Magical thinking on Iranian nuclear technology — VOICES for REASON

I thought I’d heard every last pseudo-explanation for why the militant regime in Iran really is seeking nuclear technology as a means, not to threaten others, but for some kind of peaceful purpose. Until recently.

The other week I attended a panel discussion on Iran featuring Hans Blix. Dr. Blix is a Swedish diplomat and the head of an outfit called The Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission (notably, he was involved in the UN inspections of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq). The venue for the panel, moreover, was the annual conference of the Middle East Institute. All of which is to say that he is sufficiently respected a figure to be invited to address this informed, specialist audience. At the opening of his remarks, he seriously suggested that Iran could well be seeking nuclear technology, not for weapons, but for energy, because . . . nuclear power has the “ecological” benefit of avoiding pollution.

Yet: Iran has not sought to hook up its existing nuclear facilities to the electrical grid. More than that, who could seriously believe Iran cares one iota about the fate of its citizens, let alone the air they breathe (as Blix implies in re avoiding pollution)? Who could seriously believe that a regime that crushes its own people when they challenge its legitimacy; that tortures and murders political opponents; that funds vicious groups like Hezbollah and Hamas and the PLO; that has waged devastating attacks on American targets for years; who could seriously believe that a regime with such contempt for the lives of individuals within and without its borders could really have benign motives for its nuclear program? There’s no empirical basis for that belief.

Blix, like so many others, seems willing to dream up all manner of rationalizations for continued (so-called) diplomacy with Iran, rather than face the true nature of that regime and the need to stop its malignant ambitions.

image:wikiCommons