The Iranian Nuclear Crisis Fitzpatrick, Mark
2013, 2008, 20130111, 2009, 2013-01-11, 20080101, Letnik:
398
eBook
This paper explains how Iran developed its nuclear programme to the point where it threatens to achieve a weapons capability within a short time frame, and analyses Western policy responses aimed at ...forestalling that capability. Key questions are addressed: will the world have to accept an Iranian uranium-enrichment programme, and does having a weapons capability mean having the Bomb?
For nearly two decades, Western strategy on the Iran nuclear issue emphasised denial of supply. Since 2002, there has also been a demand-side dimension to the strategy, aimed at changing Iran’s cost–benefit calculations through inducements and pressure. But the failure of these policies to prevent Iran from coming close to achieving a nuclear-weapons capability has promoted suggestions for fallback strategies that would grant legitimacy to uranium enrichment in Iran in exchange for intrusive inspections and constraints on the programme.
The paper assesses these ‘second-best’ options in terms of their feasibility and their impact on the proliferation risks of diversion of nuclear material and knowledge, clandestine development and NPT break-out, and the risk of stimulating a proliferation cascade in the Middle East and beyond. It concludes that the risks are still best minimised by reinforcing the binary choice presented to Iran of cooperation or isolation, and strengthening denial of supply.
Mark Fitzpatrick is Senior Fellow for Non-Proliferation at The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Director of its Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Programme. He is the editor and principal author of IISS strategic dossiers on Nuclear Programmes in the Middle East: In the shadow of Iran (London: IISS, 2008) and Nuclear Black Markets: Pakistan, A.Q. Khan and the rise of proliferation networks: A net assessment (London: IISS, 2007). He has published articles on the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programmes and other proliferation topics in Survival , the Financial Times , the International Herald Tribune and other publications, and he is a frequent news commentator and international lecturer on these subjects. He was a US diplomat for 26 years, including as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Non-Proliferation.
Introduction 1. Framing the Problem: Iran,s Pursuit of Fissile Material 2. Western Strategy So Far 3. Can Iran's Capability Be Kept Non-Weaponised? Conclusion
Moderation theory describes the process through which radical political actors develop commitments to electoral competition, political pluralism, human rights, and rule of law and come to prefer ...negotiation, reconciliation, and electoral politics over provocation, confrontation, and contentious action. Revisiting this theory through an examination of two of the most prominent moderate Islamic political forces in recent history, Muslim Reformers in Iran and Turkey analyzes the gains made and methods implemented by the Reform Front in the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Justice and Development Party in Turkey. Both of these groups represent Muslim reformers who came into continual conflict with unelected adversaries who attempted to block their reformist agendas. Based on extensive field research in both locales, Muslim Reformers in Iran and Turkey argues that behavioral moderation as practiced by these groups may actually inhibit democratic progress. Political scientist Güne Murat Tezcür observes that the ability to implement conciliatory tactics, organize electoral parties, and make political compromises impeded democracy when pursued by the Reform Front and the Justice and Development Party. Challenging conventional wisdom, Tezcür’s findings have broad implications for the dynamics of democratic progress.
When Naser al-Din Shah, who ruled Iran from 1848 to 1896, claimed the title Shadow of God on Earth, his authority rested on premodern conceptions of sacred kingship. By 1941, when Mohammad Reza Shah ...Pahlavi came to power, his claim to authority as the Shah of Iran was infused with the language of modern nationalism. In short, between roughly 1870 and 1940, Iran's traditional monarchy was forged into a modern nation-state.
InNationalizing Iran, Afshin Marashi explores the changes that made possible this transformation of Iran into a social abstraction in which notions of state, society, and culture converged. He follows Naser al-Din Shah on a tour of Europe in 1873 that led to his importing a new public image of monarchy-an image based on the European late imperial model-relying heavily on the use of public ceremonies, rituals, and festivals to promote loyalty to the monarch. Meanwhile, Iranian intellectuals were reimagining ethnic history to reconcile "authentic" Iranian culture with the demands of modernity. From the reform of public education to the symbolism surrounding grand public ceremonies in honor of long-dead poets, Marashi shows how the state invented and promoted key features of the common culture binding state and society. The ideological thrust of that century would become the source of dramatic contestation in the late twentieth century.
Marashi's study of the formative era of Iranian nationalism will be valuable to scholars and students of history, sociology, political science, and anthropology, as well as journalists, policy makers, and other close observers of contemporary Iran.
In this era of superheated rhetoric and vitriolic exchanges between the leaders of Iran and Israel, the threat of nuclear violence looms. But the real roots of the enmity between the two nations ...mystify Washington policymakers, and no promising pathways to peace have emerged. This book traces the shifting relations among Israel, Iran, and the United States from 1948 to the present, uncovering for the first time the details of secret alliances, treacherous acts, and unsavory political maneuverings that have undermined Middle Eastern stability and disrupted U.S. foreign policy initiatives in the region.
Trita Parsi, a U.S. foreign policy expert with more than a decade of experience, is the only writer who has had access to senior American, Iranian, and Israeli decision makers. He dissects the complicated triangular relations of their countries, arguing that America's hope for stability in Iraq and for peace in Israel is futile without a correct understanding of the Israeli-Iranian rivalry.
Parsi's behind-the-scenes revelations about Middle East events will surprise even the most knowledgeable readers: Iran's prime minister asks Israel to assassinate Khomeini, Israel reaches out to Saddam Hussein after the Gulf War, the United States foils Iran's plan to withdraw support from Hamas and Hezbollah, and more. This book not only revises our understanding of the Middle East's recent past, it also spells out a course for the future. In today's belligerent world, few topics, if any, could be more important.
Ethnicity, Identity, and the Development of Nationalism in Iran investigatesthe ways in which Armenian minorities in Iran encountered Iranian nationalismand participated in its development over the ...course of the twentiethcentury. Based primarily on oral interviews, archival documents, personalmemoirs, memorabilia, and photographs, the book examines the lives of agroup of Armenian-Iranians-a truck driver, an army officer, a parliamentaryrepresentative, a civil servant, and a scout leader-and explores thepersonal conflicts and paradoxes attendant upon their layered allegiancesand compound identities. In documenting individual experiences in Iranianindustry, military, government, education, and community organization,the five social biographies detail the various roles of elites and non-elitesin the development of Iranian nationalism and reveal the multiple forcesthat shape the processes of identity formation. Yaghoubian combines theseportraits with theories of nationalism and national identity to answer recurringpivotal questions about how nationalism evolves, why it is appealing,what broad forces and daily activities shape and sustain it, and the role ofethnicity in its development.
Since the 1979 revolution, scholars and policy makers alike have tended to see Iranian political actors as religiously driven-dedicated to overturning the international order in line with a ...theologically prescribed outlook. This provocative book argues that such views have the link between religious ideology and political order in Iran backwards.Religious Statecraftexamines the politics of Islam, rather than political Islam, to achieve a new understanding of Iranian politics and its ideological contradictions.Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar traces half a century of shifting Islamist doctrines against the backdrop of Iran's factional and international politics, demonstrating that religious narratives in Iran can change rapidly, frequently, and dramatically in accordance with elites' threat perceptions. He argues that the Islamists' gambit to capture the state depended on attaining a monopoly over the use of religious narratives. Tabaar explains how competing political actors strategically develop and deploy Shi'a-inspired ideologies to gain credibility, constrain political rivals, and raise mass support. He also challenges readers to rethink conventional wisdom regarding the revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, the U.S. embassy hostage crisis, the Iran-Iraq War, the Green Movement, nuclear politics, and U.S.-Iran relations. Based on a micro-level analysis of postrevolutionary Iranian media and recently declassified documents as well as theological journals and political memoirs,Religious Statecraftconstructs a new picture of Iranian politics in which power drives Islamist ideology.
Since its revolution in 1979, Iran has been viewed as the bastion of radical Islam and a sponsor of terrorism. The focus on its volatile internal politics and its foreign relations has, according to ...Kamrava, distracted attention from more subtle transformations which have been taking place there in the intervening years. With the death of Ayatollah Khomeini a more relaxed political environment opened up in Iran, which encouraged intellectual and political debate between learned elites and religious reformers. What emerged from these interactions were three competing ideologies which Kamrava categorises as conservative, reformist and secular. As the book aptly demonstrates, these developments, which amount to an intellectual revolution, will have profound and far-reaching consequences for the future of the Islamic republic, its people and very probably for countries beyond its borders. This thought-provoking account of the Iranian intellectual and cultural scene will confound stereotypical views of Iran and its mullahs.
Unlike much of the instant analysis that appeared at the time of the Iranian revolution, Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution is based upon extensive fieldwork carried out in Iran. Michael M. ...J. Fischer draws upon his rich experience with the mullahs and their students in the holy city of Qum, composing a picture of Iranian society from the inside—the lives of ordinary people, the way that each class interprets Islam, and the role of religion and religious education in the culture. Fischer’s book, with its new introduction updating arguments for the post-Revolutionary period, brings a dynamic view of a society undergoing metamorphosis, which remains fundamental to understanding Iranian society in the early twenty-first century.
InPrecarious Lives, Shahram Khosravi attempts to reconcile the paradoxes of Iranians' everyday life in the first decade of the twenty-first century. On the one hand, multiple circumstances of ...precarity give rise to a sense of hopelessness, shared visions of a futureless tomorrow, widespread home(land)lessness, intense individualism, and a growth of incivilities. On the other, daydreaming and hope, as well as civility and solidarity in political protests, street carnivals, and social movements, continue to persist. Young Iranians describe themselves as being stuck in purposelessness and forced to endure endless waiting, and they are also aware that they are perceived as unproductive and a burden on their society. Despite the aspirations and inspiration they possess, they find themselves forced into petrifying social and spatial immobility. Uncertainty in the present, a seemingly futureless tomorrow: these are the circumstances that Khosravi explores inPrecarious Lives.
Creating an intricate and moving portrait of contemporary Iranian life, Khosravi weaves together individual stories, government reports, statistics, and cultural analysis of art and literature to depict how Iranians react to the experience of precarity and the possibility of hope. Drawing on extensive ethnographic engagement with youth in Tehran and Isfahan as well as with migrant workers in rural areas, Khosravi examines the complexities and contradictions of everyday life in Iran.Precarious Livesis a vital work of contemporary anthropology that serves as a testament to the shared hardship and hope of the Iranian people.
This book is the first major study of provincial history in the Qajar period. Drawing extensively on unpublished Iranian and British documents, it explores the history of Mazandaran, a province in ...the Caspian region, during 1848-1914, when the province as a part of Iran was exposed to the policies of rival great powers, particularly Tzarist Russia. While showing socio-economic characteristics of Mazandaran and its potential for development, the book examines in detail the transformation of the traditional provincial community and economy in the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
