Correction: Iran Does NOT Maintain Right to Nukes
In a previous post about the futility of preventing Iran (or anyone else) from developing nuclear weapons, I wrongly mentioned that Iran has maintained the right to do so. That was faulty memory. I should have looked up the source and gotten it right. My bad. Iran maintains the right to develop nuclear fuel, but also maintains that developing nuclear weapons is contrary to Islam. From the BBC:
Iran has an “inalienable right” to produce nuclear fuel, the country’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has told the United Nations.
Speaking before the General Assembly, he invited other states and private companies to help with the programme.
He strongly criticised US arms policies and said Islam precluded Iran from having atomic weapons.
Under the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran is entitled to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
Wikipedia has a more thorough history of the Iranian nuclear power issue. Props to Rojo for correcting me. I don’t want my mistake to throw another log on the bonfire of disinformation already putting smoke in our eyes.
So there is no proof that Iran is developing a nuclear weapons program, and has publicly stated it does not want to. I think the source of my mistaken assumption that they had maintained a right — other than the constant buzz of fear and war-stroking among well-placed talking heads — is my own distrust of such pronouncements. Sure, Mahmoud, your religion forbids it. That’s not very convincing. General history of religious violence (by any religion you care to name) and the particular repressive application of violence against Iranian citizens by its own government make it hard for me to take claims of religious prohibition seriously. I don’t take U.S. efforts at nuclear arms reduction very seriously, either; we may cut them back as a good will gesture to other nuclear armed states, but we will never reach zero. That’s not in the interests of our militarized corporate state.
In other words, mistrust all around.
One small further comment, Kev.
“All governments lie.” That is a truism and a good reason for distrusting the Iranian disavowals of nuclear weapons intent, in addition to, as you noted, their demonstrated violence against their own people (which, of course, is not close to unique to the Iranian regime and is, in fact, less severe that the previous American-backed order under the Shah).
On the other hand, for a regime that rhetorically bases its entire legitimacy, however disengenously, on adherence to Islamic principles, to declare the nuclear weapons are forbidden by Islam does carry a bit of weight because by declaring such they would then undermine their own legitimacy if they were to then go ahead and develop nuclear weapons.
Why, it would be like the United States, which rhetorically bases its legitimacy on freedom, the protection of rights, and the rule of law throwing habeas corpus overboard, conducting trials based on secret evidence, and the like.
Oh, wait.
Anyway, I hope the snark makes clear the ambiguity of my position, but it is still something that should be noted when talking about the possibilities of Iranian nukes.
Although you might point out (yes, I can’t stop rambling when I start) that the overall point of your original post, which I agree with, makes all of this moot. However, I think it’s important to keep these things clear given the current war-mongering atmosphere.
Hrrrrmmmmm… I had some further point for this comment, but it seems to have slipped from my mental grasp at the moment.
If it comes back to me, it’ll typically be around 3 in the morn, and I’ll be back then.
On an entirely unrelated note, would you be interested in me keeping you abreast of librarianship books that come into my hands in my capacity as a synopsizer of academic books? I ask because I thought of you today as I “reviewed” (as my work likes to describe it) the ALA’s manual of intellectual freedom (mostly policy statements from the ALA, with some discussion of interpretation) in libraries and, again, earlier, when I got a book on the design of youth spaces in public libraries; and also because one of the perquisites of my job is that I can purchase any of the books for 20% of list price. I try to use this perk to the advantage of both myself and my friends, so if you’d like me to keep you up to date on library-related (or any other concentrated interest that I’m likely to remember) books, I’d be happy to do so.
Yes! That’d be cool. I have the Intellectual Freedom Manual already (required text for a class I took on the subject), but would like to see what new stuff pops up.
Snark duly noted and appreciated.