Not Another North Korea! Time to Set a Precedent with Iran
I left Utah on Friday to go to Boise, Idaho for a cross-country race. When I came back on Sunday, the world was in turmoil, and I knew nothing about it. I soon discovered that Iran had launched a third-round of missile tests, and on top of that a secret nuclear facility had been discovered near Qum, in mountains south of Tehran. Between Iran and North Korea, it is about time someone took a stance towards this type of activity.
First of all, I guess I should address the claims of President Ahmadinejad that these nuclear facilities are for peaceful purposes only, along with his request that Iran be allowed to buy more low-grade uranium for "medical" purposes. These statements propose a simple question: if the facilities are for peaceful purposes, why keep them secret and hidden from IAEA inspectors? That is all time warrants towards that. After all, even the Russians are getting nervous:
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday that Iran's latest missile tests were "worrisome," adding, "I am convinced restraint is needed."
U.S.: North Korean Tactics Won't Work For Iran
The next step that the Obama administration and the international community needs to take is to decide how to respond to this threat. In my opinion, economic sanctions will not suffice. Sanctions against North Korea have done nothing to prevent them from continuing their nuclear program against the protest of the international community. Meanwhile, dialogue has stalled between North Korea and the rest of the world. Accordingly, the first step that needs to be taken with Iran is dialogue and diplomacy. President Ahmadinejad has indicated that he is open to dialogue, not least by attending the United Nations meeting in New York recently. In this dialogue, however, President Obama needs to take a hard stance, as he and other leaders have begun to do:
The U.S., France, Britain and Germany have threatened tougher action to force Iran to comply with U.N. demands to fully disclose its nuclear program.
U.S.: North Korean Tactics Won't Work For Iran
If Iran does not comply with measures that will hopefully be proposed, especially with the coming G20 Summit meeting, the U.S. and its allies must follow through on the proposed consequences. If they do not, I can't help but be reminded of the appeasement strategies taken by the Allies at the beginning of World War II towards Hitler: allowing him to send troops into the demilitarized Rhineland with no opposition, the failure of the Munich conference and the acquisition of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia, etc. - and we all know what those led to.
But in the case of Iran, any talk of actions taken would be a dialogue between many nations, which could lead to proposals that many allies could agree upon and enforce accordingly. It is not only the U.S., France, and Germany that agree on deterring the Iranian nuclear program, but other Middle Eastern nations as well, such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. And with the support of these nations, new opportunities and tactics present themselves:
Sami al-Faraj, an adviser to the Gulf Cooperation Council, told the British newspaper The Guardian last week that the Arab states can offer incentives to Russia and China to convince them that their long-term economic interests lie with them, rather than Iran.
So far, Russia and China have been unwilling to support sanctions against Iran. However, if economic opportunities and incentives were presented to them if they allied with other nations to deter the nuclear program of Iran, a program that is now clearly threatening, their trade ties with Iran would mean much less. This would lead not only to more sufficient measures against Iran, but stronger ties between Russia, China, and the U.S. and their allies. In short, the only way to prevent Iran from turning into a massive problem like North Korea, with stifled negotiations and failed deterrents, is with cooperation between the powers of the world. It is only with this pressure that Iran will comply with UN requests, perhaps preventing future incidents.
