The E3 talks with Nuclear-Fixated Iran failed, now there’s a surprise. With the world as divided as it is, Iran can be sure that there will be no consensus (or no consensus of consequence) with regards to the nuclear issue. To continue we should review what has happened recently;
How could an Iran that was moving some ways towards rehabilitation under Mohammed Khatami now do a complete U-turn and elect the hard-line, regressive, and puppet plaything to the guardian council –” Ahmedinejed. Its all to do with a little thing called ‘American Foreign Policy’. After 9/11 America entered into a delusional paranoia, that angry Arabs (or ‘A-rabs’ as they like to call them) and Muslims alike were out to attack America and the American way of life unfortunately for the terrorists 200 years of civic society, institutions and democracy are hardly going to come undone because two buildings and part of the Pentagon collapsed. Like the Japanese before the terrorists should have realised that you can’t hit America and walk away and expect her to crumble to pieces, no of course not, she will retaliate unfortunately for the rest of us she goes round hurt and angry and doesn’t really care who she hits to numb her pain. Afghanistan and Iraq got hit and many in Iran think they are next, so to err on the side of caution they believe it is better for Iran to be castigated and shunned by the International Community but still have an A-bomb –” the rationale being that actually having weapons of mass destruction precludes the possibility of actual military confrontation (North Korea vis-Ã -vis Iraq). Also Pakistan and India had the same treatment when they acquired Nuclear Weapons yet they were eventually forgiven and let back into the International Community and Iran will also.
The inspections seems invasive and we often hear the cry from (ignorant) people that if Iran is being inspected then we should have our weapons inspected as well and so should other nations (namely America and Israel) all should have their weapons stockpiles inspected, sounds like a fair idea? Unfortunately we don’t live in a fair world, this is all about the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The nuclear powers (represented by the permanent members of the UN Security Council) are obliged under the treaty to stop proliferation, non-nuclear countries are obliged under the treaty to not acquire nuclear weapons in the first place. Iran belongs to the latter of the two types of countries and as such is obliged to show the world what her ambitions are and to allay any fears that the nuclear research will lead to weapons –” that is the legal crux of the argument. The Iranians have tried to dissuade the rest of the world of any notion that their intentions are anything but peaceful. However they leave a foolish accusation in the air about Israel having nuclear weapons –” this only helps to compound her ignorance of International Diplomacy and how the world works; you see Israel is not party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and so it cannot be held to account on what it does or does not have in terms of Nuclear Materiel, unfortunately Iran is party to it and therefore she is obliged under the treaty to allow inspections. When the head of the government carries on in a most unstatesmen-like fashion this only betrays to us the simple-minded and unsophisticated approach to international affairs undertaken by the Iranian regime, which is to their detriment.
Why do we have these two disparate treaty stipulations for those who have nuclear and for those who do not? Why not a system that is fair for all and does not discriminate against the rich or the poor, or the powerful and the not-so powerful? Maybe it is because the established nuclear powers don’t trust the other nations of the world to act as responsibly as they do, after all you can’t expect a bunch of barbarous savages to have the tremendous self restraint of not unleashing a nuclear warhead on an enemy civilian population could you? Twice.
The effects of Iran gaining nuclear weapons could be disastrous (if you read some of the rightwing press in Washington). Saudi Arabia would definitely get hold of a nuclear weapon (not through laborious research like the Iranians, but like all things in Saudi they’ll just buy it) to stop Iran becoming the dominant power in the region and to act as a counterbalance to the obvious cache that a nuclear Iran would have amongst the Shiite in Saudi as well as elsewhere in the gulf and in the region as a whole. Imagine if you will then a Nuclear Israel, a Nuclear Iran and a Nuclear Saudi all entered into the milieu of a sustained effort by America of trying to influence peripheral entities in the region to adopt American Capitalism, with a dying brand of Arab Socialism represented by Egypt, Libya and Syria, the indigenous experiments at democracy in the region having been totally undermined because of Iraq and added to this several countries playing host to large American bases this will only collect hatred and fester animosity against the west and Israel that will naturally lead to some form of military expression. Egypt may play host to some form of American Nuclear Deterrent or if Syria adopts a more pleasingly political structure to the Americans then the Golan Heights maybe given to America as a base, as it is one of the most strategic parts of the Middle East. Sounds like the makings of Armageddon to me, but true life is always duller then what war mongering neo-cons can conceive, what will happen of course is the world will censure Iran and American agents will try to change to regime from the inside by a whole host of new agents readily available in Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq but inside the country the nation will rally around the leader and a nuclear weapon will be eventually given birth to. Silently Saudi will procure a weapon and like the Israelis they will neither confirm nor deny the existence of nuclear weapons. Egypt will move ahead along the lines of the reforms it has adopted and Syria will eventually fold under pressure from the International Community to democratise and Americanise and so an American Base will materialise in the Golan Heights, but the world will continue spinning as it had the day before all the world was infecting with this peculiar madness. This particular world order has come to an end, as many politicians keep reminding us, and as such so will the balance of power in the world. We are reverting to the old system of treaties and alliances. Nuclear Weapons will proliferate, because much of the world no longer trusts the International Community as it is divided, and the old system of denying Nuclear materials to non-nuclear countries will disappear as increased industrial progress will require the use of nuclear materials and the poor and downtrodden of the world will acquire the ambrosia of the Nuclear nations. It may give us a more just and balanced world were debate and persuasion will reign over force and military action…I hope, as the alternative is unimaginable.
The paranoia that I highlighted earlier in the west and American in particular, stems from the assumption that non-democratic regimes are inherently unstable and that democratic ones are stable –” this of course is completely untrue ask the Germans how the Third Reich came to power, the Ancient World (Egypt, Maya, Rome) with their centuries upon centuries of rule were anything but democratic yet they endured for a longer time then all the collective history of democracy itself. This political hubris is what is spurring the collective greed of the world to see an end of the Iranian regime and reform in the Arab/Muslim world. The Iranians to their credit may yet still surprise us –” the nightmare scenario that some people have envisaged may come about, only less potent and certainly not as politically integrated as we think but the dying remnants of the Waliyat Al-Faqih system may just burn a little bit brighter and longer by the aid of a Nuclear fire.
