Kobrin: Iran so far

The five members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany are meeting today to discuss a pretty important issue: Iran's nuclear program. The "five plus one" are coming together to decide whether to punish Iran for its continued research into enriching its own uranium or offer sweeter incentives to make Iran stop researching uranium enrichment.

This meeting arrives on the tail of Iran's announcement that it plans to bring 6,000 new centrifuges online in order to enrich uranium for energy. In announcing the arrival of the new technology, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad launched a verbal volley at the Western world, lauding the large step Iran had taken in "the coming destruction of the imperialistic state."

Does this make me a little bit nervous? Now don't jump ahead of me here. Truth is I am bitterly dissatisfied in the Bush administration. I think Vice President Dick Cheney is as crooked and ignorant as they come. I vehemently disagree with the foreign policy of neo-conservatism. But, there is something about Iran that makes me wonder if President-elect Obama should ask Senator McCain to sit in as Nation Security Advisor. I really think Iran might be a much larger problem than people realize.

I concede Iran is nowhere near capable of launching a nuclear attack on the Western world right now. After all, enriched uranium can only go so far without a bomb device or rocket. I'll also admit no capable country on earth has ever crossed the nuclear line and used an atomic device, other than the United States. So why assume Iran would automatically cross that line?

To answer that question, though, I challenge you to answer why no country has ever used a nuclear device since the end of World War II. The answer is a concept called mutually assured destruction. Take the Soviet Union during the Cold War as an example: Had Ivan pressed the button during the last half of the 20th century, he could be assured that a megaton or two of Uncle Sam's finest was going to come down on his head. Simply, Ivan didn't kill because he didn't want to be killed.

Can we say the same about Iran? Fundamentalist Islamists strap bombs to the chests of their followers almost every day. Two months ago a pair of mentally retarded women were dispatched as a suicide bombers. The warped logic of violent, fundamentalist, Islamo-fascism places very little weight in the value of a life. Iran is not run exclusively by these maniacs, but it is not free of their influence either.

And with such little weight placed on a single life, can mutually assured destruction deter a fundamentalist nation from carrying out a nuclear attack? If a country doesn't care about its citizens being killed, why not kill indiscriminately? Furthermore, with most second strike ability stemming from nuclear-capable navies and air squadrons, why wouldn't Iran attack first? The lack of a developed navy or air force makes Iran more likely to strike first, preemptively, if it felt a nuclear threat was imminent.

Of course, the U.S. would never use a nuclear device in the Middle East. And Iran has no way of delivering a bomb halfway across the world anyway, so this discussion must be moot.

Then again, I think President Bush has taught us a very valuable lesson: Don't ignore the other 190-odd countries on this planet. Iran probably has no aims, now or ever, for aggressive action against the U.S. There's a target right next door for Iran: Israel is where "X" marks the spot.

To say Iran doesn't like Israel is an understatement. Israeli intelligence has pretty concretely linked Iran and the Hezbollah terrorist group. Missiles, rockets and ammunition all make their way from Tehran, through Turkey and into Israeli homes. Also, Iran hosted an Arab summit entitled "A World Without Zionism", where President Ahmadinejad said Israel must be wiped off the map. Can you blame Israel for being on high alert when it comes to Iran? Each country poses a massive threat to each other, and both have the hare triggers that turn Middle Eastern sand into white-hot sheets of glass.

So don't ignore today's conference, or its results. The Iran nuclear situation is not critical on today. But a year, five years, ten years down the road, those 6,000 new centrifuges could have huge implications. And if they are just for energy, I guess we've reached a solid "peace for our time."

Daniel Kobrin is a senior government and politics major. He can be reached at dkobrin@umd.edu.