askchapo

Maybe I'm idealistic but I think that people would be horrified. A lot of Americans would brush it off and forget about it but I think that it would cause permanent damage to America's perception in the world and in foreign relations. I've heard people say that the WW2 nukes were or weren't justified, but never that they don't care. I'm sure those people are out there but the perception of those nukes comes across very differently because it was the first use of atomic weapons, and because that war is and was seen as justified. I don't think that this war will be seen as being justified to the same extent.

Human beings aren't rational. The same way that 12 people dying from systemic, indirect, capitalist violence doesn't pull the heartstrings like a shooting does, the dropping of an atomic bomb, seen fucking live and filmed from 10,000 different angles will hit people in places they didn't know they had. Of course many will cheer it, and many won't care. But I think, that this will damage the US' reputation more than supporting the genocide did/does.

I believe that if the US nukes Iran, it will be remembered as the day the US empire fell, or at least the beginning of the end. There are lines that can't be crossed, points of no return, and while genociding brown people is not one of them, dropping a nuke is. Its an upsetting of the order, a permanent mistrust and wariness that will follow the US for a century.