Editor,
Six Arab nations have told the U.N. Atomic Energy Agency that they plan to pursue and master nuclear technology. This means that we face the threat of nuclear weapons being held not only by Iran, but by several other regimes swarming with and supportive of Islamists.
U.S. treatment of North Korea and Iran, both seeking nuclear technology, has emboldened Arab states. For decades, America and its allies have submitted to the extortion of North Korea, appeasing that hostile regime and showering it with money.
North Korea succeeded in going nuclear not despite, but thanks to, Western diplomacy.
Concessions to North Korea emboldened the Iranians, who are aggressively pursuing nuclear technology. America's groveling diplomatic overtures toward Iran have demonstrated that the U.S. is willing to provide economic incentives - essentially protection money - to hostile regimes bent on arming themselves.
America's shameful policies toward Iran and North Korea have made these regimes stronger and more dangerous threats. That is an unavoidable consequence of rewarding evil. Witnessing the spectacle of a lone superpower like the U.S. prostrating itself at the feet of its enemies, what malignant regime would not be encouraged to seek nuclear weapons and deploy them against us through terrorist proxies?
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We need a radically different foreign policy - a policy that upholds American self-interest on moral principle. Such a policy would punish hostile regimes, not reward them.
Damian Erasmus
UNM alumnus
