There are several countries who gave up WMDs, either deployed or in development. Iraq, Libya, South Africa, and Ukraine. Of these, only South Africa was left alone. And to be clear, two of the remaining three were attacked by the US.
So what we’ve done here is signal to the smaller powers that they should never negotiate away their WMDs. You’re just going to get invaded, anyway. I can’t blame smaller powers for going that way at all.
Edit: and to be extra clear, this also applies to Iran and N Korea. They have no incentive to give up their nuclear programs.
The hypocrisy against Iran in particular is bothersome in that Israel has illegally developed and possesses nukes. That’s Iran’s justification, and it’s validated further with each passing day.
The American world order is falling apart and nuclear weapons are proliferating, we may very well see “tactical” nukes used in combat in my lifetime, and who knows what the response will be.
Meanwhile all anyone says about the decline of USA is “lol it’s weird, they’re so weird.” A future history book, if we’re lucky and have them, will have pictures of memes next to pictures of mushroom clouds.
Where the fuck is everyone
