Iran's nuclear path - A justified mistake (part 1)

By Zam Armatay, 12, December 2006

There are few in the world who believe that Iranians' nuclear ambitions are just for peaceful economic purposes. The truth is that even if they don't have any nuclear weapon programs or intentions of having such programs today, the technology and know-how that Iranians achieve by continuing their uranium enrichment, will make them able to switch and upgrade some of their nuclear power plants toward developing nuclear weapons in the future.
Now many (ordinary Iranian people as well as many others around the globe) ask the following question rightfully:
"Why shouldn't Iranians have nuclear weapons, while other countries in the region including some of their neighbours like Pakistan, India, Kazakhstan, Russia and Israel have and continue developing nuclear weapons?"

Another important argument for justifying the Iranians nuclear ambitions from a geopolitical point of view is the presence of the United States military forces in Afghanistan and Iraq and in some of the Gulf states. This presence together with the United States hostility toward Iran for the last two decades and declaring Iran as an axis of evil and threatening Iran with sanctions and with military actions by both USA and Israel in many occasions, provide many reasons why Iranian people feel they should pursue their path toward becoming a nuclear power in the region.

The counterargument to the above statements is that Iran has shown to be a dangerous country that supports Hezbollah in Lebanon and some other military organizations in Palestine and probably in other parts of the world as well. They have officially declared Israel and United States as countries that should be wiped off the map and so on. Aren't these facts enough to stop Iranians in their nuclear enrichment programs? Although I agree that Iran's policy has been a very destructive policy not only on the international scene but also internally, I have to disagree with this for many reasons.

First of all, those who are familiar with the mentality and culture in the middle east countries know very well that the recent statements coming from the Iran's president in the last couple of years are highly rhetoric and are mainly due to exciting the people in the region specially the people of Palestine and Lebanon and the Iraqi Shiites against Israel and USA, and by this the Iranian president Ahmadinejad tries to score some cheap points and buy legitimacy and popularity for the Iranian regime specially in the region.

Second I don't think that supporting organizations like Hezbollah (there is yet no evidence that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization even though many in West want to believe it is), or other militia organizations in the Palestine is reason enough to stop Iranians in their uranium enrichment, specially when you put it together with Israelis assaults against Palestinians and Lebanese in the last four decades and Americans countless disastrous attempts to intervene in other countries political affairs, like the coupe against the democratic elected prime minister Mossadegh in Iran (1953), the coupe against the democratic elected president Allende in Chile (1973), supporting the Rouge Khmer in Cambodia who were responsible for the death of 2 million Cambodians (up to 30% of the Cambodian population) from 1975 to 1979, funding Taliban movement in the early 1990s, supporting Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran and at the time where he used his chemical weapons against his own people and Iranian soldiers, and so on and so on.

From the viewpoint of not only Iranians but also a huge part of the population in the third world it is easily justified that Iran not only pursue the nuclear technology for peaceful but also for military purposes.

My argument against the Iranians nuclear ambitions is not because it cannot be justified. It's justification does not mean that it is the right path to go for Iranians. In the second part of this article I'll try to argue why it is not the right way from both an economic and a security point of view.

Iran's nuclear path - A justified mistake (part 2)
Iran's nuclear path - A justified mistake (part 3)