Stoopid Stuff

What should Iran do? What would YOU do?

When you think about it, a government, any government, has only a few broad areas of responsibility. Beyond those, it is up to the people, the government itself and the bureaucracy they spawn to require, or allow, the government to take other responsibilities. The broad, necessary duties of a government are infrastructure, some facility for generating revenue, and probably the most important, the defense of the country and it's citizens. Without roads, communications, bridges, schools and hospitals the country cannot function. Without revenue, the government, whether elected or not, cannot continue in power. But it is the defense of the sovreign nation and it's people that is the single most important role a government can play. Leaders as diverse as George Bush, Tony Blair, Musharef of Pakistan, Koizumi of Japan and John Howard of Australia all share this opinion.

Now lets look at Iran. In a violent region, with nuclear armed Israel on one side, Saudi Arabia's advanced military on another, NATO member Turkey on another and well over 100,000 American troops occupying their neighbor to the west, they have a great many genuine concerns about maintaining their sovreignity. And after the American President refered to them as a member of the axis of evil, and has continued to espouse "Regime Change" in Iran, those fears are heightened and made more immediate.

Now in this discussion, it really doesn't matter if you feel Iran is an oppressed nation, innocent and well meaning, or if you believe the Islamic Republic to be the personification of evil on earth. This discussion speaks to a Government's responsibility to it's own sovreignity. It cannot be denied that the Iranian government has the same role as any other nation's government. It is their duty to their constituents to prevent attacks, invasions and occupations.

Now imagine for a moment that you are part of Iran's leadership. You have been included in an "Axis of Evil" that includes Iraq and North Korea. You saw Iraq, with no significant strategic weapons, mass destruction or otherwise, fall to an old-style armored invasion, which you could see coming for more than six months. You saw a nuclear armed North Korea untouched, unthreatened, and negotiated with. In view of your regional situations and global threats, what should you do? The answer is simple--you take your current flow of billions of oil dollars and invest it in a crash program to produce a couple of nuclear weapons, as fast as you can. And you do it with Uranium, to which you have access and workable bomb designs, rather than plutonium.

And the whole nuclear proliferation thing gets crazier and crazier. The United States is in violation of the NPT for not living up to its agreement to build down its nuclear weapons stockpile. North Korea withdrew from the NPT and is in peaceful negotiations with the US. India refused to sign the NPT, developed nuclear weapons illegally, and is now welcomed by the US into the family of nations with nuclear weapons. Israel, Americas greatest ally in the Mideast, has never signed the NPT and is thought to have up to 300 nuclear weapons. And yet the US continues to slam Iran over their alleged "nuclearization" of the persian gulf region. What a sick joke.

What is it within the American Government that makes them believe they can dictate the scientific research and technology goals of another government? What's next? Will we tell South Korea they cannot engage in stem cell research because our religious fundamentalist extremists have decided it violates god's law? It is not up to the United States Government to decide what nations have the right to pursue what sort of defense or deterrent policy. That is the nature of sovreignity. The Iranian government is responsible and accountable to their nation and people, not to the American Administration. And they would be irresponsible to follow any other course.

posted by mikey @ 7:10 PM