World Watch Focus: Iran, Nukes, and International Complacency

20060426

     News commentary sites have been full recently of significant political personages and media pundits arguing that the emerging US policy toward Iran and its nuclear program is a tragic rush to judgment at best or a vile conspiracy against the Muslim world at worst. These writers forward the claim that it is, in fact, the US policy toward Iran and the Muslim world that is to blame for this problem, not the fact that Iran is advancing a questionable and threatening nuclear program.

     Chief among the arguments put forward by these commentators is the notion that the US is at fault because it refuses to negotiate directly with Iran over its program. One of the main contentions of these ‘give talking a chance’ proponents is the argument that, if the US just talks to Iran, Iran will then listen to reason and perhaps end or curtail its current nuclear program. The evidence, however points in the opposite direction from such a reality. In truth, Iran appears to be using the international diplomatic process as a shield for its continued development of nuclear weapons.

     As was previously argued by this weblog, Iran has every intention of advancing its nuclear program beyond its current point. Iran has already announced that it intends to procure or build as many as 54,000 uranium hexafluoride centrifuges, several thousand times more than are needed for the production of enriched uranium for nuclear power. It has already begun domestic mining and refining of uranium to support those centrifuges. It is now and has been actively building secure nuclear processing facilities underground in the mountains where they would be relatively safe from conventional bombing.

     The end result of this process, glacial international diplomacy combined with the continued Iranian drive toward nuclear weapons, will be a nuclear armed Iran with the capacity to deliver those weapons across most of the Middle East and eventually into Europe and at leas the East Coast of the US. Once this result occurs, the entire balance of international politics in the Middle East, really in the entire Muslim World, will be changed.

     What effect will this reality have on nations like the US? First, the current US influence in the region, regardless of how powerful the US might be otherwise, will be significantly checked. US intentions in the region will be threatened, and undoubtedly this will affect troop deployments from Turkey to Oman. Second, this reality will add strength to the position of the growing fundamentalist Islamic movements like the Wahhabis. Third, it will allow nations like Syria and governments like Hamas in Palestine to act with greater confidence, knowing that a political ally has the capability to back up their actions with force or at least its threat.

     Ultimately, this reality will place the entire world at the threat of Iranian nuclear weapons, either by Iran directly or by Iran’s terrorist proxies. Whenever Iran wants something, it can simply threaten force, and any nation opposing Iran will have to think before it continues to oppose Iran. And it is inevitable that eventually Iran will use such a weapon, either out of rage or a calculated malice, likely against Israel or the US.

     All of this reality speaks to the fallacy of the ‘let’s talk’ arguments cited previously. The ‘let’s talk’ crowd argues from a position of appeasement and fantasy, believing that a nation like Iran is intent on doing the right thing if only it will get the right guidance. It will be these same people, now arguing for diplomacy and appeasement with Iran, who will demand to know why nations like the US did not stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons that it eventually used, claiming that they were deceived by Iran’s portrayal of good intentions even while they were apologists for those false intentions.

     The only solution to the problem with Iran has nothing to do with talk. Indeed, the solution is the resolute demand that Iran cease its pursuit of nuclear weapons backed up by force if necessary. The time for this solution is rapidly running out, however, and the long the world listens to the ‘let’s talk’ crowd, the more likely even this solution is to fail.

DLH