Thursday, June 10, 2010

Nine true statements about the conflict over Iran's nuclear program


We've reached the point that everything I write about Iran's nuclear issue is just a restatement or elaboration of one of the following:

1) The US wants to keep Iran from having a Japan option, which is the capability if it was to need to, to leave the NPT and build a nuclear weapon relatively quickly.

2) A Japan option is legal, it was built into the NPT by the acknowledgment that states have an inherent right to nuclear technology, without discrimination and by the mechanism provided to leave the treaty and be free from its bounds after 90 days of notice.

3) A Japan option has immense strategic value. If Iraq had had a Japan option, it would have avoided the calamity of the 2003 US invasion.

4) The US motive in preventing Iran from having a Japan option is Israel’s unique strategic fragility, which US and Israeli strategists believe can only be compensated for by a regional monopoly not only in nuclear weapons, but in nuclear capability.

5) The IAEA board’s procedures and findings as well as those of the UN Security Council have been warped and distorted, primarily led by the US, in the service of this strategic goal.

6) Iran is morally right to oppose the US program of using the IAEA and UNSC to achieve this political/strategic goal neither was intended for.

7) Iran has effectively reached a position that the US program of misusing the non-proliferation system will not be successful, in other words, Iran cannot be prevented, despite the IAEA and UNSC, from achieving the legal status of nuclear capable - having a Japan option.

8) Given that Iran having a Japan option cannot be prevented, it is better from the standpoint of US strategic interests for the US to be less hostile with a nuclear capable Iran instead of more hostile.

9) Obama is not independent enough of pressures, especially from pro-Israel factions of his administration to chart the better course for the US.

I don't think any of these eight points can be reasonably disputed, but unless something changes that I do not expect I can only predict that one or another of these eight points will continue to be the core of every post on Iran's nuclear program from now on.

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