President Trump on Thursday emphatically insisted that he will not use a nuclear weapon against Iran as the conflict nears its third month.
Speaking with reporters in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump said it was “stupid” that he was even asked about the possibility of using a nuclear weapon against Iran.
“No,” Mr. Trump said in response to the question. “Why would I use a nuclear weapon, when we’ve totally and in a very conventional way decimated them without it?”
“I wouldn’t use it. A nuclear weapon should never be allowed to be used by anybody,” the president continued.
Mr. Trump on social media has threatened to “blow up the rest” of Iran and “a whole civilization will die tonight,” raising speculation that he was considering using a nuclear weapon against Iran.
On Wednesday, Sen. Roger Marshall, Kansas Republican, suggested that Mr. Trump should consider using a nuclear bomb against Iran, comparing the situation to Iran with Japan during World War II. President Harry S. Truman ultimately dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan to end the war.
“Previous presidents have had the same issues on what to do,” Mr. Marshall said during a Newsmax interview. “Think about President Truman’s decision on dropping the bomb and D-Day for President Eisenhower.”
Since World War II, though, an overwhelming taboo has developed against using nuclear weapons, and states with them have accepted defeat in conventional wars rather than resolve the situation by using those weapons.
For example, the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam and the Soviet Union did the same in Afghanistan despite having lost thousands of their own soldiers’ lives. And France and Britain both accepted the disintegration of their colonial empires despite having nuclear weapons.
