The real world has a way of happening.
~
"So you think you'd handle things differently?"
"Well, for starters I wouldn't have pulled out of a nuclear treaty without having another one ready to sign."
"So you would have pulled the U.S. out of the treaty with Iran?"
"I would have a better nuclear treaty drawn up and ready to propose to U.N. quietly get everyone on board with it then as a signing ceremony tear up the old agreements as the new one is signed."
"You're trying to police the worlds nuclear arsenal?"
"One thing that everyone except the willfully ignorant will admit is that the electrical infrastructure needs updating. On commercial and governmental levels the cleanest large scale power source is nuclear energy. Until some other form of magic rock is found that's what we have. Yes, like with any other industrial scale infrastructure disasters and mishandled waste can be incredibly detrimental to surrounding housing and ecosystems. But that's why, side by side with large scale plants being powered up I'm laying down the grounds for a self sufficiency initiative to integrate renewable infrastructure on a small scale."
"Sounds expensive."
"Infrastructure projects usually are, but as a nation, we're over due for one."
"What do you mean?
"The early 1700's saw the establishment of major water trade ports, the early1800's rail infrastructure, the early 1900's automotive and electrical infrastructure with the late 1900's focused on air and data transmission. We're in the digital age, it's time for true governmental scale adoption of digital rights standards instead of leaving these standards up to businesses motivated by profit margins with little to no guard rails for public safety.
My proposal is for humanities 2000's project we establish, if not cities on the moon, telescopes for looking further out and being known as the generation that was able to truly make slavery a thing of the past. By looking out we're better able to see what's coming from the stars, by giving humanity a project to work together on it gives us all a common goal rather than focusing on who's got the bigger beat stick. The way I'm trying to look at nuclear energy is the same way to look at fertilizer for a field. When you use fertilizer it can help bring health to your plants, to grow larger, faster, and more bountiful.
If you use too much fertilizer you contaminate the ground water around the fields.
Fertilizer will also feed the weeds and invasive plants if not managed properly.
Fertilizer is highly combustible if handled in unsafely."
"What does any of this have to do with what's going on in Iran."
"I'm sayin if these two old men trying to carver their name in history or so dead set on reversing time for diplomacy and and stability in the region by nearly 60 years then we might as well try to solve the issue that stemmed the whole 'but they have bombs' bullshit.
'It's not polite to point honey, especially when your mouth is full.' "
"I didn't know you did voices."
"Oh...uh...yeah...so...umm...my point is that the big kids with the big bombs all agree to the same oversight committee. Not made up by people who have the bombs but by people who the bombs were tested on. Regardless of their national allegiances they're the most qualified to speak on their effects and be driven to see those things not happen to others."
"But most of the testing was done on inhabited islands."
"Uninhabited by who? Do you think you keep your garden where you sleep. And by uninhabited islands do you mean the tribal lands surrounding the Los Alamos testing grounds or the uninhabited Japanese archipelago? Because I'm fairly certain that's very famously not an uninhabited island."
"So...you'd agree to this committees oversight to the U.S. nuclear arsenal?"
"Absolutely, and if it took an executive order for that to happen I would issue one."
"I thought you said you wouldn't issue executive orders while President."
"Here is my reasoning: and I will provide my reasoning for any time I were to exercise that power. Executive orders are a wartime power and the only war left is the Nuclear one. Everything else is just byproducts of the friction created by that war.
Hunger, solved, save for distribution which is interrupted by conflicts sparking off of the Nuclear war. The race to hoard resources? With renewables for common usages and the ability to quickly deploy large scale power stations in emergencies relatively hoarding becomes relatively moot unless you count a nuclear war.
People being, lest we forget, a part of nature no matter how hard some people try to believe themselves above it. People need the ability to move, to travel, to migrate freely. It's a biological imperative on a level beyond ourselves. Call it God, or gods, or simple animal instinct, it is a drive that everyone feels at some point in their life. And the only thing that limits that for humans isn't will or ability but... conflict. Sparked by the Nuclear war. So if it came to an assured and guaranteed nuclear armistice for global security I absolutely would sign an executive order giving such a committee oversight of the nuclear stockpile."
"So you'd give away the nukes?"
"I'd get people to stop pissing on each others boots long enough to look up.
Here's the thing.
If a meteor.
Or a piece of trash from, at this point, literally 100 years ago lands somewhere populated.
Then some jack off with a paranoid cult get's froggy and decides to "shoot back" because they were too busy cleaning piss off of their boots to notice it was raining 'fire and brimstone'"
"So you're doomsday prepping?"
"I have two mottos I live by.
'Leave things better than the way you found them'
'Plan for the worst, hope for the best and you'll never be unprepared.'
"We're a little off topic here. What does this have to do with the situation in Iran?"
"I just wanted to illustrate my philosophy before I explain how I would have reacted to this whole situation is that I wouldn't have been in it to begin with, but since we are I would come at it from a point of accountability.
Regardless of who did what, when, or where. Even if it was aliens, I'd have the CIA do forensic analysis of the situation, have u.s. forces in the region offer emergency aid and evacuation of the area, then instruct the F.B.I and the Department of Labor to secure work and places to stay for the short term and plans for either permanent relocation or returning when it's safe and if returning if they want to return before or after reconstruction."
"And if it was a U.S. asset that caused the collateral damage?"
"One, there is no such thing as collateral damage. My heartfelt condolences go out to every family affected by this tragedy."
"Even the Terrorists?"
"Especially the 'terrorists'.
Because either they truly felt the only path forward was through one of destruction. Possibly they were opportunists seeking to monopolize on the chaos. Or maybe truly innocent people caught in a hopeless situation. Or an innocent bystander with nothing at stake but proximity.
All are true in these situations and it is heart breaking. It is why it has taken me so long to find these words even though they change little from happening to happening.
Which ever truth comes to light while the dead are laid to rest, someone's loved one was lost. Be it that day or years before that took them down such a path. I make no judgment on the dead, only their effects on the living.
So to answer the question; I don't think I would have been in the situation the current administration finds it's self in. And if I were having to deal with such a mess I'd offer assistance and if it was declined I'd respect that decision."
"No thoughts and prayers?"
"I offer assistance and accountability.
And if neither are needed I offer my wish for good winds and clean rains."
