All Talk, No Nukes
A Coolheaded Look at Iran’s Nuclear Program
by M.M. Eskandari-Qajar, January 26, 2006
Given the current tensions between Iran and the United States over Iran’s resumption of its nuclear program, we would do well to reflect on the following truths and allow ourselves to gain perspective and distance from the frenzy of news reports about imminent war with or by Iran.
The first principle of international relations is that countries seek to protect their interests by whatever means they can. The second principle is that countries do so as rational actors intent on bringing about gain, or if not gain, at least avoidance of loss. These are observable facts of international politics. How countries go about achieving these aims differs from country to country, but the fact remains that countries act this way in their relations with each other. Moreover, most of the interactions between countries in the world are peaceful or, to be more precise, are actions short of war. War and warlike actions are the exception and are rarely engaged in, though it certainly seems otherwise, since war looms so large in our collective psyche.
This said, let us look at what events led to the present tensions. On October 26, 2005, at the Islamic Summit in Saudi Arabia, during a conference titled World without Zionism, the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, quoting the late Ayatollah Khomeini, stated that “Israel should be wiped off the face of the earth.” In that same speech, he also said the Holocaust was a “myth.” Then, two weeks ago, the Iranian government decided to break the seals placed on three of its nuclear facilities by UN inspectors and to resume work at those facilities despite the call by the international community to desist.
These remarks, combined with the latest moves to restart the nuclear program in Iran — a program, incidentally, of which the early components were supplied to Iran by the United States during the rule of the late Shah — have put Israel on edge and the U.S. in a position to push more urgently for a censure of Iran by the UN Security Council and an imposition of sanctions by that body. The fear, of course, is that Iran is working on a nuclear bomb and not just on nuclear energy as it claims. A nuclear Iran with stated intentions to wipe Israel off the map is an untenable situation for any country in the region, let alone Israel. A nuclear exchange in the Middle East would mean the destruction of several countries and the death of millions of people far beyond the two countries in question. The sheer thought of it boggles the mind and makes one recoil in horror, but we must remind ourselves that this is not where things stand at the moment.
Unless security services in the U.S. and Israel know differently, according to UN inspectors and nuclear technology experts, Iran is a few thousand centrifuges short of the capacity to weaponize uranium. Should Iran ever be capable of achieving this feat, the consensus is that this is years away. What is clear, though, is that Iran wishes to complete its nuclear energy program and gain the respect this technological achievement is thought to bring. Additionally, Iran wishes to have the capacity to at least hint at the possibility of military nuclear capability as a deterrent, given its precarious situation in the Middle East. The question is: Why does Iran feel this way? To understand that, let us for a moment see the situation from Iran’s point of view.
Iran and the U.S. have been at odds for almost three decades now. Since the 1979 Revolution and the hostage crisis of 1980, Iran has been on the pariah list of the United States. As a result of its dislike of the Iranian regime, the U.S. even supported Saddam Hussein in his brutal eight-year war against Iran in the 1980s. In 2002, in his State of the Union Address, President Bush famously put Iran on the “Axis of Evil,” along with Iraq and North Korea, and then proceeded to deal with Iraq militarily. Prior to this, in response to the September 11 attacks, the U.S. retaliated against Afghanistan, shattering the Taliban regime and putting bin Laden on the run. Simultaneously, the U.S. built up its Persian Gulf bases in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, and managed to forge military alliances with Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tadjikistan in its war on terror. The U.S. also built an alliance with the government of Pakistan, the only Islamic government with a known nuclear arsenal. On Iran’s western flank, America’s strongest ally in the region, Turkey, stands ready as both a NATO member and a staunch ally of Israel as well. Finally, Azerbaijan and even Georgia, with Russia’s blessing, have asked for U.S. military troop presence in their countries.
Looking at this situation from the point of view of the Iranian government, Iran finds itself surrounded on all sides by countries with large contingents of U.S. troops and finds itself on the “to-be-dealt-with” list of the United States. Given this scenario, Iran needs to find a way to stave off the handwriting on the wall. The present moves by Iran should be interpreted in this light and no more. As belligerent as the rhetoric of Iran may have been toward Israel, and as rash a move the removal of the seals and the resumption of work at the nuclear facilities may be, the United States needs to understand that a military move against Iran either by itself or by one of its allies in the region would spell disaster for the region as a whole. Iran is not Iraq. Iraq was weakened by 10 years of military and economic embargos. Iran’s armed forces, having acquired missiles and having been tested by fire in the longest war in the region, are stronger and far better equipped today than they were under the Shah.
Were America to take preemptive action, America would also have to be willing and ready to occupy Iran to diffuse Iran’s anger at having been struck. Even if it were possible to pacify a nation the size of Iran after such an attack, given its global commitments, America is in no position now to do that and thus cooler heads must prevail and remind the world that Iran’s moves are to be expected given its situation and should not be taken for more than they are. Diplomacy, not war, should be the path to resolving the present dilemma.
M.M. Eskandari-Qajar, a Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Associate, is professor of political science and Middle Eastern studies at Santa Barbara City College.
Originally published by the Santa Barbara Independent. |
