In Richard Fein’s column “Iranian nuclear weapon: Would it really matter?” (Gazette, May 26) he rightly notes that nine countries possess nuclear weapons and that “the more countries that have a nuclear weapon the more likely it is that a bomb will be used.” He also says that Iran “has a long history of engaging in secret nuclear weapons research in violation of its international commitments.”

What Fein does not describe is:
• the long history of the nuclear weapons states, especially the U.S., violating their international commitments over the past 56 years to work toward abolishing nuclear weapons (through the NPT — Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) by “pursuing in good faith negotiations on cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and nuclear disarmament”;
• the failure of the U.S. to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and to negotiate an extension of the New START Treaty (Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms); or
• Trump’s Oct.-Nov. threats to resume U.S. nuclear explosive testing for the first time since 1992, and his threat via Truth Social to use nuclear weapons.

Mr. Fein is in good journalistic company with virtually all other news reports and articles about the “Iran War” when he does not indicate that the countries undertaking the attacks have nuclear weapons and the country being attacked does not. Indeed, this is also true of Russia attacking Ukraine and Israel attacking Lebanon.

For the reasons above and laid out by Mr. Fein, our best chance to survive as a nation and a species is to take the five steps advocated by the national Back from the Brink campaign:
1. actively pursue a verifiable agreement among nuclear armed states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals;
2. renounce the option of using nuclear weapons first;
3. end the sole, unchecked authority of any president to launch a nuclear attack;
4. take U.S. nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert; and
5. cancel the U.S. replacement its entire arsenal with enhanced weapons.

Bruce Stedman, Back from the Brink, Western Massachusetts Hub

Amherst