At What Point Is Iran Getting The Bomb Irreversible?
By: Robert Potter
Tags: Iran, News, Foreign Policy, Nuclear Weapons, Politics

I have mixed feelings when it comes to Iran. On the one hand, for any given theocratic authoritarian government structure, there will always be hardship and violence at home and abroad. Iran’s hands are far from clean for many reasons, and the country itself is far from perfect. On the other hand, it baffles me as to why Iran continues to be singled out over and over again. Numerous other countries regularly carry out actions that are on par, if not worse than what Iran has been accused of, and they escape criticism with little fanfare. It’s frustrating and mind-boggling, and a whole host of other adjectives all wrapped into one. I regularly wonder to myself if these contradictions and hypocrisies are just part and parcel of foreign policy. Is this just the cost of doing business, the immutable reality of countries competing with each other on a global stage?

For example, we are quick to condemn Russian assassination efforts but cheer on similar assassination attempts carried out by the US and Israel against Iranian government and military officials. We clutch our pearls in shock when Iran hangs a journalist for organizing protests across the country, but when Saudi Arabia orders a hit team to kill and dismember a Washington Post journalist, we look the other way. We are quick to condemn China’s terrible treatment of Uyghur Muslims but continue to erase Israel’s horrifying treatment of Palestinians. We crush and demolish countries left and right in the name of democracy.

And now, in the wake of purposeful sabotage by the current US administration, a nuclear-armed Iran is looking more and more likely. Right now, we have a cadre of “brilliant” takes by the likes of Bret Stephens and others being churned out, arguing that after two years of “maximum pressure,” all we need is a tiny bit more to bring Iran to the table. They recommend continuing to ramp up diplomatic and economic sanctions will bring Iran to the table with its tail between its legs. It’s only a matter of time. Once they come back hat in hand, we can negotiate an even better deal that the Republicans will be excited about. And finally, all the US foreign policy hawks will hold up their hands, smile, and say, “That’s all we want. Just a better deal! We aren‘t advocating for a regime change within the country. We’re the US! We would never do that!”

Meanwhile, Iran’s Parliament is considering a bill that would supercharge their noncompliance with the Iran Nuclear Deal should the US not drop its sanctions by February of next year. If the US tries to call the bluff, it will only be a matter of time before a nuclear weapon is seriously within spitting distance, and for a country that is continually jerked around by the international community, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a growing consensus in Tehran to rush towards a bomb as fast as possible. Seems like a surefire way to tell the US to bugger off.

All of this is not to say that there are no strict moral codes in foreign relations and foreign policy. On the contrary, things like minimizing suffering and killing in the world, encouraging less nuclear weapons as opposed to more, and truth prevailing over lies and misinformation are all noble goals.. What all of this smacks of though is a willingness to look past yourself and your friends’ actions in favor of a hypocrisy that engenders the insanity that comes from doing the same thing over and over and over again. If I were to diagnose the exact cause of all of our global ills, it would be an institutional unwillingness to innovate or think even remotely different regarding the relationships that countries have with one another and a stubborn unwillingness to look at stark evidence that might counteract particular courses of action. It’s a worldwide form of tunnel vision that often leads to ruinous outcomes across the globe.

Regarding Iran, we have fresh proof that these scorched earth economic policies utilized by the US are outdated and woefully ineffective. A case in point is Venezuela. I can’t think of a better example of a “maximum pressure” campaign carried out by the US that publicly advocated for a regime change that was an utter failure. The Trump Administration enacted crushing sanctions on the country, publicly supported the opposition to the Maduro regime, and regularly threatened military force. What was the result? Millions of Venezuelans being subject to health and food insecurity and an exacerbated refugee crisis in South America. All the while, Nicolás Maduro is still president and has only consolidated his power in the interim.

The question must be asked: with such a recent example of failure using this type of pressure campaign, why then the continued advocation for its use against Iran? If we look back at history, economic sanctions rarely, if ever succeed in getting authoritarians to give up power. Frankly, in the mind of the strongman, letting citizens bear the brunt of economic hardship is a small price to pay for continuing one’s grip on power. With Iran specifically, they have a long history of living under sanctions of many kinds. They have built-in resistance. More sanctions aren’t going to accomplish anything. Likely, it’ll only strengthen the hardliner’s hand.

Some people point out that the United States has the luxury of time in this scenario. They can wait Tehran out, the sanctions and isolation will become too much, there will be a tipping point, and eventually, they will come back. I wouldn’t be so sure. Americans desperately do not want to get involved in another war in the Middle East. President Trump was partially elected on that premise. Conservatives and even some liberals praised him for his willingness to end what has been termed as the “forever wars” in the Middle East. He has utterly failed in that regard, and last year, Gallup did a poll asking whether the US should or should use military action in Iran. The result was overwhelmingly against going to war.

Nevertheless, some part of me thinks that Iran obtaining the bomb is inevitable. Whether it’s because of the mammoth machinery of US foreign policy that refuses to think even a little bit differently about the world, our allies, and our adversaries; or the irreversibility of a solid diplomatic deal that has now been left in tatters, I have no doubt that gaining a viable nuclear bomb is becoming a more and more tantalizing option to the extremists in Iran. People conveniently forget that pulling out of these deals and crushing economies only tends to hurt the moderate player’s deck when it comes to authoritarian regimes. The reality is that all of this bluster that’s now swirling around Biden’s coming inauguration only threatens to cement the case once and for all that any deal with the US is a hopeless affair. And if that hypothesis proves true, the only other alternative is war.