Bludgeon Iran Into Compliance

Even the United Nations' nuclear investigative and regulatory tool when it was headed by Mohamed ElBaradei, found ample reason through the discovery of 'irregularities' and hidden operations, to acknowledge that the Islamic Republic of Iran was up to no good. Not that it, like any other sovereign country, was expected to eschew the use of nuclear power to generate electricity and to produce medical isotopes.

Wait: Iran requiring energy production through nuclear power?

A country whose vast petroleum resources has earned it princely riches but which simply couldn't be bothered to build refineries, preferring to ship its oil out to other countries happy to refine it and then ship it in usable form back to Iran, at a price? Iran far preferred to invest its oil-generated treasury in building the far more prestigious nuclear installations that only very technologically advanced countries of the world were capable of producing.

Nuclear reactors could produce energy to generate power, or power to generate energy, or the power of deadly weaponry and only the elite among nations could boast they had achieved that milestone. Like Russia, like Pakistan, like North Korea and like Israel. The latter representing an intolerable situation; a non-Muslim country of Jews in an Islam-consecrated geography. What Israel could achieve, however discreetly, so too could Iran.

And Russia, Pakistan and North Korea were all quite happy to oblige, as enabling agents. All of whom operate nuclear reactors generating power and generating the awe and respect and fear that accompanies the production of nuclear devices capable of immense detonations of near-cosmic proportions. Which, if used for that purpose, mounted on warheads, delivered by intercontinental missiles, are capable of generating dread, fearsome dread; terror among those targeted.

An Iranian long-range Shahab-1 missile  Photo: AFP

And because Iran's theocratic dictators are so fond of generating terror, the world looked askance and became very nervous indeed about the possibilities inherent in the generation of terror linked to nuclear detonation. On the evidence it has revealed the International Atomic Energy Agency has accused Iran of blatant lies, engaged upon to soothe the concerns of the international community while it violates treaty obligations and endangers international stability.

Certainly incipient danger lurks not only in the majlis of the Republic's insistence that Iran has the right to uranium refinement and nuclear power, while denying any sinister motivations; it exists in a China whose spokesman could casually claim that China is capable of enduring a nuclear attack, absorbing the annihilation of millions of its people, since it has more yet where they came from, after all.

North Koreans have long become accustomed to its government's inability to purchase food from international sources during periods of mass starvation, because the country's pride and its foot in the terror-inducing door lies in funding rocketry and nuclear research, just like any other world-class society. And nor does Pakistan feel, despite its insecurity resulting from infiltration by fanatical Islamist, that it must forego its nuclear program.

The Grand Ayatollah, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution of Iran Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei is unequivocal; his country has the right to nuclear power. And in winking recognition of the Non-Proliferation Treaty where nuclear powers pledged themselves to nuclear disarmament -- where Russia and the U.S. have negotiated some limitation and reduction agreements, neither country in eliminating some of their nuclear stockpile of weapons has diminished their capability of reducing the world community to ashes.

So, while the international community is outraged at Iran's secretive successes in uranium enrichment, explosives tests and the building of 'illegal' nuclear emplacements, Iran's regime stresses its commitment to world peace, to leading an international movement for the destruction of all nuclear weapons, to make the world a safer place. Mockingly, mawkishly portraying Iran as a country dedicated to peace, while its detractors are rank hypocrites; this is consummate skill displayed by an exquisite chess player.

Of course, Iran's neighbours know its gamesmanship. They've played it themselves, but the stakes have never been quite so knife-edge. And should Iran succeed as it means to, in the acquisition of an arsenal of nuclear arms, Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia would see their way clear to pursuing a like objective. This, knowing that though Israel has been in possession of such weapons for decades, it has held them discreetly, the implied threat of being able to look after itself almost enough to convince enemies it would never go beyond conventional weapons to protect itself.

Yet having a fairly robust idea of Iran's game to achieve the status of Middle East super-power presenting as the leading Islamic country to produce its very own global Caliphate, they too would wish to avail themselves of such a deterrent that could be trotted out convincingly as protection against Iran's plots - or, alternately, rashly roll them out beyond threats to destructive use compelled by regional paranoia.

Shalamcheh, an Iranian-made air defense system is showcased during an annual military parade in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Sept, 22, 2013. On the eve of landmark trip to gather alongside Western leaders, Iran's president offered Sunday his most expansive vision that a deal to settle the impasse over Tehran's nuclear program could open doors for greater co-operation on regional flash points such as the Syrian civil war.   (Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)

 

All of which fermentation toward bubbling disaster could be averted. With continuing sanctions, biting a little deeper, enforced to do so, aligned with the threat of a physical martial assault on the installations in question, should Iran remain intransigent about the demands that it shutter its Esfahan enrichment plants, its Fordow nuclear site, and the Natanz site as well, shipping out all its enriched uranium, and destroying those very busy centrifuges.

A solution distasteful to the Islamic Republic of Iran, but quite needful for the peace and stability of the region, not to mention the world at large.