Author: Ben Dalgetty
Iran is a nation with a sense of history not found in our fitful upstart of a nation. Empires, prophets, martyrs and millenia rolled across the sands of Iran long before the U.S. unwisely interfered with Iranian affairs and helped give rise to the current theocratic dictatorship. An understanding of this history, however, is essential for the U.S. to craft an effective Iran policy. The Bush administration’s platform, which President Obama thankfully seems to be moving away from, was that the U.S. is the preeminent global power and can dictate the terms of any discussion, including who can (Israel) and can’t (Iran, North Korea, Iraq, Syria) enter the exclusive nuclear club. It is unsurprising, therefore, that Iran’s reaction to this heavy-handed treatment was to behave petulantly.
As anyone lucky enough to have taken a politics or DWA weapons class will espouse, nuclear weapons are tricky business. You need about 90 percent Uranium-235, an isotope of the more common U-238 that occurs only .72 percent of the time, to make a nuclear weapon of the sort dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which Iran signed, nations are allowed to pursue peaceful nuclear power programs which typically require 3 to 4 percent U-235 or even up to 20 percent for reactors creating nuclear medical isotopes. The process of weaponization doesn’t mean that Iran actually has to have a weapon in hand to be dangerous, simply that once it crosses a tipping point of nuclear development there will be no way to stop development besides war.
There’s a fairly obvious disparity between weapons-grade and reactor-grade uranium, but Iran has been belligerently pushing these boundaries with impunity for too long. Western negotiators came close to creating a deal with Iran allowing foreign countries to enrich Iranian ore. Iran could have more freedom to work with nuclear materials as long as the international community controlled how much enriched material it can access. Unsurprisingly, Iran walked away from that agreement in January. Discussions about nuclear enrichment seem doomed before they start.
The U.S. has done its best to curb Iranian nuclear ambitions through sanctions and United Nations/International Atomic Energy Association condemnations, but, as always, the international community remains largely ineffective. The European Union is too devoted to its bureaucratic infighting to graduate to world policing; Russia continues to be unable to commit to anything beyond censoring journalists; and newly-ascendant players like China, Brazil and India are more interested in securing access to markets and oil than interfering abroad. Simply put, no one has seriously checked the Islamic Republic because no one is interested in being the “Great Satan.” The only potential check to Iran’s nuclear ambitions is the U.S. Unfortunately, the harder the West pushes against nuclear enrichment, the farther Iran goes from the negotiating table and more Ahmadinejad can galvanize public support against foreign meddling.
The only approach remaining to stymie Iranian weaponization is attacking the Islamic Republic’s repugnant human rights record. President Ahmadinejad will have a significantly harder time condemning foreign efforts to improve human rights in a country long bereft of them than he’s had railing against western elitism, although I bet he’ll still try. Demonstrations against the regime are likely to continue in Tehran, and as the litany of abuses committed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard continues to build, the groundswell opposing the status quo will continue to grow.
As reported by Politico, “‘Moussavi’s wife [was] beaten badly, Karroubi [was] attacked twice and his entourage shot at, Karroubi’s son was arrested, Khamenei’s own nephew [was] arrested,’ Los Angeles based Iran pro-democracy activist Pooya Dayanim told POLITICO, referring to opposition leaders Mir Hussein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi, and the nephew of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.” The bloodshed is only going to increase and, at the end of the day, it appears that the only way to prevent Iranian nuclear ambitions is for the U.S. to again encourage an Iranian Revolution. There will not be any easy solutions when it comes to Iran. The current regime seems unlikely to make any changes to its policy of pugnaciously pursuing nuclear weapons or flagrantly ignoring human rights conventions or norms. A nuclear armed Iran will not mean the end of the world, but it would be a significant threat to regional and international stability. The striving for regional dominance with Israel will reach a new fervor and Turkey or Egypt will have vastly increased incentive to weaponize their nuclear programs. More nukes will not automatically mean Dr. Strangelove, but Obama’s goal of disarmamement is important because every weapon means an additional opportunity for travesty.
Conventional discussion and diplomacy are not going to get Iran to change its policies, so the only avenue left is exerting pressure against human rights abuses. What the U.S. needs is to actually instigate the populace against the president, just like Ahmadinejad always accuses us of doing. To be clear, none of this can happen in the open. Although the general Iranian populace is supportive of many U.S. ideals and cultural norms, its history makes people very suspicious of foreign powers meddling in internal affairs.
The United States has a checkered past of sticking its nose into countries’ internal politics, so although many hawks called for U.S. support of one faction or another, this would doom any potential for reform before it gets off the ground. We need to be hands-off and humanist. To prevent nuclear weaponization and turn Iran into a long-term ally we desperately need in the Middle-East, the U.S. needs to show Iranian citizens how many rights they have given up upholding theocracy over modernity. Change will not come easily, but as Obama constantly goaded his supporters during his campaign, “Become the change you believe.”
Ben Dalgetty is a senior Politics major. He can be reached at bdalgetty@oxy.edu.
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