IN THE past few years, while any debate about nuclear proliferation has taken place mainly within the context of Saddam's Iraq, Iran has been pursuing a nuclear energy program with little resistance. That is, until recently. The EU-3 (Britain, France and Germany) and the United States are now attempting to refer Iran to the Security Council in order to pursue sanctions in one form or another. The Iranian effort to bring nuclear power to its country is a particularly complicated one, but also one that could serve as a lesson in the post-Sept. 11 world of foreign policy.
First of all, the Iranian situation highlights the poor decision-making that started the war against Iraq. Our invasion and so-called "liberation" of Iraq has led to very few real results. With thousands of casualties, we have nothing to show for it except a democratically elected group of religious leaders (similar to Iran), a pretentious Saddam Hussein on trial and a whole lot of rhetoric in a divided America. Now that the United States is in a standoff with nuclear-hungry Iran, no one is marching the streets of Washington calling for a war against Iran. The generals aren't doing it because they know our troops are already spread thin in Iraq and Afghanistan (remember them?). The people's reluctance rather than eagerness to advocate war reflects an uncertainty about the wisdom of the pre-emptive warfare philosophy.
But if pre-emptive war is not an option, what is? The next harshest response would be sanctions against Iran. This is the response that the United States and the EU-3, if hesitantly, seem to be pursing now. However, after The Washington Post reported last Friday that Iran was pulling most of its assets out of European banks, one has to wonder about the wisdom of sanctions. Just by threatening sanctions, European banks lost up to $50 billion dollars worth of Iranian assets -- so far, no good. Furthermore, given the makeup of the Security Council, which includes Russia and China, the Las Vegas odds surely fall in favor of a veto against sanctions. If not Russia, then China, one of Iran's biggest trading partners, will provide a lot of diplomatic jargon to verbalize their essentially simple situation: It's not in their interest to impose sanctions on Iran.
Perhaps an analogy would elucidate the situation with Iran and provide some guidance on how to approach them diplomatically. Imagine a playground of third-graders of all races and ethnicities, running around, oblivious to each other, trying to get the best toys to play with. A few get the best toys and celebrate joyously. Those who don't start befriending the kids with the best toys so they can get a turn, too. All of a sudden, one kid, who we will call Ahmadinejad, flips out and becomes belligerent. Everyone's attention is now turned to him. Few would agree that charging him would be a good form of self defense: Surely he will inflict some casualties before being taken down. Few would also agree that the best way to handle the situation would be to make a pact not to talk to him. It might work, but more likely it will just further isolate and aggravate him. It seems the best way to handle this situation would be to go over and talk to him, slowly calm him down and include him in the third-grade community.
The same applies for Iran -- imposing sanctions, thereby crippling the Iranian people and isolating them, the true face of Iran, from the international community -- is a short-sighted, rash response. The imposition of sanctions did little to mitigate U.S. anxieties about Iraq. It seems unlikely that it would produce the desired effect on Iran. The better and, admittedly, the more difficult way to handle this situation would be an international discussion of what the right to have nuclear power means and why the nature of that right can be decided by nations which already possess nuclear power. From this discussion, some sort of compromise can and must be reached about how to allow Iran to pursue what seems to be a legitimate claim to nuclear power. At the same time, the international community needs to find an unobtrusive and agreeable way in which to ensure Iran does not produce nuclear power.
Sina Kian's column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at skian@cavalierdaily.com.
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