The leaders of IRAN: are they as crazy as it seems nowadays?

[Ecthy]

Latest BBC article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4599552.stm

Everyone should know about the situation concerning Iran nowadays. We don't want them to build nukes and thus criticise their attempts to enrich Uranium, since we don't trust them on their claim to only use it for economic purposes. At the same time, their president goes berserk on Israel in maniac mode, so what do we have to expect from a nuclear Iran?

Just around this weekend, they removed official seals from their nuclear sites, adding another step to the escalation in this international conflict.

What are they up to, seeing all the resistance they face? It is relatively simple to elaborate on OUR position on this (simplifying any western moves during the past months as of one big player), but what is their position? I wouldn't take their president too serious in detail, since he's probably just full of violent rhetoric and no politics at all. So why do they still keep on toying?

I see 3 possible answers, different in likelihood:

1. They're raving fundamentalist lunatics. This might be the most likely answer to many armchair "diplomats" here in Poly. They want the bomb, they want to kill Israel, they want everything. What the west says doesn't matter. (After all the west supported Iraq in the gulf war ('80-'88).)

2. They want the nuke. Why are they toying with us, well, they want to win time. With any more diplomatic step, they win time, because the west, being split up between the US on one side and the EU-3 consisting of Germany, France and the UK on the other side, doesn't get a united act together but keeps on debating. The tone is getting sharper on our side, but does anybody have to count on us? Will we ever get the UNSC in, with the support of China and Russia doubtful? So they're playing time, they think it's on their side, because once they get the nuke, they'll be safe. They think along the lines of NK.

3. They don't really want the nuke, all they really want is to use nuclear energy peacefully and at the same time keep their pride and national independence. This is the reason why they're so uncooperative, they just feel threatened in their right to use nuclear energy for economic purposes, as guaranteed by the NPT. Any attempt of the UN (or the west for that matter) to intervene and "control" their nuclear processes would be an intolerable violation of their sovereignity, in their eyes. Well guys, there's the NPT for that matter. But does every member state have to open themselves for the IAEA?

#2 seems the most obvious. Some might say this was obvious long time ago, probably coupled with a strong share of #1, but you should never draw a conclusion lightly based on ideology, such as "they're a fundy regime so they're nuts". Don't underestimate politics.

If you agree on #2, and seeing how the diplomatic pressure rises, how will Russia and China react (important UNSC members, just for IR illiterates ) in the face of Iranian actions getting ever bolder, such as removing the seals from their plants? It'll be very hard now for Russia (offered to do the enrichment for civil use of nuclear energy to prevent bulding of bomb and secure peaceful use, was rejected by Iran, very pissed off now) and China to hide their political opposition to the west behind superficial arguments protective of Iran's motives / attacking western motives. Also, they cannot want Iran to have a bomb.


Discuss.

I'm afraid there will be no random Macgyver discussion this time. Next thread shall see some of that anyway.

[Whoha]

Put me down for number 1, I'll take them at their word.

China and Russia wouldn't prefer for them to have the bomb, but they do want to have access to the oil and other resources in Iran.

[Flubber]

I take it as a given that EVERY nuclear power prefers that no other nations get the nuke.


AS for their motives , I take #2 as a given. AS a sovereign nation, who are YOU -- - - the folks who have nukes --- to tell IRAN that they cannot have them. If you treat all nations as equals , this seems hypocritical

[GePap]

NUmber 2 obviously. The problem inherently is that the US and EU want to use the NPT hypocritically. We do nothing against states that never ratified the NPT and have gone ahead and gotten nukes, to 0 diplomatic cost (India, Pakistan, Israel), while at the same time trying to stop signatories of the NPT from perhaps even having thier full rights under the NPT (such as a demand that Iran not be able to enrich their own uranium).

Iran signed a treaty, and it is right for the other signatories to seek that Iran play by those rules, especially disclosing all nuclear sites and allowing open inspections. BUt new demands that supersede what soverign states have already agreed to sign on to is bull.

We can demand Iran play by the NPT. We can't make the NPT be more restrcitive against any one nation than another.

Its too bad that the fact is bveing able to enrich uranium puts you right at the threshhold of nukes, but then, the NPT is an attempt at a nuclear monopoly by a few great powers, and if the medium powers that have ignored it have gotten away with nukes, why shouldn't other medium powers rehtink their security strategies?

[Dinner]

Not crazy. They just know no one will lift a finger to stop them and once they have the bomb nothing will happen to them just like nothing happened to Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea.

[Edan]

Originally posted by Flubber
AS for their motives , I take #2 as a given. AS a sovereign nation, who are YOU -- - - the folks who have nukes --- to tell IRAN that they cannot have them. If you treat all nations as equals , this seems hypocritical

It's pretty politically niave to assume that any nation treats all other nations as equal.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Edan


It's pretty politically niave to assume that any nation treats all other nations as equal.

He obviously means the issue of each states soverign right of self defense, and the justification for the current nuclear monopoly legally enforced by the NPT.

The question is, why should any medium powers continue to abide by the NPT if rich states can all of a sudden decide they will make demands of states that go beyond what they are required to do according to the treaty. Iran violated the NPT by having secret facilities and incomplete monitoring, but its is absurd to demand Iran give up its right to enrich uranium.

[Edan]

Originally posted by GePap
The question is, why should any medium powers continue to abide by the NPT if rich states can all of a sudden decide they will make demands of states that go beyond what they are required to do according to the treaty.

Given that the vast majority of medium power states continue to abide by the NPT, there must be some reason.

Iran violated the NPT by having secret facilities and incomplete monitoring, but its is absurd to demand Iran give up its right to enrich uranium.

I don't think there's anything absurd in the United States and Europe trying to pressure Iran from trying to acquire Nuclear Weapons, since it's in our interest that they don't acquire them, particularily given the irrational way Ahmadinejad has been behaving.

[Elok]

I expected this to just be a thread about the whole holocaust-denial lunacy. I can't blame them if they see getting nukes as the best guarantee of protection from US invasion. Compared to the crap their prez has been spouting, trying for nuclear technology for whatever reason sounds like a sensible policy decision. Hmm, maybe that's why he's acting so nuts--to make pursuing nuclear weaponry seem like a modest and acceptable attitude by comparison?

Okay, maybe not.

[Barnabas]

pfft, you call that crazy?


Just wait for Ollanta Humala to become president of Peru

[Vince278]

Re: The leaders of IRAN: are they as crazy as it seems nowadays?

Originally posted by Ecthy
2. They want the nuke. Why are they toying with us, well, they want to win time.

Shades of North Korea. No wonder they think they can get away with it.

[Chemical Ollie]

Hans Blix thinks they should purchase the enriched Uranium from abroad if they're only after peacful nuclear power. It might even be cheaper than enriching it themselves.

[Ecthy]

The thing is, India Pakistan and Israel all weren't members of the NPT. NK was, but left the treaty, which doesn't make it more aceptable for us, but still. Also, We probably came too late for NK, and there's nothing there so why should we invade?

Now, as for Iran, that part of the world is obviously too crucial to introduce another nuclear power to.

[Vince278]

A war with NK will kill many times more people than one with Iran.

[Ecthy]

Naturally. After all, Japan and SK are more densely populated than Israel.