Irina Yasina

The Iranian bomb is more dangerous than all above-mentioned bombs for one simple reason: that first of all Iran hasn’t assumed any obligations not to use it. Second, the present Iranian leader was very outspoken that one of the world’s countries should be destroyed, namely Israel. It’s a regime of fanatics which doesn’t submit and will not obey any international regulations. That’s why their bomb is more dangerous. Talking about French or American bombs, we can be absolutely sure that they are never going to be used. We have seen it during the Cold War that neither America nor the Soviet Union used something from their huge nuclear arsenal. Nuclear weapons were actually a deterrent. They contributed to the countries being extremely cautious. The situation of Iran is the complete opposite. There can be no question of prudence. I’m afraid it would be blackmailing and then… well, I don’t dare to think about what could happen then, but there would be a blackmail in full blast. Thank you.

A former financial editor of The Moscow News and columnist for The Moscow Times, Irina Yasina led a delegation to the 2006 G8 summit in St. Petersburg as a board-member of the interregional pro-democracy organization Open Russia.

Kamal Boullata

Indeed, why should any nuclear bomb anywhere in the world be more dangerous than any other? To whom is an Iranian nuclear bomb more dangerous and who says an Iranian bomb is more dangerous? That is the question. Hannah Arendt once wrote that the hypocrite’s crime is that he bears false witness against himself. It is really hypocritical to think that an Iranian nuclear bomb is supposed to be more dangerous than an American, Israeli or French bomb. The USA that actually was the first to use a nuclear bomb is the same that refuses today to sign treaties to stop nuclear testing. In our region, Israel is considered part of the Western world: defending its ideals. The nuclear bombs it owns is never brought up as an issue when talking about Iran. This is what allows Germany today, even while Israel was waging a war on Lebanon, to pledge two submarine ships with nuclear warheads to Israel.

A painter famed for his works on silkscreen, Kamal Boullata is the author of the seminal study of contemporary Palestinian art, Recovery of Place.

Jwan M. Aziz

Because of the mistaken point of view that the western countries have towards the Muslim countries, which are considered to be the source of terrorism, it is assumed that the Iranian nuclear bomb is more dangerous than an American or French. So all of us should work together to put an end to this mistrustful point of view and work to build bridges of understanding and trust towards all nations of the world, in both the East and the West.

Jwan M. Aziz is the secretary-general of the Baghdad-based, non-profit organization New Horizons For Women.

Fang Lijun

This question is based on the condition that the world is fair. But it is impossible to be fair. First of all, we should think about who the world belongs to. Does the world belong to America or Iran? Obviously, it does not belong to Iran. So the Iranian bomb is more dangerous than the bombs of the other countries.

Fang Lijun has been called the leading representative of ‘Cynical Realism’, a movement in Chinese art which grew up out of the Tiananmen Square massacres.

Alvaro Restrepo

An Iranian nuclear bomb is not more dangerous. I think that a country like the United States and a country like Iran are equally fundamentalist and equally dangerous. In my opinion, any kind of fanaticism is dangerous. The fact that the United States believes it has the right to guard the world and play the guardians of global stability does not make the world safer. I think this country doesn’t have any right to possess a bomb that can destroy the entire planet. Nor do the Israelis or the French have the right to possess weapons that can destroy entire human race. I think the balance they pretend to create is not really a balance. Nobody has a right to possess weapons that can destroy the entire human race.

Choreographer Alvaro Restrepo brought modern dance to underprivileged children in Cartagena to create the ‘El Puente’ troupe.

Steve Earle

It's supposed to be more dangerous because Iran represents a fundamentalist idea of Islam in charge of a government. But that's a lie because fundamentalists are very, very powerful in the governments of both America and Israel at this point in history.

Steve Earle is the award-winning country and rock musician behind Jerusalem and The Revolution Starts Now.

Audrey Kitagawa

An Iranian nuclear bomb is not more dangerous than an American, Israeli, or French bomb. All nuclear bombs are dangerous. And they pose an inherent threat to all forms of life on this planet. The way that we frame the other, to create the face of the other, is really a propaganda tool to make it seem as if a nuclear bomb in the hands of the other is inherently more dangerous than our having nuclear bombs. So it is really the way that we fashion the thinking of our own citizens to demonize governments and citizens of other countries that have access to or the potential of creating nuclear bombs that creates that consciousness of fear to make it seem as if it's all right for us to have nuclear bombs and for others not to. But the more fundamental question is, should we have nuclear bombs at all? And the rational answer is that no one, no country, should have nuclear bombs. The danger here is that nuclear weaponry used to create a check and balance, but that is not true anymore. So our ability to have nuclear weapons as a weapon of last resort are now seeing policies changing to creating ways of incorporating them as core to our military defense arsenal

Audrey Kitagawa sits on the Executive Council of the World Commission on Global Consciousness and Spirituality and is an advisor to the World Federation of United Nations Associations.

Neela Marikkar

There is no difference. All nuclear bombs are dangerous, irrespective of where they come from. I think what is more frightening is whose hand is on the button. I think that is a greater threat. This whole question about an Iranian nuclear bomb being more dangerous, I think this is a perception that is perpetuated by interested countries, who want to demonize their perceived enemies. I mean, some years ago, the greatest fear of a nuclear bomb was seen by the Western countries as Russia and China. I mean, today nobody talks about Russia and China in the same way. I mean, it’s all changed. So it’s a question of who is your perceived enemy, and how do you want to demonize your perceived enemy. I think the focus has shifted to this part of the world for the purpose of those countries’ agendas that are putting this up. I mean, first, more recently, it was Iraq. I mean, everybody was talking about these weapons of mass destruction. So, I think, the issue really is not where the bomb originates, it is really that all nuclear bombs are dangerous, irrespective of who has that. And the greatest fear really is whose finger is on the button.

Neela Marikkar is the president of Sri Lanka First, an association of business leaders advocating for a negotiated settlement to the decades-long civil war.

Santiago Roncagliolo

Probably an Iranian nuclear bomb is considered to be more dangerous than an American, Israeli or French one, because it would be directed at targets like Israel, America and France. For the French, the North Americans and the Israelis, their own bombs are not so dangerous. What is for sure is that the news always depends on where you read it, and it is true that there is a huge imbalance of information in the case of Iran. And, in particular, I am sure that America, France or Israel will not react in a very diplomatic way if a country invades them, if the two bordering countries had military connections to all the other bordering countries — and this is the case with Iran. If aggression of this type occurs, it will occur on a large-scale: each of them takes the aggressions of the other as an excuse for their own. But I think, in the case of Iran, after the bad experience in Iraq and after the latest tour of Kofi Annan, there is a possibility, there is a hope that a way exists to resolve the nuclear debate in a diplomatic way. Evidently, resolving it in a diplomatic way means that all would have to play by the same rules: the USA, Israel, Iran would have to follow the same rules, no matter what these rules were. If one has bombs, the other has bombs. If one destroys his bombs, the other destroys his bombs. The big problem in resolving this is a mutual crisis of confidence. Iran does not trust the Western powers and vice versa. The Iranian bombs are more dangerous for the West, but although I have not read the Iranian press, I am sure that if one read the newspapers in Iran, the bombs of the West would be the dangerous ones.

Santiago Roncagliolo is a writer, journalist and the youngest recipient of the Premio Alfaguara Award for his novel, Abril Rojo.

Antoschka

It is not considered more dangerous because the bomb is only an object, which is used by people, politicians and militarists. A bomb is only a dead object. It is man that is most dangerous. This is a dangerous toy in the hands of politicians. Only a small group of people can believe that an Iraqi bomb is more dangerous than an American one. This is propaganda: what newspapers and magazines say, which are interested in the political success of America or England, in the dominance, so to speak, of the great civilized white world over other countries. It is possible to justify every act of violence. People have a tongue to tell lies. Yet I believe that many thousands of people realize that it is a lie, and that the bomb in America or France or other countries is as dangerous as the bomb in Iraq. The atom, which was discovered by a man for the benefit of human beings, is a toy in the hands of fools who think that they can gain more power by it. But, in reality, they can let the ship explode on which they sail. It is very dangerous.

Antoschka, a.k.a. Ekaterina Moshaeva, is the founder of the World Parliament of Clowns.

Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas

This question is actually a political perception in its nature. There are people who say that an Iranian nuclear bomb is more dangerous than a US or Israeli nuclear bomb. For me, that’s just to make or justify their action of doing political things or aggression against Iran. However, in the perspective of indigenous peoples, no matter where and what kind of nuclear bomb, it is still a nuclear bomb. And they have, in fact, contributed to the fear of the world’s destruction. However, the moment that a nuclear bomb or nuclear power in Iran is used by terrorists, that makes it really more dangerous than other kind of bombs located in other parts of the world. So, in short, some people use media, political influence, money and psychological brainwashing to form a public mindset that an Iranian nuclear bomb is more dangerous than other bombs. But, in the final analysis, nevertheless what kind of bomb is it? They have the same negative impact on humanity which can destroy our lives and all lifeforms.

A community leader in the Philippine province of Kalinga, Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas was a primary mobilizer behind the 1997 passage of the Indigenous People’s Rights Act.

Eliane Potiguara

Well, I’m answering this with the same question: why is the so-called Iranian terrorism more dangerous than the aggression of the United States? Because when someone stands up against something, it will be considered terrorist but when someone uses aggression, as big powers do, it will be considered defense. It would be the same thing for us indigenous people. If we are on our lands, defending ourselves, we are the terrorists, we go to jail, we suffer all the consequences of a person who could be transgressing the laws. But the powerful ones can invade our homes. Imagine what it is to have a person invading your home, entering your living room, eating in your kitchen. If you complain, you are considered dangerous. If you use a knife against this person, this knife will be more dangerous than the revolver or the gun this invader uses to threaten your daughter, to rape your daughters. So we need to see who is who, on what side we are on and what is this law that we should obey.

Eliane Potiguara is the founder and president of Brazil’s GRUMIN (Group of Indigenous Women Educators).

Robbie Conal

Because they are not us. Because they are our dialectical opposite number. They have a fundamentalist religion. We have a different fundamentalist religion. So their bombs will be directed at us. That makes them more dangerous than our bombs that wouldn’t be directed at us. Maybe it’s just a matter of which way they’re pointed — just like their so-called religions. My God or your God? My God is better than your God. My bombs will blow you up before your bombs blow me up. Israel’s bombs: where did they come from? We make those. We “sell them” to Israel. The French probably make their own bombs. They’re not going to bomb us. What can I say? It’s kind of like we’re all wrong and we’re all wrong in our special way and we could be just as easily be saying my wrong is better than your wrong. In that sense, religions are bombs. We could blow each other up with our different religions. We’re doing that. It’s silly.

Robbie Conal is a guerilla poster artist famed for his grotesque depictions of American political leaders.

Helena Norberg-Hodge

There’s no doubt that there is a great deal of hypocrisy in the notion that an Iranian bomb is more dangerous. In the current climate, there’s an understandable fear on the part of westerners to see nuclear power in the hands of the Islamic world. However, the policies of repression, the policies that lie behind the fundamentalism and the fear are policies that have been driven mainly by the west, inflicting fear and fundamentalism in other parts of the world. So we need to re-examine the roots of the violent conflict now between the Islamic world and the Western world. We need to understand that fundamentalism has grown in Christian America as much as it has in the Islamic world. And we need to understand that this fundamentalism comes out of fear. There’s a reaction against the dominant consumer culture, the violence and the pornography that’s portrayed there. Many parents, many different cultures and religious traditions want to withdraw from that, and often that leads to a closing out, a type of fundamentalist reaction against the modern world. It often also leads to a hatred of the West, to a hatred to America which is seen as having pushed these policies. So the re-examination of the historical roots of this crisis is absolutely essential. And it is citizen diplomacy that can prevent these crises from escalating further. An urgent need for a deeper dialogue again along the lines of what’s happening here with dropping knowledge, a deeper dialogue from a global point of view where civic society leaders exchange.

Helena Norberg-Hodge is the founder and director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture, a co-founder of the International Forum on Globalization and the creator of the Ladakh Project.

Ashok Gangadean

Again, this question really is symptomatic: supposed by whom? We live in a politics of fear and distrust. When we are living in an egocentric kind of culture that has a distrust of the other, that objectifies the other and alienates the other. And that estrangement is always a politics of fear and suspicion and arrogance. And so the question is calling into mind all of these issues. Obviously, a nuclear bomb in Iranian hands and setting is inherently no more dangerous than an American bomb or French or Israeli or any other bomb. But the question is who is holding the bomb and who is looking at the other? And so in this politics and culture of fear and suspicion and alienation of the other, we are going to always demonize the other antecedently. And I think that’s really what this question is opening up. It is the demonization of the other that comes inherently in an ego-mental and egocentric form of politics. If you can enter into a dialogic and integral form of political life and cultural life, where we see ourselves and the other and don’t automatically objectify and estrange the other with suspicion in a hierarchical way, is a new question in terms of equity and equality across the borders of our worlds and our views. And I think that’s what is very interesting to me about this question.

Professor of Philosophy at Haverford College, Ashok Gangadean is the director of the Global Dialogue Institute and the co-convenor of the World Commission on Global Consciousness and Spirituality.

Anthony Arnove

This is a very timely and important question and I really appreciate the fact that we are discussing this today, because the United States is trying to use the script that it used for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 for a possible war on Iran. They are just substituting the letter “n” for the letter “q” in many of the speeches and documents that were used to sell us that illegal and unjust war. And so we see hysteria really being manufactured very consciously by political elites, particularly in the United States, and then recycled uncritically by a subservient establishment press that says Iran is a tremendous threat to the world, because of its development of nuclear technology. Now, the interesting thing is that Iran is at least five to ten years away from being able to develop a single nuclear weapon, perhaps longer given the difficulty of setting up a cascade of centrifuges that’s necessary for enriching uranium to the grade that it can be used to make weapons-grade uranium, let alone develop the technology for the device itself and then the delivery of such a device. But, even if one grants that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon and could achieve construction of one in the next five to ten years, we are meant to ignore the fact that Israel has more than 200 nuclear weapons today and is not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and also, continues to deny its nuclear program and allows no inspection of its nuclear program. Nothing is ever said about that. The reality is the concern about Iran is a concern about a state which is not aligned with US interests. When Iran was under the Shah and was suppressing its own population, the US actually helped it develop nuclear technology.

Anthony Arnove is the author of Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal and the co-editor with Howard Zinn of Voices of a People’s History of the United States.

Mahsa Shekarloo

Why are we talking about a nuclear bomb that doesn’t even exist? Iran does not have a nuclear bomb. Who is saying that Iran wants a nuclear bomb? Who is creating a stir about Iran’s so-called nuclear intentions? That is the question that must be asked. Who is creating a stir about Iran’s so-called nuclear intentions? The same powers that currently hold nuclear bombs — the U.S., Israel — they’re creating the stir, with the help of a few European nations. They are trying to frighten their peoples with threats to their safety. Who is really threatening their safety? Is it Iran or is it their own governments? If we’re so worried about nuclear warfare, then the obvious answer is to address those countries, to challenge those countries that currently have nuclear bombs. It is the U.S. that apparently has considered the use of nuclear bombs against Iran, according to an article by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker. So who is the real threat here? Which government is really threatening world safety?

Mahsa Shekarloo is the co-founder of the Tehran-based, non-profit Women’s Cultural Center and the creator of the feminist online journal Bad Jens.

Susan George

Well, no nuclear bomb is more or less dangerous. They are all horribly dangerous. And, we’ve really let Pandora’s Box be opened and go all over the place. But, let’s say simply that the Iranian bomb does not exist. It is very very far from happening. They do not have the capacity. And the Iranian “bomb” is largely a product of American propaganda, which is looking for an excuse to continue to change society as it keeps saying in the Middle East, which is to say to get control over the natural resources of the Middle East. So it is using the Iranian “bomb”, which is an imaginary one for the moment, as an excuse possibly for bombing later on. That is what many reporters are saying who know more about this subject than I do. But I would say that Bush himself is responsible. If there is an Iranian bomb, we can put it down to George Bush because he is the one who has torn up the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. He is the one who has increased the spending on nukes. He is the one that has allowed his generals and his people in the Pentagon to go for what they call “limited” or “deep penetration” nuclear weapons that are supposed to be able to shatter the underground hideouts of people like Bin Laden. But, if they don’t know where Bin Laden is, it’s a big deal to have the weapons, nuclear or otherwise. These nuclear weapons if ever used would be 10 times, 20 times, 50 times more dangerous than Hiroshima. The radiation fallout would be infinitely greater than the bombs that we have known and seen exploded up to now. So all of this is totally irresponsible.

Susan George is the former vice president of ATTAC France, the chair of the planning board of Amsterdam’s Transnational Institute and the author of Another World Is Possible if…

Sihem Bensedrine

This is the question we are asking ourselves throughout the Arab world. Personally, as a defender of human rights, I would prefer that no country has the bomb. I think that the atomic bomb is something very dangerous which should not be decided about solely by politicians. But what is alarming is the fact that on the one side there is a huge debate about the Iranian bomb which, as yet, does not exist and, on the other hand, there is huge acceptance of Israel, Russia, India and Pakistan having the bomb. The Iranian state is encircled by states which have many bombs — not only one bomb — and in this way, it seems to be disproportionately unfair to demand that only Iran disarm. That is unbalanced and unequal. So we can only achieve peace in the world with the disarming of all states — not with the disarming of only one of them. So what I am asking for is that the atomic bomb be banned all over the world and that all countries bind themselves to not possess the atomic bomb.

Sihem Bensedrine is the editor of the French-Arabic online journal Kalima and the chief spokesperson of the National Council for Freedom in Tunisia.

Jonathan Stack

It's not more dangerous. In fact, it's less dangerous because it doesn't exist yet. The question is why do we perceive it as more dangerous because we fear what doesn't exist more oftentimes than we fear what does exist. That's the nature of fear. It's irrational. On the other hand, the reason why we focus more on the Iranian bomb than we focus on the Israeli or the French or the American or any other nuclear bomb is because it's preventable still. It does not yet exist, we’re told, and because it doesn't exist, it can still be prevented from existing. The bottom-line is the more people and places that have nuclear weapons, the more likely it is that eventually they’ll be used. So it's not that it's more dangerous in the abstract sense, it's that it's more preventable in the concrete sense… During those years of the Cold War, we lived under the constant threat and fear of nuclear devastation and destruction. There are 80% less nuclear weapons on the planet now. But, that doesn't mean there’s any less dangerous that they’ll be used because, as they get dispersed and are more readily available, and tactical nuclear weapons — all these terms — the idea that they could be triggered to our collective and ultimate destruction is not an abstraction, it's a real thing. It just seems to have become less of a factor in our day-to-day lives. I think that that's interesting. I wonder where are those bombs, the 8,000 that still exist and how much more powerful are they than the one that we dropped on Hiroshima. It’s just one more thing to worry about, one more thing we need to worry about.

Jonathan Stack is the director of the Academy Award-nominated documentary, The Farm, and the Emmy award-winning Liberia: An Uncivil War.

Sohrab Mahdavi

It’s actually less dangerous, I think.

Sohrab Mahdavi is the editor of Tehran Avenue, an online cultural journal covering the Iranian capital.