Nuclear Consensus

By Paul Iddon

If democracy flourishes in Iran so will peace in the region. 

Bushehr reactor.

The 33rd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution passed by last week. Cardboard Khomeini re-enactments aside there was a sizable turnout in the Freedom Square, where Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a rather vague manner spoke of Iran's nuclear program and asserted that "all needs of the Iranian nation" would be met by its nuclear scientists.

Anyone who knows anything about Iran knows that the country's nuclear program was started under the Shah, during his latter days of megalomania and disillusionment he constructed the Bushehr reactor, which wasn't completed upon his downfall. Whilst he always maintained that he separated oil from politics he must have seen the potential nuclear power would have for the future. Indeed, in a retrospectively amusing banner ad (a printout of which I have pinned on my wall to remind myself of the many ironies of history) entitled 'Guess Who's Building Nuclear Power Plants' U.S. energy corporations point to Iran as the perfect promotional example for nuclear power. Alluding to the fact that even though the Shah was sitting atop one of the largest oil reservoirs in the world he saw the economical investments to be had in nuclear power.

Many Iranians who took to the streets in 1979 motivated by anger and discontentment with the Shah's autocratic rule were under the impression that the installation of a representative democratic government would see Iran's oil nationalized (as was the case in 1953 before the Anglo-American coup) and the benefits of which would be invested in their future. Instead a flesh and blood Khomeini returned from exile and imposed a theocratic rule over the entire country. Plundering the economy -- which he is reportedly said to have dismissed as being for donkey's -- and leaving the country susceptible to attack through violent purges of the Iranian military. He even planned to sell back Iran's fleet of F-14 fighter jets, which proved to be essential in defending Iranian air space throughout the war with Iraq. The brave pilots whom defended their country at its time of need were brutally tortured, their heroic accounts body-guarded by anonymity as a result of fear for their safety – that's how the theocracy repays the few that so very much is owed to.

When the Shah was building up the foundations of the Iranian nuclear program he maintained an elite secret police unit called the SAVAK which sniffed out dissenters and tortured them to ensure his autocratic rule wouldn't be challenged. The SAVAK was essentially utilized by the Shah to ensure the broader private property that was his Iran wasn't tampered with from within.

When asked in what is a very historically significant interview in 1974 if the growing prosperity within Iran would lead to greater demand for democracy the Shah questioned the interviewers logic asserting there was and would be no great demand for democracy in Iran, as the people he asserted saw and respected the king as a father figure and followed him as such. This shows how he for the better half of 30 years viewed his people, as proverbial children who were subject to his perceived greater knowledge and insight to how the world works.

Roughly around this time Khomeini during his period in exile in Iraq decided that the religious decree that is the Vilayet-e Faqih should apply to everyone in Iran. Hence all power should be invested within him whilst the Iranian people were all in a sense children who weren't yet of age and required parental guidance.

One sincerely doubts that if the Shah had fully functioning nuclear reactors that his contempt for the Iranian people wouldn't be off-setted by nuclear power, on the contrary, nuclear energy certainly isn't the answer to Iran's problems, the obvious solution is democratization.

And when I say democracy I don't mean the current system which is a supreme dictator who preselects and prunes candidates and shows general contempt for the “electoral process” itself (“just pick one of my damned candidates and hurry up about it, I don't like all this public display of free expression and demonstration, even if it takes place under the tight constraints of my authoritarian apparatus”).

A 'Nixon goes to China' moment on behalf of the US - hence offering overtures to the theocracy - would be quite a regressive thing for the United States to do as it would exhibit the same amount of contempt towards the Iranian people as did their old relationship with the Shah – where they simply invested everything into him and checked solely on him when anything related to Iran was concerned. For the large part this is the kind of relationship the US would have yet again if it were to resume diplomatic relations with the theocracy, as it would in turn recognize it as the parental authority over the Iranian people and would deal accordingly with Iran via the theocracies whims.

The solution lies in the consensus. Iran has asserted in the midst of threats of aerial bombardment that its nuclear program is peaceful. A majority of the Israeli public has also expressed a willingness to pursue a nuclear free zone across the Middle East, knowing full well it would mean decommissioning their own stockpile. A democratic Iran could easily pursue such a policy, keep its own civil nuclear program and focus on domestic issues such as ensuring world class safety codes and measures are taken in its earthquake prone capital.

Iran is long overdue in entering the nuclear age, and long overdue in dispensing itself of its high reliance on its own natural resources. But to move into this age the people of Persia need to stand on their own feet and assert themselves like the fair minded individuals they are and not allow themselves to be tread upon by this conniving dictatorship.