Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
George Perkovich says there is no question that Iran has not complied yet with the IAEA investigation into its nuclear activities despite its claims to the contrary. He predicts that if pressure from the UN Security Council and others persists, in time a “core” group in Iran may agree to suspend uranium enrichment, opening the door to possible agreements across the board on a number of issues.
Iran is becoming more isolated because of its refusal to take steps to build international confidence that its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes.
Refusal to talk cedes the high ground to Iran without any benefit to Washington, but Washington should think twice about whether changing Iran’s actions toward Iraq will improve international security as much as modifying Iran’s nuclear program or ending its material support of groups that practice violent politics in Lebanon and Palestine.
The debate over Iran's nuclear program has now been widened, with Iran feeling emboldened to compete with the United States for dominance in the Middle East as a whole. This competition has the potential for "tragedy" if the United States feels it must use military power against Iran.
Instead of treating nuclear weapons and materials as problems wherever they exist, the Bush administration has pursued a “democratic bomb” strategy, bending nonproliferation rules for friendly democracies and refusing to negotiate directly with “evil” nondemocratic regimes such as North Korea and Iran. This strategy is flawed and counterproductive.
The effort to constrain the acquisition and use of nuclear weapons is perhaps the most ambitious attempt ever made to extend the civilizing reach of the rule of law over humankind’s destructive capacity. The United States, the Soviet Union, and other states laid the foundation for this mission in the 1960s with the negotiation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
