Why Iran is showing a nuclear brinkmanship in the background of severe sanctions and threat of an all-out attack from Israel or US or both?
Nobody in the West has the answer or at least they pretend they do not have the answer. Remember the seventies, when Pakistan was on the same path and never announced their milestones (with the exception of renegade AQK’s one interview with Kuldip Nayyar in early eighties ) but never showing or telling anything how many centrifuges they had installed each quarter or each year and how much enriched uranium they processed for military and non-military use. All there was speculations, some wild and sometimes educated guess work. Thanks to India they also helped in a way to belittle Pakistan capabilities even mocked their scientist capacity to develop nuclear weapons.
No country has ever volunteered nuclear information ever.
Iran, on the other hand, announces its progress and shows off its centrifuge facility production floor where Ahmadinejad under the glaring lights and television cameras opens the box of centrifuge rods to the utter amazement (or horror) of western viewers and discuss the details of Iran enrichment levels. He doesn’t conceal the fact that Iran has enriched uranium at levels of 5 % and 20 % (and who knows if they have already achieved 95%). Iran also discloses routinely (for western government consumption) how many new centrifuges it has in its possession and when they were assembled.
But more surprising is Ahmadinejad’s many declarations in last many years about precisely what Iran intends to develop, assemble and enrich, and when even where. This is a big propaganda blitz. One might ask why Iran is so public about its nuclear program. Why, for instance, it has not adopted Pakistan’s policy of nuclear ambiguity at least through its crucial stage of the enrichment development? The answer could be that Iran simply does not want to do so.
West (US) or Israel does not know for sure if Iran has decided whether to develop a nuclear weapon. But why hasn’t it decided? If it has no intention of producing such a weapon, then what’s all this brinkmanship about? And if Iran does really want to develop a nuclear weapon, why is it waiting? United States and Israel look at Iran through their own lenses and it is clear their “think tanks” write so much about Iran in excruciating details but still understand next to “nothing” about Iran.. Why is that?
But if sanctions are truly crippling Iran’s decision-making process, then there’s no reason to attack its nuclear facilities. Keeping the sanctions in place permanently would be enough to deny Iran such an endeavor. The sanctions might even be lifted at some point, so long as the US threatens to reinstate them should Iran risk a change in policy.
Yet the answers to all these questions is deeper than US or Israel thinks. It’s hard not to acknowledge Iran’s diplomatic successes over the past decade. Thanks to America’s occupation of Iraq, Iran managed to come across as Iraq’s patron. It also functions as Syria’s strategic backer and via Hezbollah, it controls Lebanon’s domestic affairs. It invested considerable funds in Afghanistan, and has worked with Pakistan to get help on a wide range of nuclear affairs in return for gas pipeline project. It recently offered to help Egypt bolster its economy, should the United States decide to freeze aid to Cairo; and in Egypt, there is very vocal support for such a relationship with Iran.
Iran also maintains close relations with Turkey, Qatar and several North African countries.
And Iran does care about about an ally’s Sunni or secular character, either and is not motivated by the creation of Shi’ite coalitions or by Islamic revolutions. This is purely US and Israeli propaganda. They are aware that Sunni states are wary of dealing with Shi’ites, and also that (Sunni) Islamic thinkers and leaders loathe the Shi’ite movement, which is regarded by many of them as outright apostasy. Iran’s calculations to project itself on the international scene are not spiritual; they are strategic and very rational in nature. Many observers, including the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey in his interview with CNN is testimony of this fact.
Iran also is content with strengthening its regional status. Its major success involves the way it manipulates Western powers’ foreign policy with respect to China and Russia. Iran stirs up disputes and diplomatic confusion between Israel and the United States, which opposes an attack on Iran. The irony is that no country or coalition from the West wants to put Iran to the test, particularly not at a time when the overriding goal (as it seems) is to engage in a nuclear dialogue with Iran.
In this way, Iran has shown (in the short term) that it has no need for a nuclear bomb in a hurry. It has been enough for Iran to simply demonstrate its capacity to develop unconventional weapon. Such a capacity has transformed Iran into a regional superpower able to manipulate the positions of countries around the world. Iran isn’t in a hurry to cross the line between having the potential to manufacture a bomb and actually producing such a weapon. It might never cross that line. Why should it furnish the West with a pretext to attack or impose more sanctions against it? Even possessing few nuclear weapon Iran is not stupid to attack Israel
As things stand, Iran so far has achieved its goals without needing to stockpile nuclear bombs in its arsenal.Which is ideal, as far as Tehran is concerned. Iran has attained optimal deterrent power against Israel through its tough diplomacy and brinkmanship. The bottom line is: Tell your enemies what you’re capable of doing to them, should you choose to do so, and wait for them to embrace you. That was US policy with China in sixties and seventies and look where China is and where is America.? India was Soviet’s lackey for fifty years and today America has embraced India and opened the floodgates of technology and weapons to destabilize the whole region, isn’t it?
