In announcing that it had enriched uranium?albeit a miniscule amount of a very low percentage (see this WAR Report)?Iran reported a significant technological step that maintains the steady pace of its nuclear program. Leading the international effort to prevent an independent Iranian nuclear energy and subsequent nuclear weapons program, the US is clearly frustrated by Tehran?s defiance of international will. Expressing the US administration?s growing frustration with Tehran and its President, White House official Karl Rove (see photo left) remarked that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (see photo right) ?is not a rational human being.? Yet, Iran?s pursuit of a nuclear weapon is, indeed, a rational endeavor; moreover, the protective means they have established to facilitate that pursuit are traditional deterrents?economic, political, military?that continue to restrain the United States and her allies.
Since the advent of nuclear weapon technology, the nuclear bomb has proven to be an effective deterrent against foreign invasion. As a member country of the ?axis of evil?, Iran observed one critical aspect governing the US approach to targeted nations: North Korea , enjoying the protection of its nuclear weapons, continues to brutalize its population and operate as a global crime syndicate; whilst Iraq , possessing only a suspect or nascent WMD program was invaded and the regime overthrown. Additionally, if Iran is to regain what it perceives as its rightful role of predominant power in the Middle East/SW Asia region, it will have to match its nuclear armed rivals (Pakistan , India , China , and the United States). From Tehran?s perspective, developing a nuclear weapon is a rational objective, given its deterrent value and the regional importance of joining the ?nuclear club?.
To protect its nuclear program, Iran developed a strategic deterrence that rationally addresses the economic, political, and military spheres of the security spectrum. By withholding its vast oil reserves from the global market or disrupting the oil traffic leaving the Arabian Peninsula via the Straits of Hormuz, Iran is capable of raising the price of oil significantly and harming the economies of the United States and European allies . In reaching energy and weapons trade agreements with Russia and China, Iran solidified political relationships with two Security Council members that have effectively blocked the imposition of UN sanctions . As the world?s leading state sponsor of terrorism, Iran operates a vast and nebulous terrorist infrastructure that can serve as an effective weapon against conventionally superior enemies. Either through its proxy Hezbollah or strategic links with al-Qaeda , Iran is capable of launching terrorist attacks against US interests abroad or the homeland itself . Moreover, a threatened Tehran would likely unleash the Revolutionary Guard in a concerted campaign to destabilize Iraq.
In its decision to develop a nuclear weapon and the process by which it has deterred opponents of its nuclear program (to say nothing of its behavior once it goes nuclear), Iran has acted as a rational actor. Tehran judged the energy carrots of the E-3 and the Russian offer to enrich uranium for Iran as inferior to the intrinsic value of owning a weapon capable nuclear program, thus ending the diplomatic route to date. And while provoking a military response from conventionally superior opponents may seem irrational, Tehran has calculated that air strikes against Iranian nuclear targets may be ineffective (given its diverse, subterranean sites); will unite the Iranian people behind their government; and will rally the Islamic community in defense of a Western attacked Muslim state . In fact, it is the consistent display of rationality by the Iranian regime that has, thus far, confounded the West and stymied their critical effort to prevent a nuclear armed Iran.
