US Policy on Iran

Former President Bush and many other officials feel that the best policy to take with Iran is to keep them under a watchful eye, mainly not allowing them to have any form of nuclear plan- though they are claiming it's solely for power/energy. While this provides an easy solution for dealing with Iran, it's not implemented quite as easily. With the large span of land that does make up Iran, there are many places to hide these types of weapons and with Iraq-Iran ties, there's a whole new field to consider when making any type of policy.

This website provides a nice breakdown of Iran-US events since '53.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3362443.stm

One must question, however, whether Iran should be held in contempt because of their relationship with another country. Since the '70s it seems as though Iran has been completely un-compliant with the US and their hopes for a stable relationship, but at the same time who are we, as a country, to dictate what other countries can and cannot do? Being a superpower gives us no right to state that another country is not able to have what we have, or could have. Nor does it permit us to do inspections of what's taking place in other countries. With nuclear weapons, Iran could pose a threat to the US, but taking into consideration their size and the second strike theory, it's inconceivable that they'd actually put those weapons to use. The same as with N. Korea.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,430649,00.html

Since our relationship with Iran has essentially been non-existant, Obama hopes to get the ball rolling again. He plans to start slow, but ultimately attempt finding common ground. The administration feels that the best way is to start small, essentially skirt around the issue, and then once relations have been established, discuss the large matters. Lets hope that this proves itself, because it seems like Iran will never come around.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7949233.stm

I can sympathize with smaller countries wanting to feel protected and wanting to make sure that larger countries don't beat up on them and finding that piece of mind with the implementation of nuclear weapons, but at the same time, I find it hard to think of them ever using those weapons.

Along the lines of funding, I think that the US should stop providing any money or offering to provide money to a country with whom our relationship is tilting on the edge of a large cliff. Not only does US funding make those in Iran dislike us more and perhaps even distrust the government, we can hardly say that it's being put to proper use. The US funded contractors in...Iraq or Afghanistan, and those contractors went out on killing sprees just because they could. (I only wish I could remember the documentary I've watched on that.) Anyway, it's going to return to bite us in the bum and all blaim will fall into our hands.

While Iran poses a threat, they currently know the limits of their power and they do not know the limits of our power or the power of us coupled with our allies, so they may do small things such as targeting US soldiers with EFPs, but we can attempt to control that and let them know our power in the process. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but it's something we can work on.