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To the editor:
The New York Times in its June 21 opinion section asked, “What was the war in Iran for?”
Both the U.S. and Israel justify their illegal and destructive June 2025 and February 2026 attacks on Iran as necessary to prevent Tehran from getting a nuclear weapon. Yet in March 2025, Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence, said that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.”
In March 2026, Gabbard at a Senate hearing said that Iran had not carried out “enrichment activities” since the June 2025 U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran. Finally, in early March 2026, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said that Iran “doesn’t have a program for building nuclear weapons currently.”
President Trump has repeatedly said Iran must never have a nuclear weapon and falsely claimed that "if we didn’t hit them with a B-2 bombers nine months ago, [June 2025], they would have a nuclear weapon now.” Prime Minister Netanyahu has repeatedly said that if Iran had a nuclear bomb, it would be an existential threat to Israel. Neither mentioned that Israel possibly has 100 nuclear weapons, although it has never acknowledged having a nuclear arsenal.
The existential threat to the entire world is the nine countries that actually possess nuclear weapons.
These are the U.S., Israel, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. They all have refused to sign The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that 95 countries have signed and 74 countries have ratified and are legally bound.
The treaty bars testing, producing, using or threatening to use these weapons of enormous mass destruction. Most importantly, if the nine nuclear-armed states became members of the TPNW, the treaty has a time-bound verified plan for the elimination of nuclear arsenals that would be irreversible.
Decades ago, Albert Einstein warned, “I know not what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
Howard Elterman
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reenjoe
Howard, I'm old enough to remember when the WMD saber-rattling involved Libya and Qaddafi. And later Iraq and Saddam Hussein.
Oddly, the same fear mongers that lead calls to oust Qaddafi, Hussein and the Ayatollah's in Iran had little to say when two Americans - Zalman Shapiro and Jonathan Pollard - gave Israel 400 pounds of the refined nuclear material they needed and the know-how to convert that material into the 100 weapons you mention in your letter. The common link between Shapiro and Pollard was Mossad Chief Rafael Eitan who bribed both Americans. As they say, with friends like this, who needs enemies.
Thursday, July 2 Report this
Valete
“To Sticks and Stones”
Mr. Elterman, I invite you to consider the reasons behind Mr. Trump’s decision to wage war against Iran. By engaging Iran in war, Mr. Trump effectively removed Iran’s threat to Israel and US-allied Arab nations—Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, and Morocco.
Friday, July 3 Report this
krell1349
No Trump made it worse, look what is going on now. A never ending war that he doesn't know how to resolve,
Wednesday, July 8 Report this