The discovery of a secret uranium-enrichment facility in the holy city of Qom makes it abundantly clear that Iran does not intend to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons, despite its statements to the contrary.
Nevertheless, President Barack Obama continues to put great faith in confidence-building measures as a means of getting that country to abide by international obligations and provide greater disclosure of its nuclear program.
Obama’s optimism following his administration’s first diplomatic meeting with Iran does not change the basic fact that nothing we do will convince Iran’s autocrats to abandon their quest for the bomb.
A revisit of the past decade reminds us that Iran has broken the terms of practically every agreement it has signed involving the limitations to its nuclear program. After agreeing to suspend its uranium enrichment operations in October 2003, it was soon detected in violation by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Five months later, the European Union gave Iran another chance at redemption, only to discover soon after that it was again acting in breach of its promises.
Since the election of the Holocaust-denying Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran has continued to exploit the world’s generosity with its bad faith, assuming from past experience that it is worthwhile to join in agreements for the sake of party favors. It has calculated ““ correctly ““ that it can get away with anything because neither the United States nor anyone else has ever done anything to stop it.
In spite of this, President Obama is still holding out hope that some quirk of fate will bring Iran to forswear its nuclear ambitions when it is at the threshold of its nuclear capability. Central to this is his belief that Iran is behaving the way it is because the United States has been a “dismissive” country in the past.
His hope seems to be that if we show ourselves to be more humble, Iran ““ along with North Korea, Honduras, and other rogue nations ““ will so appreciate this that it will change its entire way of doing business and become a law-abiding member of the international community.
To this end, Obama is doing everything he can to make Iran feel like an equal partner, even if it is making death threats against our allies.
In June, Obama had the gall to declare on a trip to the Middle East ““ as if he wanted to be sure the Iranians heard him ““ that, “no single nation should pick and choose which nations holds nuclear weapons.”
Soon after that pearl, he threw another bone to Iran by announcing that he would abort the scheduled missile defense shield in Eastern Europe ““ a shield with the ability to intercept offensive missiles emanating from Iran.
After assuring our Eastern European friends (who went to great pains to convince their populations that the deployment was a good idea) that he would go forward with the shield “as long as the threat from Iran persists,” Obama jettisoned that promise for reasons that remain elusive. Eastern Europe and the American troops deployed there are now effectively living at the point of Iran’s nuclear cannon while Russia lies in wait to reassemble its ex-Soviet satrapies.
What about the Oct. 1 talks in Geneva? Iran’s most significant concession was an agreement to ship a portion of its declared uranium to Russia for further enrichment and eventual use in fuel rods in Iran’s research reactor ““ a step Obama’s National Security Advisor calls “very significant.”
Not only was this no more than an abstract agreement (it was called an “agreement in principle”), but it represented another successful ploy by Iran to nip U.S. sanctions in the bud. Iran can now honestly say that it was willing to make concessions in order to move forward, even though it did not give up anything significant.
If President Obama allows Iran this out, it will continue stringing us along until it has a fully functioning nuclear device, which signals a death knell for Israel, not to mention a host of other perturbations: Iranian nuclear parity with Pakistan, a perpetuation of the brutal Iran, more U.S. troops in the Middle East, and the emergence of de facto vassal states in fealty to Iran.
There appears to be few good options, but no option can risk the chance of Iran obtaining the bomb and then fulfilling these prophecies. Sanctions will not work, especially when Russia and China are reticent to go on board with them. Air strikes are also unappealing, particularly due to the souring effect they could have on the Iranian people.
Remembering that our biggest threat is not Iran with nuclear weapons, per se, but Iran’s reactionary ideology, our best defense is to do whatever we can to limit the life of the current regime.
Clearly many of the Iranian people are eager to move on from the present system. The demonstrators who took to the streets of Tehran after the allegedly rigged elections earlier this year were demanding more than a recount, but a departure from the oppressive system that is making them prisoners in their own homeland.
Ending what these revolutionaries started will not only bring hope to Iran but also set the entire Middle East on a path out of perdition. With the Lebanese people installing a pro-U.S. government in June (and rejecting Hezbollah) and Iraq laying the foundations of a young democracy, the stage is set for a new order in the Middle East. Iran could be just the motive force that frees the rest of this hapless region from the yoke of tyranny.
E-mail Pherson at apherson@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.