Thursday 26 February 2015

The real reasons Iran is so committed to its nuclear program

As the deadlines near for Iran and world powers to reach an agreement on the country's nuclear program — the first, on March 31, for a basic political framework — negotiations are focusing on what kind of program Iran can have. How much uranium and plutonium can it have? How many centrifuges can it use to develop more fuel? How long will restrictions be in place?

There's one fact, though, that is taken as assumed: Iran very badly wants a nuclear program. So badly that it has been willing to press ahead with the program, secretly as well as overtly, despite Western and UN sanctions that have crippled its economy, and despite repeated US warnings of possible military action.

Iran claims its program is entirely peaceful, but there are major reasons to doubt this, and it is generally taken as a given by analysts that the country has at least taken just-in-case steps partway toward building a bomb. Some facilities seem to serve little plausible function beyond nuclear weapons capability, though a point that Western intelligence agencies have made in the past is that building the capacity for making a bomb is not the same as deciding to make a bomb.

Whatever Iran's intentions, though, the country's dedication to nuclear enrichment even at such enormous costs can seem bizarrely counterproductive. So why is Iran so set on its nuclear program? There is no one dominant answer, but rather a few plausible explanations, some of which go against the most common Western perceptions and misperceptions of how Iran works. There is probably some truth to all of them.

http://www.vox.com/2015/2/25/8101383/iran-nuclear-reasons




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