By Arthur Allen
I don’t mean to preach American ideals or anything, but we really should be holding ourselves to the standard of innocent until proven guilty. The fact that in a lot of places we aren’t, the most immediate case being Iran, is hurting our image.
It is unfair to assume, simply because Iran is an anti-United States Islamic Republic with repressive laws and a non-functioning democracy, that they are developing a nuclear weapon. This does not mean they aren’t, because of course it is a very strong possibility, and quite frankly very probable. However, approaching the situation in that frame of mind is counterproductive.
Right now, all we have with regards to Iran’s nuclear program is speculative, circumstantial evidence, but no proof of intentions (one way or the other). This is the main problem with the Bush administration’s approach to foreign policy. It was much the same problem with the Kerry 2004 campaign: lots of demands, very few solutions. If the United States were to be more constructive in their coercion of sovereign nations, they would have more credibility later on in the process when the belligerent nations did not comply.
It is known that Iran has a nuclear enrichment program running, but the extent of the enrichment is where the line starts to blur. For uranium to become useful in a bomb, it must be enriched to well over 95 percent, but to be used in a nuclear reactor for power it only needs to be enriched to about 2 or 3 percent. So if the United States said “OK, we’ll drop everything right now and offer you this deal: You give up all your enrichment machines, and we’ll give you 3 percent enriched uranium to use in your reactors. We, the United States and Europe, will ensure that you pay a fair price, and to make the deal fair for you, if we don’t follow through on our agreement (which can be determined by the United Nations), you can start to enrich your own uranium again.”
If the United States were more diplomatically convincing, it would then have more support, both morally and practically, from the rest of the world when it decides military action is needed. This requires some give on Europe’s part, some willingness to meet us halfway. If the United States is willing to take diplomacy seriously (which up until now they have not), Europe must be willing to take the necessity of military action seriously (which up until now, or at least since Iraq was being debated at the United Nations, they have not).
This offer to Iran therefore would be more than simply a litmus test for whether or not their intentions are as pure as they say they are. It would also be a first step, by the United States of all people, toward pairing the diplomatic power of Europe with the military power of the United States, and having them work in concert, as opposed to independently and often in spite of the other.
— Arthur Allen is a middler political science major.
