 |
| Volume XVI, Summer 2009, Number 2 |
| |
EXCERPT
Iran's Nuclear Decision-Making Calculus
|
| |
| Nader Entessar |
| |
Dr. Entessar is a professor in and chair of the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice at the University of South Alabama.
Tehran’s nuclear program has become the most significant source of friction between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the West, especially the United States. President Barack Obama, unlike his predecessor, has offered to negotiate with Iran without preconditions over its nuclear ambitions. Success, or even minimal progress, in this respect requires an understanding of the internal dynamics of Iran’s nuclear decision making. This article endeavors to shed some light on this neglected discourse on Iran’s nuclear calculus. Iran’s national perspective on its nuclear policy is shaped by a multiplicity of domestic, regional and global variables. Ever since 2002, when Iran’s nuclear issue was elevated in the West as a growing threat to regional stability and the nonproliferation regime, the leadership of the Islamic Republic has couched the issue in terms of both its absolute rights under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and its right to engage in the research and development of all phases of peaceful nuclear energy. The purpose of this paper is to discuss some of the main factors that have shaped the evolution of Iran’s national thinking on nuclear energy and to examine contemporary debates inside the country on the logic of its nuclear policy.
|
| |
|
