Back and forth...

This week the Iranian president has said that Iran is ready resume negotiations over its disputed nuclear program. The Iranians also allowed a team of UN nuclear inspectors access to its nuke sites and has offered to extend their visit to Iran as to allow more time to inspect. While these developments would seemingly signal a shift in stance, the Iranians also announced development of new weaponry. Specifically they announced that they have developed laser guided artillery which currently only a handful of countries have. Things seem to be happening rather quickly and it is hard to decipher if there is any way to avert war without one side being willing to bend, which currently seems very unlikely. One of the main things to be aware of is that if Iran is attacked it will not attempt to go head to head with the US it has adopted a policy of asymmetric warfare in the event of an attack. I think any scenario of military conflict is likely to result in many unexpected and drastic unforeseen consequences across the whole of the middle east, and possibly on a global scale. All parties should tread carefully for this will be no Iraq or Afghanistan. Iran on some level has been preparing itself for war with the US for over 30 years. If we attack, they will respond and I have a feeling we wont like the results of what happens.

Iran

There is a long history of negative relations between the US and Iran. To understand the current state of US/Iranian relations you have to look back in history to a US backed coup of the democratically elected Iranian govt in 1953.

Fast forward almost 60 years...

Iran has been enriching uranium against the wishes of western governments, primarily the US and Israel. Iran claims its program is for peaceful civilian purposes and has a right to develop this resource. Iranian President Ahmadinejad  in the past has threatened to "wipe Israel off the map" and Israel has taken the threats against it seriously, they claim that an Iranian nuclear program is not civilian in nature but for weapons applications. The IAEA has given credibility to these claims in their recently released report. (IAEA report details)

Iran for its part denies these accusations and continue their nuclear activities. The US has now passed new sanctions that penalize third party countries for oil trading with Iran, these stipulations take effect in June. The EU has also passed new oil ban against Iran. (EU/Iran Oil Ban) Iran has responded in by claiming that sanctions will have no effect on it or its research and that if Tehran is not able to export its oil it will shut down the Strait of Hormuz, which 1/5 of the worlds oil passes through daily. The US has in a secret letter from President Obama to Grand Ayatollah Khamenei let Iran know that closing of the strait would be a "red line" which would incur a US military response to keep the strait open. (Obama Letter)

There is much under the surface of what is seen by public eyes. There has been an ongoing power struggle inside the Iranian government itself, as Khamenei has consolidated power in moves to usurp President Ahmadinejad. I will cover this in another complete post. These thought processes have played out in an internal struggle to negotiate with the west which the Ahmadinejad faction supports or to continue on the path to have a nuclear capability no matter the cost to the regime.

What I find interesting is that we use the rational actor model in dealing with Iran. Does a theocratic regime with a religious leader at the head coincide with this methodology? Is the most important thing maintaining power or is there something more? This is a question that needs to be addressed.