of switching their still-growing global economy over to nuclear power. (As they did with fossil fuels, they disregard the horrific environmental damage caused by uranium mining.) Humans forget, however, two important facts: (a) while abundant right now, this new material is not endless, with some predicting known resources running out in 70 years at current rates of extraction, and (b) while nuclear power plants do not produce climate-warming emissions, they do produce highly radioactive waste that can kill or mutate all life to which it is exposed for tens of thousands of years after extraction. Both the "source" and "sink" problems are repeated. Humans are back where they started — short on energy and inhabiting a profoundly polluted planet — except now nuclear weaponry is a perfected science.

Why oh why would we EVER start down this path again? We have no choice but to find an alternative to fossil fuels if we want to sustain our economy, but inherent in our efforts to find an alternative is an obligation to find one that will not just leave us in a similar predicament in a couple of generations. Humans should be exploring and cultivating energy sources that are precisely what fossil fuels are not: truly renewable and truly clean. Nuclear power is neither.

Sadly, however, many of America's leaders (along with France's, Japan's, and now Britain's) have decided to ignore these facts and pursue the "quick fix" promise of nuclear.

One American politician in particular has been attaching his name to nuclear power: presidential hopeful John McCain. McCain once struck us all as a progressive environmentalist, when in 2003 he and Senator Joe Lieberman introduced the country's first piece of federal legislation mandating a cap-and-trade scheme for greenhouse gas emissions. The bill failed, and has since been reintroduced alongside more aggressive bills. However, later versions of the bill included one major alteration: massive subsidies for the nuclear industry.

Though McCain deserved credit in 2003 for his willingness to tackle the then-taboo subject of global warming, his climate rhetoric today has become softer, while his support of nuclear power is unequivocal. Throughout his presidential campaign he has been saying things like this:

We need to unleash the power and innovation of the marketplace in order to meet our environmental challenges. Right now safe, climate-friendly nuclear energy is a critical way both to improve the quality of our air and to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources.

And this:

Nuclear power is going to have to be part of any equation if we're truly going to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

"Going to have to be…"?! Phrases like this should always raise the question "Says who?" Nuclear power was categorically vetoed by a number of developed countries (e.g. Australia, Norway, Denmark, and New Zealand) as being too dangerous to pursue, and nuclear power plants have been decommissioned in other countries (e.g. Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and Spain) that initially considered them to be a good investment. At some stage those energy-strapped countries realized that nuclear power does not have to be a part of anything, just as it doesn't have to be a part of our energy portfolio in the U.S. Moreover, when making any statements about energy "equations" McCain never entertains those other teeny tiny energy sources — solar, wind, and biomass — which along with geothermal, tidal, and small-scale hydroelectric constitute the only real environmentally and economically viable "solutions" to our energy problems we have identified so far.

Joseph Romm offers some additional, important observations of McCain's position (from Grist):

You can tell a politician is being wishy-washy when he or she uses the phrase "dependence on foreign energy sources." There is really only one foreign energy source Americans care much about — oil. It comes from unstable and undemocratic regions, and our trade deficit in it now exceeds $1 billion a day.

But nuclear power can't significantly reduce US oil consumption or imports — because very, very little electricity in this country is generated by burning petroleum (only 1.6 percent of electricity in 2006 came from oil). [In the future that could change when a significant number of vehicles on the road substitute electricity for gasoline, but that is not imminent.]

And since McCain presumably knows that, he uses the catch-all phrase "foreign energy sources" to try to make it look like nuclear power is homegrown and patriotic. But is it? In fact, we import the vast majority of the uranium we use, so it is an even bigger "foreign energy source."

So McCain's spiel reveals another great appeal of nuclear — its supposed benefits for national security. But while it is true that the U.S. possesses considerable uranium reserves, it also once possessed considerable oil reserves, and inevitably had to turn abroad when domestic demand for oil took off. Here is an indication of where we will be turning when the U.S. depletes its own uranium resources:

Known Recoverable Resources of Uranium

	tonnes U	percentage of world
Australia	1,143,000	24%
Kazakhstan	816,000	17%
Canada	444,000	9%
USA	342,000	7%
South Africa	341,000	7%
Namibia	282,000	6%
Brazil	279,000	6%
Niger	225,000	5%
Russian Fed.	172,000	4%
Uzbekistan	116,000	2%
Ukraine	90,000	2%
Jordan	79,000	2%
India	67,000	1%
China	60,000	1%
Other	287,000	6%
World total	4,743,000

Reasonably Assured Resources plus Inferred Resources, to US$ 130/kg U, 1/1/05, from OECD NEA & IAEA, Uranium 2005: Resources, Production and Demand, ("Red Book").

Australia and Canada notwithstanding, this list doesn't spark a great deal of confidence that nuclear energy will relieve us of our dependence on foreign, less-than-democratic governments for our energy sources.

More to the point, the debate surrounding nuclear power (and crop-based biofuels) is too often mired in questions of what is "less bad" or "more tolerable" environmentally than fossil fuels; or of which alternative will pose a global crisis slightly less apocalyptic than global warming. This is all bullshit. Converting half the world's food into fuel or filling the Earth's crust with millions of tons of radioactive waste are not solutions to climate change, and advocating them based on their relative preferability to global warming is a dangerous game to play.

Finally, as an equal opportunist in my criticisms, I feel it necessary to point out that all three leading candidates support ethanol, which I consider highly unfortunate. Though I am a supporter of Barack Obama, I oppose his strong advocacy of ethanol, but am encouraged by his pledge to invest $150 billion over ten years in renewable energies that include solar and wind. (Hillary Clinton has promised a fund a third that size to do the same.) Both Democratic candidates have expressed aversion to nuclear power, while John McCain stands alone in his love for it.

To compare the candidates, please see this highly informative chart by Grist. (And if you want to see what an environmental platform ought to look like, don't forget to take a look at Ralph Nader.)

President Bush and like-minded individuals have been pushing nuclear power as our methadone for years; a clean, safe, autonomous, zero-emission form of energy production, they assure. Well, if the fact of Bush's support isn't enough to dissuade you, a sober analysis of the reality of nuclear energy should be. First, the cheerleader-ing:

Nuclear power is one of America's safest sources of energy … all without producing a single pound of air pollution and greenhouse gases. — June 2005

Nuclear power generates large amounts of low-cost electricity without emitting air pollution or greenhouse gases. Yet nuclear power now produces only about 20 percent of America's electricity. It has the potential to play an even greater role — February 2006

I believe that it is essential that we have a comprehensive energy policy to be able to deal with the challenges we are going to face in the 21st century - whether that be energy independence, or economic security or good environmental policy. And at the core of that policy must be electricity generated from nuclear power — June 2007

I strongly believe the United States must promote nuclear power here in the United States. Nuclear power, if you're interested in economic growth and environmental stewardship, there's no better way to achieve both of them than through the promotion of nuclear power. Nuclear power is limitless. It's one existing source that generates a massive amount of electricity without causing air pollution or any greenhouse gases. — March 2008

In keeping with his raw neoliberalist stance, Bush portrayed nuclear energy as an industry hobbled by over-regulation. If we could just cut the red tape, we could reap its "limitless" potential. As a step in that direction, we got The Energy Policy Act of 2005. Passed by a Republican congress and signed into law by President Bush, the Act chipped away at regulations, and offered incentives for nuclear power production.

I, like many of my peers, cringe at the thought of a renewed emphasis on nuclear energy. Hiroshima, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Dr. Strangelove; all taught me that nuclear = bad.

But could this be a generational bias? One that we need to sniff out and snuff out in order to receive the cleanly bounty of nuclear energy? After all, some environmentalists have dropped their objections, and are now embracing nuclear as mother nature's guardian.

The long story made short is "no, it's not a generational bias. There are serious problems with the production of nuclear energy that remain unaddressed to this day." Most seriously, we have no way of responsibly dealing with the radioactive waste produced.

At present, there is no way to dispose of the waste. Our only option is to "safely" tuck it away. But the United States, and no other country that produces nuclear energy, has a permanent way of doing so. We simply stash it in the nuclear power plant that produces it. If that weren't myopic enough for you, here's the cherry: by recent estimates, we'll be out of space by 2014.

The world's first-ever permanent radioactive waste storage facility is being built underneath Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but that won't be finished until 2017. So, our best means of dealing with the poisonous byproduct of nuclear energy production is to hide it under a mountain in Nevada, and we're still a decade away from realizing that bold plan. Nevertheless, Bush irresponsibly lobbies for the expansion of our domestic nuclear energy capabilities.

Without a "cradle to grave" system, nuclear energy will never be the answer. We need an energy plan that's not guided by the nuclear industry, or the agricultural lobby, and certainly not the Bush administration. The world depends on it.

Follow the links for the candidates' proposed energy plans: Obama, Clinton, McCain

Are you a small, under-respected nation? Do you want to get the attention of the "big boys" and be taken seriously on the world stage? All you need to do is obtain a nuclear weapon and you'll be rolling in cash, favors, and prestige.

This seems to be the message the U.S. and others in the so-called "first world" are sending. Get a nuke and we'll take you seriously. Until then, we can and will ignore you. Clearly, this is a counterproductive message to send, as it encourages nuclear proliferation.

Instead of pushing countries like Iran up against the wall, a more balanced approach of carrots and sticks seems to work better. Case in point, as the saber-rattling coming from the Bush administration died down after our Intelligence Community concluded Iran shelved its nuclear program, Iran has continued to cooperate with weapons inspectors and allies have been slowly pressuring Iran to come to the table for talks.

In February, the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded that once again, Iran is continuing to make steady progress in assuring the world it isn't building a nuclear weapon:

The full text of the much awaited IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear activities can be found here. It is an important report that finally brings an end to almost all the technical issues that in the past five years have concerned the IAEA regarding Iran’s declared civilian nuclear program. Last August the Agency and Iran laid out a Workplan to resolve issues that related to Iran’s past activities and on every issue, except one, Iran’s responses were deemed by the IAEA as either consistent with the Agency’s own finding or not inconsistent with them.

In this report the Agency once again states unambiguously that it “has been able to continue to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran.”

Additionally, in the last few months, Iran has given the IAEA its nuclear reactor designs and reported to the IAEA on implementing internationally recognized safeguards against diverting nuclear material towards weapons production. Though progress is slow, Iran seems to be moving forward towards full disclosure of its program.

Iran's progress highlights the wisdom of a less aggressive approach. Saber-rattling only caused Iran's rulers to dig in their heels, content to play David to our Goliath. If the only thing Iran was hearing from the outside world was aggression, building a bomb made sense.

Now, with the pressure off, Iran is cooperating and new avenues of leverage have opened. Russia, historically a staunch supporter of Iran's right to enrich uranium, yesterday publicly pressured Iran to talk with the U.S. and other U.N. Security Council nations:

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin gave his statements in response to Iran's insistence that any negotiations to be had regarding the nuclear development program will take place merely between them, and the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

"Their statements of a negative nature towards the negotiations are certainly not helpful and not constructive," said Churkin, as quoted by Press TV. "We hope that will change, because the only way to resolve this matter politically and diplomatically is through negotiations."

When Russia advocates Iran take an internationalist approach to the nuclear question, you know something has changed.

The issue really boils down to one of trust. You can either take Iran's actions as evidence of good faith, or you can continue to cast suspicion on everything they do. I'm not exactly sure what Iran did to earn our unending suspicion (though they have every right to be suspicious of us, given our history in their country), but at this juncture, it seems they deserve the benefit of the doubt.

As long as Iran is cooperating with the IAEA and moving ever so slowly towards reconciliation, blowhards like CIA Director Michael V. Hayden need to shut their mouths. Saber-rattling hasn't worked here in the past, and it won't work in the future. We should return Iran's gestures of good faith - especially surrounding issues as dire as nuclear proliferation - and we should continue the diplomacy and conversation.

There's a lot at stake. Let's not blow it.

(and I apologize for the site outage just now, doing some upgrading…)

Check back soon for the new issue!