The back and forth dialogue regarding the Iranian nuclear threat between Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama has been dragging on for quite some time. On one side, Israel faces an existential threat if Iran successfully develops nuclear arms. This fear has led Prime Minister Netanyahu to call for red lines that Iran cannot cross without facing military rebuttal by the United States, Europe and Israel. But President Obama and the international community have been loath to set these lines before nonviolent sanctions on the Iranian economy have been completely exhausted. Though Iran is determined to press on with its nuclear program, it is evident that these sanctions are proving effective in crippling the Iranian economy.
Iran, a country whose economy depends largely on oil, now finds itself with a dearth of oil customers as many countries worldwide now refuse to purchase or seek to reduce consumption of Iranian resources. Although the UN, EU and eight other major economies worldwide, including India, Japan and the United States, have placed significant embargos on Iranian purchases, Iran has remained adamant about proliferating its nuclear capabilities. Because of their unrelenting drive to attain these capabilities, it has appeared as if attempts to quell their program have been innocuous. However, new reports demonstrate the effectiveness of these sanctions, as it is estimated that by year’s end Iran will have lost $45-50 billion in oil income.
On the verge of economic collapse, Iran is grappling with dramatic inflation rates. This raises the prospects of protests and riots against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a leader who routinely makes outlandish statements calling for the destruction of Israel and deleterious actions against US envoys in the region.
Moreover, other countries in the Middle East have begun to partake in barring the progression of Iran’s nuclear goals. Recently, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain both abducted and confiscated materials en route to Iranian facilities.
With the presidential foreign policy debate coming up in late October, the Iranian nuclear program is sure to be a dominant and ineluctable issue. Throughout his campaign, Governor Mitt Romney has taken a critical stance of the Obama administration’s handling of the Iranian threat. But with Iranian economy blatantly disintegrating, it is clear that economic sanctions are taking effect. Optimism that military force will not be necessary to subdue the Ahmadinejad regime seems to be more grounded and less quixotic.
Under no circumstances should Iran possess nuclear arms, but a preemptive strike on their facilities will surely spark an exceedingly bloody war and spread mass chaos throughout an already volatile region. The United States and Israel know this, and that is why this issue just seems to fester in the public sphere. Currently, we are forced to play the waiting game and observe the extent to which sanctions will counter Iran’s nuclear goals.
If their program was only aimed at developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, it is unlikely that Iran continue to push itself to the brink of economic collapse. It is unclear to what extreme they will go to in order to attain nuclear weapons. What is clear is that most world powers are determined to obstruct Iran’s nuclear ambitions from coming to fruition.
President Obama has reiterated this many times, and he is not just playing politics. If sanctions ultimately do fail, and Iran finds itself on the cusp of being able to successfully detonate such a weapon, we may very well see (valid) military actions taken against them. But it is estimated that such success will not happen for at least half a year. Until then, increasing stringency in sanctions will have to suffice, and the deterioration of the Iranian economy will hopefully deter its nuclear goals.
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