Iran could become another Turkey: "democratic, pro-western and bomb free"
As the possibility of a UN-backed plan aimed at limiting Iran’s ability to make nuclear weapons has been given a glimmer of hope—in not being rejected outright by the Iranian government—it is worth considering why Iran is being singled out so acutely and unfairly over its nuclear policy.
Clearly, the west and Russia are engaged in discriminating against it. Brazil has had a nuclear-enrichment programme for decades (including a large ultracentrifuge enrichment plant, several laboratory-scale facilities, a reprocessing facility to make plutonium, and a missile programme). In the 1980s it built two nuclear devices.
Three years ago I asked the chief of mission at the US embassy in Brasilia if Washington was worried about Brazil. “Not at all,” he replied. “In the early 1990s Brazil dismantled its nuclear weapons’ programme, and Argentina, its supposed enemy, has done the same.”
Jeff
It’s all about national interest, threats against it, and “the art of the possible”. Brazil is not stating that Chile has no reason to exist and must be destroyed, so its enrichment program is accepted. The relations between the Soviet Union, a country that no longer exists, and North Korea were totally out of control of the U.S. and Europe. In Iran we have a country that explicitly threatens a key ally — Israel makes some of the best computer software products anywhere — and a country that we can influence — they are heavily dependent on oil exports to Europe and to a lesser degree to the U.S.
The U.S. government would be remiss in its duty to protect the interests of its own citizens if it didn’t attempt to manage Iran’s nuclear activities into a direction that doesn’t threaten people who are both our friends and suppliers to the American economy.