Nuclear Proliferation

I don't look to Bill Maher or the celebrity panelists on Real Time for any revolutionary ideas on politics, but I'm a fan of the show's format and the content. The latest episode brought up the topic of Iran and nuclear proliferation, which I thought would be worth spending some more time thinking about.

Iran has continually made the case that they are not seeking nuclear weapons, but are merely trying to acquire an alternative source of energy. The Bush administration has viewed these claims to be dubious at best, and probably purposefully misleading. I understand the concern here, despite the fact that there hasn't been any conclusive evidence suggesting that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. There is reason to fear a nuclear Iran, which has made thinly veiled and not so thinly veiled threats against the US and its allies.

The opposite side of this argument is that the US has no right to tell Iran that it can't have nuclear weapons. This is a valid point, but is essentially irrelevant. The United States will not sit by idly as Iran acquires nuclear weapons. At least, you'd hope they wouldn't. The question then becomes, what is to be done? The Obama administration seems to be taken a softer approach, which may or may not get results. The recent rebuff from Khamenei after Obama reached out to them is not exactly a good sign, but I think it's just political posturing on the part of Iran.

But really, what's the incentive for Iran to stop its quest for nuclear weapons? The talk about "keeping all options on the table" by both Bush and Obama is meant to suggest that military involvement is a possibility, and I think having Bush at the helm for the past eight years has made Iran take this threat a lot more seriously. However, it seems like Iran's nuclear ambitions are being spurred on by America's flaunting of military might. Perhaps this softer approach isn't such a bad idea.

Unfortunately, there is precedence is working against the carrot approach. Iranians need only look to Libya as an example of what happens when you play by America's rules. The answer is, not a whole lot. Qaddafi isn't exactly happy with what his country has been given as a result to giving up nuclear weapons and admitting responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing. But maybe the problem is with Qaddafi himself and the US is merely waiting for the next leader to begin the thawing of relations in earnest. I think Libya is an often overlooked accomplishment of the Bush administration, and I'll be interested in reading about it in more detail in the future when the details are more readily available.