This has been a big news week. Over the past seven days we've had the news of Prescott's affair, Clarke's admission that foreign prisoners have been released and lost, Hewitt's battles with NHS nurses and then there was the news of Scolari being offered and then refusing the England managerial job. While these jobs have understandably been dominating the pages of the press there is another story that is being largely overlooked despite the fact that it is far more important on a world scale.
Iran this week stated its intention to continue in its nuclear programme, refusing demands by the UN to stop. The fear is that they will use their technology to create nuclear bombs, though the Iranians have always denied this, saying that they just want to use the technology to create nuclear power stations. The IAEA have been unable to find evidence to confirm either side to the argument.
Basically the worries arise from the process of enriching uranium, which is needed for both power and weapons. However enriching uranium for use in nuclear bombs is a far more advanced and difficult procedure than that for use in power stations. Nuclear bombs require highly enriched uranium whereas power stations can run on just low-level enriched uranium. The question is how advanced is the Iranian's enriching programme? Previously the IAEA had been keeping a check on Iran's facilities in order to address this question, but because the UN has demanded that they stop their nuclear programme altogether Iran has refused for the IAEA to continue its checks. What Iran is now arguing is that they will allow for these checks to continue if the UN permits them to continue in its programme to build nuclear power stations. This is not acceptable to the UN (under the influence of the US) who will not stop until Iran has ceased any efforts to advance its nuclear technologies, regardless of its uses.
This whole disagreement has meant that Iran is increasingly being treated as an outsider to the international community, a status that means they are not worthy of advancing its technologies too far. It would seem that only the friendly western states are allowed nuclear technology ... oh, and Israel, Pakistan and India. Surely a more useful campaign against nuclear weapons should be directed at these countries who we know for a fact have the bomb and are currently involved in conflicts- Palestine and Kashmir respectively.
Why is it that only a select few are allowed to develop advanced technology? The obvious answer is the fear that nuclear weapons in the wrong hands could bring death and destruction to its enemies. But let's face it, there are many ways to cause mass destruction, without resorting to nuclear weapons, as we all saw on September 11th. A nuclear weapon by itself does not bring mass destruction, it is the initial intent that is the route cause. Instead of trying to make the world safer by 'taking out' specific people and countries, the UN (and I’m really talking about America here) should look at the real cause of terrorism: bad foreign policy. I think a more responsible and peaceful foreign policy is far more likely to make us safer than worrying about who is developing technology that means they just might create a bomb that just might be used. A hate filled person will find a way to kill regardless of technology, but a peaceful person in possession of a nuke is far less of a threat.
Instead of excommunicating Iran and refusing their right to develop as a nation, we should be bringing them further into the international community, allowing them the responsibility of nuclear technology, albeit with a close eye kept on them. If the UN allowed Iran to develop nuclear power stations and kept a check that they were not using the technology to develop weaponry, as it seems it would be quite easy to do, then this would be beneficial to the whole international community. I think the more we try to unite these 'OTHER' nations, the safer our world is. The Iran nuclear issue would be a good opportunity to show that we in the west are willing to do this and could be the first step in decreasing the reasons for many of the Middle Eastern terrorists to hate us. I think it is about time that we recognised that much of the West's aggressive foreign policy is doing more harm than good and that a near paradigm shift is needed to make our world safer and decrease the threat of terrorism.
