Iran and the Nukes: Recapping before the Security Council meets

As the deadline for Iran to abandon its uranium enrichment project approaches, the Iranian leader releases another "bombshell" into the atmosphere: Iran has anounced that once it achieves nuclear know how, it will be willing to share it with the world starting with Sudan. These are mighty awful news for the people in Darfur, for once the government in Khartum achieves nuclear capability, no international body would be able to inetrvene for fear of a Sudanese nuclear threat.

This same analysis is the one that drove the war in Iraq as it should drive Security Council resolutions regarding Iran. That is because Nuclear weapons and the question of their existance are probably the world's most dangerous trivia game; one in which you cannot make a single mistake. The justification is simple: If you get in and find that there are no weapons, it is a far better situation to not having gone in and later finding out, much to your horror, that a mad-man has gotten his hands on some nukes. What's more, if this actually happens, as in the example brought above, no sanctions would be possible to impose for fear of aggrevating an already stressed out and entranched country. And so after reviewing this logic and understanding the need for sanctions in Iran's case before it is too late, we can turn and asses the chances of these sanctions actually being realized. And let me tell you ladies and gentlemen, those chances look mighty grim.

In the past couple of weeks I have reviewed the different positions of some of the different actors in this drama. During that time we have seen that the Europeans are scared having their own issues with Islam; we have also seen that Russia is torn between its need to garnish support from the Muslim world for its actions in Chechnya and its fear of being extorted by an Islamic nation holding nuclear powers on the matter. Russia also has to consider oil. Lastly we have also seen that China will definiately not risk its oil needs against Iranian nuclear power. And so with these observations, it would be a shock to this author if sanctions are actually imposed.

However with this recap, the picture is not complete. We still have to see what is the force driving the two key players of this drama - Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Iranian people. And that is the subject of my next post.

Tags:
Middle East, Iran, WMD, Russia, EU, Darfur, Sudan, Security Council.