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by Udara Soysa
Abstract
The Iranian government had been engaged in a rearmament process for the last two decades. However during the last two years, the international community had found credible information about the nuclear weapon aspirations of the Iranian rearmament process. Iran’s hostile past for the western nations, continuous support to terrorist groups, support of Antisemitism and poor human rights records in combination with its nuclear aspirations pose a threat to world peace. Should the United States government adopt a more conciliatory or more confrontational policy towards the Iranian regime? This paper will advocates a policy forming a global alliance against Iranian nuclear programs and usage of wider level global sanctions as a means to exert pressure against the Iranian regime.
According to the annual intelligence assessment presented to Israel's Knesset on July 21, 2004, Iran's nuclear program is the biggest threat facing the national security of Israel. These sentiments are also shared by the United States as the evidence on Iranian nuclear aspirations is growing every day. “Iranian leaders now believe that superior military power is decisive in shaping the strategic environment in Middle East. Force, far from being a passé, is an essential instrument of power” . In the backlight, Iran will be poised to develop a grand arsenal, which can give a strategic advantage to Iran in the Middle Eastern power balance. According to American Defense analyst Chubin, Henry Sokolski and Anthony Cordesman, although Iranians for the last several years had been obtaining various conventional weapons from different sources, the Iranian administration is still a long way from being militarily effective. Under this hindsight, it is not hard to understand the Iranian nuclear aspirations to gain a strategic advantage to retain regional hegemony and moreover to spread its influence in the Middle East and World politics. However, considering the Iranian hostile nature towards the United States and its allies, its opposition to Israel, its support to foreign terrorist groups and its worst human rights record, the Iranian obtaining nuclear weapons will have far reaching consequence to world peace and stability. Although the Iranian human rights record will not have a direct co-relation with how Iranian nuclear aspirations will affect the world stability, the other factors such as Iranian open hostility to United States, its support to terrorist groups in Middle East while its negative contributions to Middle Eastern peace process will have direct co-relations. Let us analyze how this situation would affect the interests of the United States.
The major problem in Tehran acquiring nuclear weapons is that the nuclear weapons will act as a deterrent so the Iranian regime will not be vulnerable to American conventional military retaliations. Thus Iran can pursue the aggressive anti-American foreign policy it had pursued in early 1990’s’ . This will make Iran the leading anti American force which would be capable of forming an anti American alliance with other hostile Arabic states and terrorist groups to drive the United States and conservative Arabic government out of power in Middle East. The hostile behavior of the current Ahmadjian regime would further consolidate this theory. However, it is important to note that there are no significant possibilities of Iranians providing nuclear weapons to terrorist groups such as Al Queda due to Iran’s own vulnerability for external terrorist groups. The second problem of Iranians acquiring nuclear weapon is further proliferation of nuclear weapons in the world. For an example, countries like Saudi Arabia may want to resort to nuclear programs to deter an Iranian threat. The obtainment of nuclear weapon by unstable Middle Eastern countries will further widen possibilities of Nuclear weapons reaching the hands of extremist groups such as Al Queda.
The paper will now consider three options for the current crisis: a military option, a regime change option and an option of imposing wider sanction. First, let us consider the military option. Military options regarding Iran can be categorized into air strikes and a ground invasion. Considering air strikes, two dozen suspected nuclear facilities in Iran including the 1000-megawatt nuclear plant Bushehr would be a major target of such strikes. These proposed American air strikes on Iran would highly resemble the opening days of the 2003 air campaign against Iraq. The American forces would have to use B-2 stealth bombers supplemented by F-117 stealth fighters to attack the two-dozen suspected nuclear sites. Military planners could tailor their attack either to have limited air strikes targeting crucial Iranian facilities in an effort to delay or obstruct the Iranian program or the military could opt for a comprehensive set of strikes against a wide range of targets. This could include both conventional and unconventional forces that might be used to counterattack against US forces in Iraq. It is important to note that there are many US aircraft still in the gulf region supporting Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom which could be used for such operation against Iran.
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