So, negotiations work! Who would have thought?

Germany, the United Kingdom and France are currently holding talks with Iran over that country’s nuclear program. A tentative agreement has been reached, and a more comprehensive one appears to be in the works. The agreement is expected to include Iran’s suspension of its uranium enrichment program in exchange for trade deals and the ability to buy nuclear fuel from the European Union.

For a long time, the United States has maintained a “tough-talk-no-negotiation” diplomacy towards Iran. Not only is this diplomacy expectedly a failure, variations of it have already proven as such. Viewing the various scenarios in dealing with members of George Bush’s “axis of evil” one can see the extent of damage such diplomacy, or lack thereof, has caused.

In the case of North Korea, the United States has maintained a hostile position. This is widely believed to have accelerated that country’s efforts toward having nuclear weapons. Now the United States is in position of having to appease the North Koreans, as they can harm the United States.

In the case of Iraq, the United States took to using force rather rapidly. Iraq’s WMDs, the pretext for war, are nowhere to be found, and it is confidently thought that they did not even exist for years prior to the war. The result is the near complete destruction of a large country’s infrastructure and more than 100,000 civilian casualties and counting.

The condescending approaches the United States has used and the refusal to recognize the opponents as equals have backfired and are likely to do so more pronouncedly if maintained against Iran, a far larger and more powerful country that Iraq or North Korea.

Iran is a signatory of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, which grants it the right to possess peaceful nuclear technology. So far, there has been no evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon, aside from the uranium enrichment program, which, along with being used for weapons, is also the necessary fuel for a nuclear reactor.

If the program is eventually to be used for weapons, it is regarded as a golden shield, rather than a golden bullet. Iran has never started an attack on the United States, and the sentiment on the streets of Tehran is that Iran would never be the initiator of nuclear confrontation.

On the contrary, the United States has a history of hostility toward Iran. Among other incidents, the United States Navy downed an Iranian civilian airplane in the summer of ’88, killing 290 passengers. The United States also allied with Saddam Hussein and supplied him with weapons throughout his war with Iran.

Irrespective of their views of the governing regime, Iranians stand largely in support of their country’s nuclear program. The attitude is, “If the United States, United Kingdom and Israel can have it, why can’t we?” Many Iranians believe the United States is looking for an opportunity to attack them, and observing the situation in neighboring Iraq only enforces such perceptions. Israel (who refuses to sign the nonproliferation treaty) has also stated repeatedly its desire to launch an attack against Iran’s facilities. Given that it has launched attacks into Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, it is clear that Iran’s ability to retaliate has so far prevented such attacks, an argument that is often used as a reminder to why Iran needs to remain strong and acquire competitive power.

Iranians, whose support and endorsement of the nuke program is rivaling that of the 1950s in support of nationalizing the oil industry in the face of external exploitation, resent the EU’s proposal to provide Iran with nuclear fuel in exchange for abandoning the technology enrich uranium and make the fuel, a move widely seen as an attempt to preempt Iran’s technological independence of the west.

Nuclear races and militarism in the Middle East are dangerous to the future of the region. Military imbalance and the presence of one superpower without accountability, however, is far more dangerous and detrimental, even in the short term.

Demilitarizing the Middle East must be balanced, and different parties need to give up equivalent levels of destructive technology. The best way to talk Iran into giving up a nuclear program is through bringing Israel to sign the nonproliferation treaty and requiring it to dismantle its nuclear warheads, accompanied by guarantees of no United States military aggression against Iran, but this step may have to wait until an administration is in power that recognizes international law.

Fayyad Sbaihat ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in chemical engineering.