An Overview of Iran and Why A Nuclear Iran is A Threat

It seems all my recent pieces are reaction pieces. Maybe I just write best when I’m worked up.

I like to scan the TeenInk nonfiction section. It’s actually a lot of fun, to get other teen’s opinions on current events, celebrities, and the like. Though I think there’s a bit too much focus on certain celebrities, (an article about how you don’t like Lady Gaga is still an article about Lady Gaga) I think that the TeenInk nonfiction offers some interesting insights into the world today.

So when I stumbled across an article talking about how Iran is just a poor Middle Eastern country getting picked on by the big, bad, United States, I tried not to get angry. This is an exercise to expand my horizons, after all. But as I continued to read, I couldn’t help it. The article was so…so depressingly ignorant that I couldn’t let it stand. It was your basic “America is evil and anyone who opposes them is in the right” fare, but I couldn’t let it stand.

Because this article offered no factual evidence to support its claims. This article offered nothing but a lot of anti-American propaganda and lauded, of all places, Iran and Iraq as picked on underdogs who deserved nuclear technology.

So I’m writing this as a sort of introduction to the current Iranian government and their recent history with their Middle Eastern neighbors. Then you can decide if Iran can be trusted with nuclear technology.

First point (An overview of the Iranian government): The current Iranian president is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But the Iranian government is not like the government of the United States, or even the government of Britain. The president of Iran is not the same thing as the president of the United States, or Britain’s Prime Minister. He is actually only the second most powerful man in his country. In Iran, the “Leader of the Revolution”, or the “Supreme Leader”, as he is referred to in the United States and Kingdom, runs the government. The current Supreme Leader of Iran is Ali Khamenei.

The thing about Iran is that it’s not going for a system of checks and balances like many democracies. In Iran, the Supreme Leader holds the power to declare war and mobilize troops. He is the supreme judicial authority as well, and decides who is allowed to run for President or Parliament. He is not democratically elected. The President is, and handles things like signing treaties, managing the budget, etc. Now that you have a very basic understanding of how the Iranian government works, we can move on to its interactions with the rest of the world.
Point Two (Relations with Israel): The Iranian government refuses to acknowledge the existence of Israel, or its government. It has severed all diplomatic ties and refers to it as “a Zionist state”. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president, has been quoted saying that Israel will be wiped from the pages of history. He has also been quoted saying that Jewish leaders exaggerated the Holocaust in order to garner sympathy from the west. The Supreme Leader has also been particularly aggressive towards the Israelis, saying, “This cancerous tumor of a state [Israel] should be removed from the region.” And just in case you think that Iran doesn’t have a problem with the Jewish people, just their government, he was also quoted saying “it is incorrect, irrational, pointless and nonsense to say that we are friends of Israeli people."
Obviously, the Iranians have a hatred of the Jewish people and Israel in particular. Is it so hard to believe that if they gained the power to destroy Israel with nuclear fire, they would do so?
Point Three (Relations with Iraq): Iran and Iraq border each other and have, unfortunately, a very bloody history. In 1980, Iraqi forces, under the control of Saddam Hussein, invaded Iran, beginning the Gulf War (not Operation Desert Storm, that was in the 1990s). The quick attack caught the Iranian military off guard, but Hussein severely underestimated their willingness to fight hard and fight dirty.
Iranians famously rounded up young children and then had them run across open minefields, clearing the way for Iranian soldiers. Any children that survived then charged the Iraqi machine guns, hoping that the Iraqis wouldn’t massacre unarmed children. It didn’t work.
The Persian Gulf War raged for eight years, and was fought mainly in a WWI style. Trench warfare was abundant, as well as the use of chemical weapons. (Iraqi forces used chemical weapons on Iranian forces, as well as Iraqi Kurds – Kurds are an Islamic ethnic group. And yes, you read that right; Iraq used chemical weapons against its own people.) There was no change in territory, but the war cost almost one million lives.
So that’s two countries the Iranians hate and have reasons to use nuclear force against.
Point Four (Civil Rights in Iran): This isn’t so much an example of “people Iran would use nuke against” as much as an example of “Iranian people not being the innocent victims another writer is trying to make them out to be”.
Iran has faced many accusations of unfair treatment of its own citizens, and with good reason. The Iranians torture, beat, and rape, and kill political prisoners, as well as Iranians that do not agree with the policies of the Supreme Leader. They have excessively harsh punishments for crimes, such as the cutting off of feet and hands, and stoning. (An interesting note, stones used for stoning must not be large enough to kill instantly.)
It is illegal to be homosexual in Iran. Iranian women are only worth “half a person”, and I’m not making that up – a man’s testimony in Iranian court is worth two female testimonies. They can also be arrested for not covering their bodies – often only the face or eyes are left uncovered.
There is no such thing as journalistic freedom in Iran. Anybody speaking out against the principles of Islam can be arrested and punished, as well as anyone opposing the “public interest” (basically meaning the Iranian government can arrest anyone at anytime).
In the case of religious freedom, Iran has completely banned the Muslim denomination of Bahai, under orders from the Supreme Leader himself. Muslims are also often given preferential treatment to other religions – for example, if a Muslim man commits adultery, the penalty is 100 lashes. If a Christian man commits adultery, the penalty is death. It is illegal to convert out of the Muslim faith. Doing so is punishable by death. Coincidentally, Iran executes more people than any other country besides China, and China has nearly twice Iran’s population.
Until very recently, Iranian children were punished the same way as adults – Iranian boys were considered adults at 15, Iranian girls considered adults at 9. Thankfully, this is no longer the case.

Hopefully, by now you have a clearer picture of Iran as a nation, and you understand why the threat of a nuclear Iran is too dangerous to come to pass. With recent British accusations that Iran is only two years away from the capability to build nuclear bombs, tensions are ratcheting up. In all likelihood, Israel will launch a pre-emptive assault on Iranian nuclear facilities within the next few months.

And that’s all I have to say.