70 years of Hiroshima: the unlearned lessons of 1945

70 years of Hiroshima: the unlearned lessons of 1945

Justifications for bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki are ultimately based on the idea that yardsticks applicable to most nations are inapplicable to the US government and its allies. The same presumption has often undermined international arms control efforts. The mainstream Western discourse on Iran holds that it would be undesirable for Tehran to acquire a nuclear bomb—but simply ignores the fact that US or Israeli possession of nuclear arsenals is equally problematic.