Inspiring Fear And Dread

The Islamic Republic of Iran feels entitled to inspire fear and dread on the international scene. Insisting that it remains its right - in Iran's case, a God-given right, since Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei had declared that the country was given permission from on high to become a nuclear-owning Islamic state - to challenge the science of nuclear fission.

And it has enjoyed more than ample encouragement from Russia, China, North Korea and Pakistan.

Enabling it to realize its ambition, so that after years of expert assistance from Russia and from North Korea, the IAEA has been able to confirm that Iran has successfully begun highly enriching uranium. For entirely peaceful means, Iran states, for medical isotopes and for civil energy purposes.

A bad-tempered, aggressive, militantly-threatening Iran is nowhere to be found in its assurances to the international community that its interests are wholly innocuous, and self-sustaining.

Assurances that the United Nations has found difficulty in accepting, much less the West and its neighbour Israel, whom Iran has been so fond of taunting and threatening in the very corridors and theatres of the United Nations. The country's relations with the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and others has been so fraught with tension and apprehension that the issue has transcended official sanctions.

Some agency or agencies or combined or singular entities have conspired to engender fear and dread within Iran. A number of mysterious, disastrous, truly peculiar, inexplicable events have occurred with no quite reasonable explanation other than that some powerful source has expertly targeted the country's ambitions to persuade it that its mission will not be tolerated.

A series of astonishing, precision events have occurred, delivering an unmistakable message. Its source hazarded, but truly unknown. Assassinations, kidnappings, sabotage, destructive computer viruses, peculiar explosions at nuclear sites, missile-testing grounds, refineries, pipelines. Defections, disappearances, all arcane and amazing occurrences.

Which should inspire fear and dread in those whose expert professionalism as IT specialists, nuclear scientists, ballistic missile experts, Revolutionary Guards, are heavily relied upon to further Iran's ambitions. "Given this climate, how attractive could a job in the nuclear program appear to bright, young Iranians finishing their education?" was the query posed by the director of research for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Not very attractive, would be the considered response. But on reconsideration, remember this: there are those who believe in the morality of what their country is embarked upon, simply because it is their country, one to which they have unswerving loyalty. Moreover, as professional scientists they obey an instinct to discover, perfect, prevail, and produce.

The attacks that have taken place have taken a number of lives. Most of those lives have been important to their families, those who love them as individuals of course, but they are also the lives of those whose expertise is critical to the completion of the aspirational plans of the Iranian regime. Which is itself behaving in a fairly cavalier manner, airily dismissing the losses.

AFP/Getty Images An undated handout file picture obtained from the Iranian Fars News Agency shows Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, who was reportedly killed in Tehran on January 11, 2012 posing with his son, Alireza in an unidentified location. Ahmadi-Roshan was killed in an explosion by a magnetic bomb attached to a car by a motorcyclist outside a university in the Islamic republic's capital, according to Iranian news agencies.

Belligerently claiming that they will not be distracted, not be restrained, not be forced by any reverses to surrender their ambitions to assemble a nuclear arsenal. The better to inspire fear and dread in those who conspire to dissuade them from their purpose.

In the face of adversities such as have been visited upon Iran by some successful, secret source whose expertise is such that they are capable of keeping death to a minimum, clearly narrowing their aim to a specific target, Iran is intent on matching and staring down adversity.

Its accusations against the United States and Israel as representing the fount of the uncannily successful and brilliantly-executed attacks on the country's nuclear-related computers, infrastructure, scientists seem reasonable enough. What other entities could conceivably be involved? Though both modestly refrain from taking proud credit for an unblemished record of success.

"There are countries that impose economic sanctions and there are countries who act in other ways." Dan Meridor, Israel's Minister for Intelligence and Atomic Matters

But has the cyber-war, spy missions and the terror-war against a terror-inducing and -supporting state had any true measure of success? Will it serve to dissuade other key figures in Iran's scientific-nuclear community from aligning themselves with the regime to focus on their abilities to help bring the program to completion?

"Waging a covert, low-level war is not without risks, including the risk of undesirable escalation. No matter how carefully we try to control the level of force, there's always the danger that matters spiral out of control, warned Stephen Walt, professor of international relations at Harvard University.

And the alternative is ... what ... ?