What exactly is underlying the international furor behind President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's admittance that Iran is building a nuclear facility?
Ahmadinejad's anti-Israeli remarks, including his statements that he aims to wipe Israel off the map, have naturally sparked widespread fear that, in a bout of crazed fanaticism, he would unleash nuclear missiles on Israel.
Such a fear is largely unfounded. If America could invade Iraq just on the probability of WMDs, then a nuclear attack on Israel would almost certainly lead to an overwhelming military invasion of Iran and the toppling of Ahmadinejad. Attempts to paint Ahmadinejad as a crazed loon who would go against his most obvious self-interest (losing his power) ought to be scrutinized heavily; similar attempts were made towards Saddam Hussein, attempts which critics have provedto be unfounded and misconstrued.
The most obvious benefit of having a nuclear power plant is energy (keep in mind, Ahmadinejad has not "weaponized" his uranium yet). Nuclear power supplies countries like America and France with energy resources. A less obvious benefit is that deterrence nuclear weapons afford Iran, or in other words, the leverage it provides in global negotiations.
Sanctions have been the main proposed solution, but Germany, Russia and China were noticeably absent during talks between Britain, France and America on Iranian nuclear negotiations.
I'm always exceedingly happy to see rationality. The fact of the matter is that nuclear weapons issues, those involved with North Korea and Iran in particular, suffer from a lot of unnecessary fearmongering. If you look at the situation with a rational perspective it's obvious that the only goal of those regimes is really just to stay in power. Nuclear weapons, therefore, are not an offensive threat, but rather intended as deterrence to maintain external stability.
While this does horrible things for humanitarianism, it's not really anything to look at as a high-level threat- the deterrence from invasion disappears the moment the first nuclear device is utilized, and the country would like suffer a severe backlash in the form of an invasion.
Nuclear weapons, therefore, are not an offensive threat, but rather intended as deterrence to maintain external stability.
The concept of "Mutually Assured Destruction" kept the US and the Soviets from starting WWIII any number of times, and kept them from being used for over forty years.
That's because first and second times they were used WAS as offensive weapons!
True, they were used to let the Japanese know that they were outclassed and had lost, but they were used offensively to hit targets that were important to the Japanese war effort, and had been slated for additional conventional bombing attacks.
I am sorry, but I am worried - a country that is controlled by religious fanatics who claim the things about Israel and the US that they have should gain nuclear power is just plain scary. It is bad enough that a country in such a strategic time and place is run by thugs that use the religious rantings of a madman 1600 years dead as a guide for running a modern country, but to allow them weapons that can kill by the millions and could wipe out wide swaths of the Middle East along with Israel is just madness.
The fanatics that the Iranian mullahs have been backing have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are willing to kill other muslims in their war against the Jews (or against us for that matter - a lot of muslims died in the Twin Towers). Once they have the means to destroy Israel, what is to stop them, as they believe that doing so would either stop or delay the appearance of their version of the anti-christ, who is predicted, in the Koran - to come out of Jerusalem?
It is bad enough that Pakistan and India, both religious, both largely controlled by religious people, have the bomb. Fortunately, both are also fairly reasonable democracies, with secular governments as yet uncontrolled by the clerics in their countries.
If either of them are taken over by religious fanatics such as Al Qaeda or the Taliban, the rest of us are in deep doo-doo.
While this does horrible things for humanitarianism, it's not really anything to look at as a high-level threat- the deterrence from invasion disappears the moment the first nuclear device is utilized, and the country would like suffer a severe backlash in the form of an invasion.