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Iran and the Bomb

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Iran and the Bomb

The Abdication of International Responsibility

Columbia UP,

15 min read
10 take-aways
Audio & text

What's inside?

Scary scenario: Iran is blatantly developing an A-bomb, no one knows how it will be used and no one is doing anything.

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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Overview
  • For Beginners

Recommendation

The international landscape offers a few terrifying future scenarios, including the vision of Iran with a nuclear bomb. If this threat came to pass, it would destabilize the entire Middle East, disrupt long-standing relationships, threaten other Arab nations and endanger global oil supplies. Therese Delpech takes you on a guided tour of the international diplomatic confrontations surrounding Iran’s persistent, secretive attempts to build a nuclear weapon. This foreign policy nightmare has been building for decades. Yet Iran’s new radical fundamentalist Shia government has adopted a policy of stalling, intimidation and obfuscation to hide its nuclear program. So far, it has worked. Iran has thwarted United Nations inspectors and international diplomats who have been unwilling or unable to force it to reveal its true program and intentions. While the book is dry and academic, if you are interested in foreign policy or lead an international business, getAbstract recommends this realistic professional overview.

Summary

No Compromises

Western diplomats were caught off guard in 2005 when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a hard-line militant, was elected president of Iran. At first, diplomats tried to negotiate with him. He rejected their approach. When he called for Israel’s eradication, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Anan called off his visit to Tehran. As these moves show, the West does not understand whom it is dealing with at all.

Ahmadinejad was elected to complete Iran’s nuclear weapons development program. He was not empowered to negotiate with anyone. To keep this program under way and deflect international pressure, Iran may have fomented the 2006 war in Lebanon. Yet while Iran’s citizens are better educated and trained than citizens in any other Middle Eastern country except Israel, they are not part of the governing apparatus. Instead, a religious regime governs Iran, and Ahmadinejad voices its ideas. The country is developing its nuclear options as it simultaneously confronts its enemies and engages in lengthy discussions to forestall any retaliatory measures.

The Europeans, Americans and Russians say a nuclear Iran would threaten their interests. Yet Western democracies have repeated...

About the Author

Therese Delpech has directed strategic studies at the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) since 1997. She is a researcher at the Center for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) and a commissioner of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission.

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