Features During January the U.S. Navy rescued a number of Iranian ships from pirates in the Persian Gulf. However, this is not a significant point of leverage for the U.S. since Iran is a consistent violator of human rights. For example, Iran sentenced Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani to stoning for allegedly committing adultery. Iran has also sentenced ex-U.S. marine Amir Mirzaei Hekmati to death for spying while he was in Iran visiting his grandparents. It was not until September that Iran released two American hikers whom Iran accused of espionage for one million dollars bail. It is likely that they never even crossed the Iraq-Iran border; rather, Iran probably captured them close to the border in Iraq. In terms of violence against its own people, Iran brutally crushed the peaceful Green Revolution in 2009. Thus it is highly likely that Iran is not going to extend an olive branch just because the U.S. rescued some Iranian sailors from pirates. If Iran were a weak and unimportant state, it is likely that the west would have laughed at Iran’s pronouncements about closing the Straits of Hormuz. If Iran was a weak nation, Iran probably would never have threatened to close the straits. However, Iran is an extremely dangerous nation with a large army and large oil deposits. Iran’s economy is about 40% reliant on oil revenues and Iran is OPEC’s second largest oil exporter, exporting four million barrels each day. Most of the oil is exported to Europe and Asia. Over the past decade Russia and China
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“Iran has proven itself to be a rogue nation, consistently supporting terrorism and attempting to undercut American influence.”
have supported Iran, generally blocking sanctions and resolutions in the UN that would hurt Iran. Iran has proven itself to be a rogue nation. Iran has consistently supported terrorism and tries to undercut American influence. There have been media reports that Afghan President Hamid Karzai has accepted payments from Iran totaling over one million dollars. Iran is known to funnel money and weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine and Gaza. Both organizations are classified as terrorist organizations by the U.S. State Department. Moreover, Iran is a strong supporter of Bashar al-Assad’s repressive regime in Syria. Some estimates for the current death toll in Syria as a result of the Syrian government’s crackdown are as high as 6,000 people. A 2009 U.S. intelligence report estimated that Iran could obtain nuclear weapons by 2013, although some estimates have Iran obtaining nuclear weapons even earlier. Iran’s nuclear program appears to have received immeasurable help from the Russians, who significantly helped build the Bushehr I nuclear reactor that opened in 2011. Western nations fear Iran’s obtaining nuclear weapons due to Iran’s not recognizing Israel, its tensions with the Sunni states, in particular Saudi Arabia, and its known relations and support for terrorist groups. The West fears that Iran will directly use nuclear weapons against Israel or the Sunni states, or that Iran will give nuclear weapons to
terrorist groups that would do the same. While the U.S. sanctions passed in December that require U.S. banks to seize and freeze the assets of the Iranian Central Bank will go into effect February 13th, the EU says it will only ban Iranian oil imports starting in July. While Iran does almost no business with the U.S., Iranian oil is traded in US dollars and the Iranian oil industry secures credit through the Iranian Central Bank. Thus the United States’s sanctions will make it that much harder for Iran to sell oil. The United States hopes that with a drastic decrease in oil revenues Iran will be forced to halt its nuclear program. However, it might be already too late for the sanctions to work and Israel’s fears of an Iranian nuclear bomb might come to fruition this summer. In 20 years, the Straits of Hormuz standoff will likely be seen as a small facet of Iran’s march to build a nuclear weapon and the West’s struggle to prevent the rogue state from going nuclear. In the meantime, Iran’s threats to close the Straits have been successful, with the U.S. delaying sanctions for almost two months. While Iran would close the Straits if it could, its threats appear to be just a means to delay the enactment of sanctions and to provide more time for the development of a nuclear weapon. Moreover, the sanctions might not even be the deciding factor in whether or not Iran obtains nuclear weapons. In a recent Washington Post article, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said that Israel will attack Iran’s nuclear program this spring. If Israel does and fails then only a lack of determination will stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon; U.S. sanctions may slow Iran down, but either Iran’s capacity to build a nuclear bomb must ultimately be destroyed or the effects of the sanctions must prove so crippling that the Iranian government will be forced to cave into the West’s demands. Iran may calculate that it is best to let the people suffer under the sanctions and that once a nuclear bomb has been developed, the nation will have the leverage to force the West to back off sanctions. HMR
The Horace Mann Review | Vol. XXI