Iran Continues to be Defiant
And I continue to be confused by this whole situation. Should Iran start buiding nuclear weapons, that would surely be bad news. It would be bad news if any country were to start making the bomb, never mind Iran. This concern should be shared by all countries. But by all logic the closer a country is to Iran the more it should concern them. So why are the U.S., Britain, and the E.U. far more concerned than China and Russia? I can't for the life of me come up with a single reason why these two countries would not object to Iran's being able to build nukes. So the only reasonable conclusion I can draw from this is that they don't actually think Iran is close to going nuclear.
This doesn't mean that Iran is not trying to build nuclear weapons, but it does suggest they're not real close. So why are the U.S. and Europe so aggressively going after Iran's nuclear program? Since Iran can't actually attack any of these countries, I have to assume the concern is regional de-stabilization. Since the U.S. and Europe have far greater influence in the Mid-East than Russia or China, then it makes sense that the implications of Iran having a nuclear program would be a greater concern. This applies to an experimental program even years away from fruition - it's still destabilizing since it alters the balance of power in the region.
China and Russia, though, would find such destabilization attractive, since the West's dominance in the region would be weakened. But they would not want actual war to break out, and so would prefer to see Iran's nuclear program continue to grow peacefully while objecting to any measures that would increase tensions, such as sanctions.
Based on this 'reasoning' (I'm making this up as I go along), it does make sense for us to pursue our current strategy. It might even make sense for us to hint at military options. The goal is to get Russia and China to join us in working to contain Iran's nuclear ambitions. They don't want the U.S. to become more influential in the region or to expand its presence there, so our threats might have some effect. The effect of the Iraq war could cut both ways here - it makes us weaker to respond and thus the threat less credible. On the other hand, the fact that we have acted twice on our threats recently - Afghanistan and Iraq - should make China and Russia think twice.
Does any of this make any sense?
This doesn't mean that Iran is not trying to build nuclear weapons, but it does suggest they're not real close. So why are the U.S. and Europe so aggressively going after Iran's nuclear program? Since Iran can't actually attack any of these countries, I have to assume the concern is regional de-stabilization. Since the U.S. and Europe have far greater influence in the Mid-East than Russia or China, then it makes sense that the implications of Iran having a nuclear program would be a greater concern. This applies to an experimental program even years away from fruition - it's still destabilizing since it alters the balance of power in the region.
China and Russia, though, would find such destabilization attractive, since the West's dominance in the region would be weakened. But they would not want actual war to break out, and so would prefer to see Iran's nuclear program continue to grow peacefully while objecting to any measures that would increase tensions, such as sanctions.
Based on this 'reasoning' (I'm making this up as I go along), it does make sense for us to pursue our current strategy. It might even make sense for us to hint at military options. The goal is to get Russia and China to join us in working to contain Iran's nuclear ambitions. They don't want the U.S. to become more influential in the region or to expand its presence there, so our threats might have some effect. The effect of the Iraq war could cut both ways here - it makes us weaker to respond and thus the threat less credible. On the other hand, the fact that we have acted twice on our threats recently - Afghanistan and Iraq - should make China and Russia think twice.
Does any of this make any sense?
posted by ziel | 4/27/2006 09:42:00 PM
4 Comments:
Israel does NOT have any nukes. Just ask them. Maybe Bush is pushing for an accidental nuke explosion at one of Iran's secret locations. Prooving they have evildoer intentions.
Contemplation of our engaging in military action against Iran is simply hot air and China is politically savvy enough to understand that. Russia, on the other hand, appears to just want to oppose us on any and all fronts as a means of trying to regain some degree of international super power status. When Bush looked into Puten's heart, he must have had his eyes crossed.
We can't bring stability to either of the two countries we've invaded where we thought we'd be welcomed as liberators and had at least some degree of popular support, though the jury is still out on what degree. Iranian populus would see us as foreign invaders to a person with the only exception being a handful of opportunists looking to be placed in power in the puppet government we establish. It would be a disaster that would make Iraq look like Grenada in terms of our success. We can't afford it, couldn't pull it off and any military action could cause internal strife here such as we haven't seen since the heights of Viet Nam. That kind of "October surprise" could make Dennis Kusinich (sp?) a leading presidential candidate and would almost surely sweep the Republicans out of power.
We can't stop Iran's nuclear progress. We can try to educate the world, who is listening to us less & less, on the potential dangers of such a development but then it is up to the world. If Russia & China can live with a nuclear Iran, then maybe so can we. It appears we are prepared to live with a nuclear North Korea. Maybe the answer is to promote nuclear proliferation among our allies. Let's help Poland, Spain & Canada go nuclear. What would Russia & China say about that?
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