Bennett Ramberg quite clearly ignores the elephant in the room.
Israel.
Israel since the 1960s has twisted every rule, broken every agreement, likely assassinated a number of people, and engaged in theft and espionage to achieve nuclear-power status.
Israel employs the implicit threat of these weapons - and sophisticated delivery systems - time and time again to get its way in the Middle East.
Israel even engaged in highly illicit proliferation when it helped apartheid South Africa to achieve nuclear-power status, the weapons being removed by the United States with the change in government.
The great powers allowed all of this to happen, even assisting in some cases.
How can they turn around and pretend such self-righteousness over others? Whether North Korea or Pakistan or Iran?
The existence of Israel's weapons is one of the main impulses causing others to seek the weapons.
Who would want to forever be under the shadow of a state like Israel, one that has shown half a century of human-rights abuse, aggressive war against all of its neighbors, and the regular laying down of ultimatums to everyone for a thousand miles around.
We'd have a better Middle East under a period of MAD, just as we have a better Europe today.
But Israel and its apologists do not want that. They want the continued hegemony of Israel over a vast set of lands.
