Liberal Democracy

Liberal Democracy
The Free State

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Euro News: 'Iran Due to Inaugurate First Nuclear Power Plant'

Source:VOA News- a member of the Iranian opposition.

"Euronews is a pan-European pay television news network, headquartered in Lyon, France. The network began broadcasting on 1 January 1993 and aimed to cover world news from a pan-European perspective.

It is jointly owned by several European and North African public and state-owned broadcasting organizations, and is currently majority-owned (88%) by Media Globe Networks, led by Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris, who is the chairman of the supervisory board. It is also a provider of live streaming world news, which can be viewed via its website, on YouTube, and on various mobile devices and digital media players." 

From Wikipedia 

"Iran's first nuclear power plant is due to be officially inaugurated today amid ongoing concern about the country's nuclear ambitions. Some are also worried about a possible nuclear race in the region. Analyst and critic of the Iranian President, Saeed Laylaz, said: "In this atmosphere, it can bring or it can start a nuclear race, a race in the Middle East to have nuclear power for military purposes and so on. Euro News." 

From Euro News

Iran opening a nuclear plant, there's probably not much that the United States, Israel or the European Union, all countries that of course doesn't want to see the Islamic Republic obtain nuclear weapons, can do to stop them. It wouldn't be irresponsible to bomb a nuclear plant in a foreign country, just because it's a nuclear plant. You would cause a lot of damage killing a lot of innocent people. 

Now if you know that Iran has nuclear weapons in it and that information is clear with other countries understanding that, then that would be a different story, but hopefully Iran is actually building nuclear power for their economy and not for nuclear weapons. But with how badly they've managed their economy the last thirty years, we shouldn't take their word on that.

It's easy to be skeptical about Iran because this is a country thats also deep in natural resources, oil as well as natural gas, they also have a middle class an an educated class. Iranians are generally well-educated, but this is a very large country of 75M people thats still a developing country with high unemployment and poverty. 

Iran is still a developing country that if anything has taken steps backwards since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, with high poverty rate and high unemployment, with an educated workforce. And a lot has to do with the fact that the Islamic Republic spends a lot of their vast resources sponsoring terrorists who support their cause and would like to establish other Islamic theocracies in the Middle East. 

Iran has made it clear that they want to the superpower of the Middle East, just not economically apparently. By the way they've managed their economy, the way their government is set up, how they treat their democratic opposition, that has the education to lead this large country and get their economy going again, by essentially freeing its people to run their economy and put their vast natural resources to work for the country and not just for the regime. And to free the people of Iran to live their own lives and put the skills that they obtain to use to benefit the country. 

Iran is way too big to invade and occupy, especially by one country but even for an international coalition. Iran is three Iraq's both physically and in population. So and invasion and occupation of Iran is almost completely off the table especially for the United States. 

But letting Iran obtain nuclear weapons can't be an option either. Whether they get them in the end or not and they may very well get them in the end, they'll probably get the technology for them and since it's such a large country will probably be able to hide them pretty effectively. 

But what the Arab League, perhaps Pakistan, and India as well, as well as the European Union and United States can do is to support the democratic opposition in Iran, financially and in with other resources. And perhaps through a coalition of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, maybe even Pakistan, and India as well, take out any nuclear weapons that Iran successfully obtains if they are successful. After all peaceful options are exhausted, through the air destroy Iran's nuclear weapons through the air if they obtain them. 

The Islamic Republic of Iran now has a nuclear plant and hopefully thats to benefit their economy and people. And perhaps to a small extent it is, but the international community, can't allow the Islamic Republic to obtain nuclear weapons especially to fund their terrorists allies.