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What to Do About Iran

[New York Sun] Bruce Berkowitz - News of North Korea's nuclear test should make Americans worry all the more about Iran, the "other" proliferation challenge. Even if we do wrangle an agreement from Iran, it will be hard to monitor and impossible to verify. Tehran will have the incentive to prepare the groundwork for a sudden breakout, or to develop a concealed parallel program - just as North Korea apparently did after signing the Agreed Framework that was supposed to end its nuclear weapons program in 1994. We need to focus more on deterring Iran, and we need to start now, even as we continue to oppose the Iranian nuclear program and hinder it however we can. First, make nuclear weapons less attractive to the Iranian public. Currently Iranians are only being presented the security and prestige benefits of a nuclear program. They need to become more familiar with the costs and risks. Iranian leaders must understand that if they trigger a nuclear war, they will be held responsible for the destruction of 5,000 years of Persian culture. The writer is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
2006-10-13 01:00:00
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