Iran and Nuclear Weapons

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Iran and Nuclear Weapons

Question One

Iran initiated its nuclear program in the early period of the 1950s, being pioneered by the United States in alignment with the Atoms for Peace initiative that sought to enhance constructive application of atomic energy subsequent to the Cold War period. America and other European nations took an active role of monitoring the program with the aim of preventing any other cases of nuclear war up to the period 1979 when the Iranian Revolution occurred. During this period, the nuclear program ceased only to be reinstated in 1984 in the reign of Ayatollah Khamenei, with the Western nations not included. The clandestine environment surrounding the latter part of the program has enhanced several suspicions that the nation is currently creating a nuclear weapon. The first notable alarm was raised in the period 1992 by the Israel government following the ten-year accord instituted in 1990 by Iran and China with the latter providing a training facility that targeted Iranian nuclear specialists. The American nation refuted Israel’s claims of nuclear weaponry manufacture by arguing that the production was more of a national purpose as opposed to a military one.

Israel however was still convinced of the nuclear threat emanating from the unremitting enmity that has plagued the two nations thereby according a close monitor of Iran’s programs up to the period 1998. Four year later, lobby groups against Iranian nuclear endeavors disclosed two nuclear plants that had been treated as clandestine establishments. In the year 2003, Iran defended its plants with the assertion that they were instituted for the civil manufacture of nuclear energy breaching a former agreement that only placed legitimate supplies of the same form Russia. A year later, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) filed a report against Iran as credible information evidenced black market operations in a trade between the nation and the Pakistan’s Abdul Qadeer Khan, acting in the capacity of nuclear material supplier. With these advancements in Iran’s nuclear program, the country finally admitted to its secretive activities in the fabrication of nuclear weapons. This was in the period 2005 as the authorities declared their dishonesty in a statement filed with the IAEA in which it had refuted the mining of plutonium for nuclear production.

The government declared that the strategy had been used against the Western nations as the principal opponents for the program. Iran has revealed its motives for its weapons creation as being an Islamic call in the enhancement of jihad specifications, primarily to Israel and America as an ardent protector of the Israelite nation. Political leaders have boasted of their financial ability and links in the proliferation of the weapons to other extremist nations for religious duties. Other nations that have been warned against nuclear attacks by Iran are Europe, United Arabs Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The European nations inclusive of America have been acquired as targets as they have been actively seeking for the weapons acquisition through the United Nations Security Council. On the other hand, the Arab nations have been a target with their geographical immediacy to the Iran in its expansion project as it conquers the nations for Islamic rule. In conclusion, although Iran has been a member of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that monitors material handling and the peaceful objective of nuclear weapons manufacture through the IAEA, it has breached various protocols since the period 2004 to the present evidencing its warfare objectives.

Question Two

With Iran’s objectives clearly indicated, the United Nations (UN) accorded three sanctions in the periods 2006, 2007 and 2008, which were ineffective in barring Iran from its program. In the initial year, the UN debarred with the freezing of all financial resources given to the nation for the enhancement of its program yet the efforts were frustrated by Russia and China as they covered the financial gap created. In the period 2007, all forms of weaponry into the nation were debarred to no avail. In 2008, travel limitations were accorded to the nation and Iran still refused to discontinue its program. The concession technique had been earlier applied by the period 2003 by the Western nations, France, Germany and Great Britain as they presented economic incentives for the discontinuity of the covert operation. Iran gave its concession to the arrangement only to breach it a year later. In 2007, further concessions were initiated with the inclusion of other Western nations namely, China, United States, and Russia with the same unproductive results.

Israel and America have proposed the use of military action as a last resort on Iran for nuclear manufacture discontinuity with America posing a higher likelihood of implementing the threat than Israel. America has airfields in Turkey and Kyrgyzstan that can be used to instigate aero strikes in collaboration with its Fifth Fleet located in the Persian Gulf. A considerable limitation has been raised with regard to this technique as Iran has various nuclear plants located in subversive areas that are immune to such efforts. Repercussion of such an attack would be an increased abhorrence of Israel and America by rival nations with the possibility of other nations retaliating in the favor of Iran and consequently, a nuclear catastrophe would be created. If a completion of the weapons occurs in Iran, Israel would be coerced into nuclear warfare with its enemy and this would pose a difficult decision to America as Israel’s supporter. This is because America has acquired various accords with other Middle East nations that would certainly join Iran against Israel. Therefore, military strategies pose a critical level of ramifications and should only be applied as the last resort.