The accusation that Iran seeks nuclear weapons has continued for decades despite the absence of decisive proof. This persistence itself is revealing. It suggests that the accusation serves a purpose independent of its factual basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lifton\u2019s framework helps us see that purpose. In genocidal or near-genocidal contexts, \u201cmirror imaging\u201d is not a rhetorical accident\u2014it is a functional necessity. By attributing one\u2019s own potential or past actions to the other, one creates a moral alibi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Lifton writes: \u201cThe enemy is assigned the role of would-be destroyer, thereby justifying one\u2019s own destructive initiative.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is the logic that transforms suspicion into certainty. It is not that Iran has nuclear weapons; it is that Iran is imagined as the kind of actor who would inevitably use them irresponsibly. That imagined future is then treated as present reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thus, preemption becomes defense. Sanctions become protection. Isolation becomes a necessity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To fully understand how nuclear deterrence takes root in states like North Korea, one must revisit the foundational trauma of the Korean War. This is a conflict whose scale of destruction is often minimized in Western discourse but remains central to North Korean state consciousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the Korean Peninsula was divided in the early 1950s, the war that followed was marked by extraordinary levels of aerial bombardment carried out by the United States. Whole country\u2014 towns, and villages in the North were systematically destroyed. U.S. Air Force doctrine at the time evolved into what was bluntly described as bombing \u201ceverything that moved.\u201d The effect was catastrophic. Estimates suggest that hundreds of thousands if not millions of North Korean civilians perished under this campaign, with infrastructure obliterated to an extent rarely matched in modern warfare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
General Curtis LeMay, who oversaw much of what they called “the strategic bombing,” later reflected with remarkable honesty that U.S. forces had \u201cburned down just about every city in North Korea.\u201d This was not incidental destruction; it was totalizing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One American military officer was quoted saying\u2014 an \u201caverage good day\u201d– pilots in the Korean War \u201cdropped 70,000 gallons of napalm.\u201d The officer dubbed the burning jellied gasoline \u201ccooking oil.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In May 1951, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the former supreme commander of the U.S testified to Congress, and said: \u201cThe war in Korea has already almost destroyed that nation of 20 million people. I have never seen such devastation. I have seen, I guess, as much blood and disaster as any living man, and it just curdled my stomach, the last time I was there. After I looked at that wreckage and those thousands of women and children \u2026 I vomited.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the most devastating episodes involved the bombing of hydroelectric dams, including those controlling vital agricultural irrigation systems. When these dams were destroyed, massive floods surged downstream, wiping out crops, homes, and entire communities. The resulting humanitarian consequences\u2014starvation, displacement, and long-term ecological damage\u2014extended far beyond the immediate impact of the bombs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From the perspective of North Korea, this was not merely war; it was near-existential annihilation. The memory of overwhelming vulnerability\u2014of being unable to defend against a technologically superior adversary capable of inflicting total destruction\u2014became embedded in the state\u2019s strategic psyche.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here, the concept of deterrence takes on a radically different meaning. For the United States, deterrence is often framed as a stabilizing doctrine, a rational system designed to prevent war. But for North Korea, deterrence emerges as a response to lived historical trauma. It is not an abstract theory; it is a lesson drawn from experience: without a credible means of retaliation, destruction is not hypothetical\u2014it is inevitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this sense, North Korea\u2019s pursuit of nuclear weapons is not simply an act of defiance; it is an attempt to reverse the asymmetry that defined the Korean War. Nuclear capability becomes the ultimate equalizer, the only guarantee that the devastation of the 1950s cannot be repeated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This does not justify the dangers posed by nuclear proliferation. But it does expose the selective amnesia in global discourse. When the United States condemns North Korea\u2019s nuclear program without acknowledging the historical conditions that produced it, it engages in the very pattern Lifton describes: the erasure of one\u2019s own role in creating the perceived threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The result is a closed loop of accusation and response. North Korea builds weapons to prevent another catastrophe; the United States interprets this as aggression; sanctions and threats intensify; and the original fear\u2014of annihilation\u2014becomes ever more entrenched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this light, deterrence is revealed not as a neutral principle, but as a deeply contextual one\u2014shaped by history, memory, and power. For those who have never experienced total devastation, deterrence may appear as a strategic choice. For those who have, it becomes a perceived necessity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Deterrence as an abused concept<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n At the center of this discourse lies the concept of deterrence\u2014a term so normalized that its underlying violence often goes unexamined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Deterrence, in its simplest form, is the threat of overwhelming retaliation designed to prevent an adversary from acting. During the Cold War, deterrence evolved into the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), a system in which global stability depended on the credible threat of total annihilation. It was, as many critics have noted, a precarious equilibrium built not on trust or justice, but on terror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lifton\u2019s work is particularly insightful here. He argues that nuclear deterrence requires a form of psychological numbing\u2014a distancing from the human consequences of one\u2019s own policies: \u201cOne must avoid imagining the reality of mass death even while basing one\u2019s security upon its possibility.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the absurdity of deterrence. It demands that leaders simultaneously believe in and disbelieve in the use of nuclear weapons. They must believe enough to make the threat believable, but disbelieve enough to avoid moral paralysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this sense, deterrence is not merely a strategy; it is a form of collective \u201cdoubling\u201d at the geopolitical level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The global nuclear order is often presented as a neutral system governed by treaties such as the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Yet, in practice it is uneven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The accepted nuclear powers\u2014United States, Russia, China, France, and United Kingdom\u2014are permitted to maintain their arsenals indefinitely, with only unclear commitments to disarmament. For the time being, states outside this club are subjected to extreme scrutiny, sanctions, and, in some cases, military intervention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This asymmetry reveals that nonproliferation is not purely about preventing nuclear war. It is also about preserving a particular distribution of power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The case of Israel\u2014widely understood to possess nuclear weapons but not officially acknowledged\u2014further underscores this point. Its arsenal exists in a state of strategic ambiguity, largely unchallenged by the same actors who aggressively police Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus, the question is not simply why Iran is targeted, but why others are not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Historical Memory and Genuine Fear<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The relationship between the United States and Iran cannot be understood without acknowledging the legacy of the 1953 coup, which overthrew Iran\u2019s elected government under Mohammad Mosaddegh and installed the Shah. That intervention\u2014and the decades of authoritarian rule that followed\u2014left a deep imprint on Iranian political consciousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here again, Lifton\u2019s insights are illuminating. He emphasizes that perpetrators often carry an unacknowledged awareness of their own past actions, which then shapes their perception of others:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere is a sense, often unconscious, that the roles could be reversed\u2014that one could become the victim of the very violence one has inflicted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the psychological root of mirror accusation. It is not purely projection; it is prediction grounded in historical experience. The fear that Iran might act aggressively is inseparable from the memory that the United States itself has acted aggressively in the region, openly threatening \u201cregime change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this light, the nuclear accusation becomes a form of anticipatory self-defense against a feared reversal of roles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To claim the authority to police others requires more than power; it requires legitimacy. The United States derives this legitimacy from a narrative of responsibility, stability, and leadership. But that narrative is diluted by the very realities it seeks to obscure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How does a nation that has used nuclear weapons, maintains a vast arsenal, and reserves the right to use them preemptively claim moral superiority over a nation that has not?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The answer lies not in logic, but in narrative control. Lifton and Markusen warn that such narratives are sustained through repetition and institutional reinforcement: \u201cIdeological structures\u2026 make extreme behavior seem not only acceptable but necessary.\u201d Once established, these structures are remarkably resilient. They shape public perception, guide policy decisions, and marginalize dissenting voices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More Honest Reckoning<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n To question the nuclear narrative around Iran is not to deny the complexities of international security. It is to insist on intellectual and moral consistency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If nuclear weapons are inherently dangerous\u2014and they are\u2014then their danger does not depend on who possesses them. If deterrence is a necessary evil, then it must be acknowledged as such, not sanitized into a virtue. And if nonproliferation is a global good, then it must be pursued universally, not selectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Above all, it requires confronting the psychological mechanisms that distort perception and justify inequality. Mirror accusations are not vestiges of past genocides; they are active forces in contemporary politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lifton\u2019s work leaves us with a sobering insight: the line between defense and aggression is often drawn not by reality, but by narrative. And when that narrative is built on projection rather than truth\u2014it becomes not a safeguard against catastrophe, but a pathway toward it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the end, the question is not whether the United States can police the world. It is whether the world can afford a system in which those who possess the greatest capacity for destruction also claim the exclusive right to define what constitutes a threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Until that question is honestly challenged\u2014nuclear deterrence will remain what it has always been: not a guarantee of peace, but a fragile equilibrium sustained by fear, sustained by projection\u2014and sustained, above all, by the refusal to look in the mirror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The lasting power of accusation in international politics lies not in its truth, but in its psychological usefulness. When the United States positions itself as the global arbiter of nuclear morality\u2014policing Iran over weapons it has never been proven to possess\u2014it is not merely engaging in foreign policy. It is enacting a deeper pattern that scholars of mass violence have long warned about: projection as justification, fear as policy, and what Robert Jay Lifton and Eric Markusen identified as the \u201cgenocidal mentality.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000109881,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"byline":[271],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-2000109880","opinion","type-opinion","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions","byline-tom-ndahiro"],"bylines":[{"id":271,"name":"Tom Ndahiro","slug":"tom-ndahiro","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":271,"name":"Tom Ndahiro","slug":"tom-ndahiro","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":{"id":2000109881,"url":"https:\/\/cdn.igihe.com\/en\/2026\/04\/2026-02-28T103013Z_800024804_RC2XUJAU14VO_RTRMADP_3_IRAN-CRISIS-BLAST.webp","alt":"","caption":"Smoke rises following an explosion, after Israel and the U.S. launched strikes on Iran, in Tehran, Iran,","mime_type":"image\/webp","width":3342,"height":2275,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/cdn.igihe.com\/en\/2026\/04\/2026-02-28T103013Z_800024804_RC2XUJAU14VO_RTRMADP_3_IRAN-CRISIS-BLAST.webp","width":3342,"height":2275},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/cdn.igihe.com\/en\/2026\/04\/2026-02-28T103013Z_800024804_RC2XUJAU14VO_RTRMADP_3_IRAN-CRISIS-BLAST.webp","width":3342,"height":2275},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/cdn.igihe.com\/en\/2026\/04\/2026-02-28T103013Z_800024804_RC2XUJAU14VO_RTRMADP_3_IRAN-CRISIS-BLAST.webp","width":3342,"height":2275},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/cdn.igihe.com\/en\/2026\/04\/2026-02-28T103013Z_800024804_RC2XUJAU14VO_RTRMADP_3_IRAN-CRISIS-BLAST.webp","width":3342,"height":2275},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/cdn.igihe.com\/en\/2026\/04\/2026-02-28T103013Z_800024804_RC2XUJAU14VO_RTRMADP_3_IRAN-CRISIS-BLAST.webp","width":3342,"height":2275}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/opinion\/2000109880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/opinion"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/opinion"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2000109880"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/opinion\/2000109880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2000109882,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/opinion\/2000109880\/revisions\/2000109882"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000109881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2000109880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2000109880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2000109880"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=2000109880"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=2000109880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.igihe.com\/en\/2026\/04\/2026-02-28T103013Z_800024804_RC2XUJAU14VO_RTRMADP_3_IRAN-CRISIS-BLAST.webp\")