The world in dilemma with Iran

 

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

With Iran rearing its ugly head as never before in the wake of what its leaders perceive to be a threat to their nation’s security, what with the U.S and most European nations tightening economic sanctions to dissuade them from continuing with their nuclear program, one can’t help but wonder where this conflict is heading to.

The latest act of defiance by Iranian leaders, most notably by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is the challenge hurled that it will be forced to close the Strait of Hormuz, the passageway for about a fifth of the world’s oil trade, if the noose of economic sanctions gets tighter.

In fact this presumptive announcement is being felt globally as early as now, as being dependent to Iranian oil flow is getting to be a big, if not serious, folly already. A stricter embargo would definitely hurt the global economy, as Iran is the second biggest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) after Saudi Arabia.

But, will the world community allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon?

Will the world be safer with Iran armed with a nuclear and biological weapons in its arsenal, when the world knows that it is a country that has gained notoriety for exporting its radical Islamist revolution, supporting Hezbollah and Hamas and actively opposing the Middle East peace process, involving in the bombings of the Jewish center in Buenos Aires and the Khobar towers in Saudi Arabia, providing Al-Qaeda with safe passage and refuge, helping insurgents in Iraq, assassinating its own dissidents and oppressing its own people, etc.?

That Syria is having a revolution and President Bashar al-Assad continues to kill with impunity his own people and blaming the Western world for instigating the Syrians to oppose him, is because he finds strength in the material support of Iran’s leaders and government.

But, the most telling tale of all is that Iran is a nation whose leaders is said to have set themselves a strategic goal of wiping Israel off the map.

So, is this all about annihilating Israel and its inhabitants?

On their part, Israel has made it clear that it will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon that would threaten the Jewish State.

If this has been Iran’s mantra all along, can the world blame if Israel has been keeping an eagle’s eye on Iran’s nuclear facilities?

The world is hoping that the sanctions imposed will awaken Iran to the harsh reality of imminent danger and a catastrophic one at that – even to the rest of the world, in economic terms.

What doesn’t look good is that Iran has gone too far, deep and wide in their desire to have this weapon developed and what is bad is that they are wallowing in their pride for this achievement.

The question now is how much longer can Israel wait before acting on a dismaying Israeli and western intelligence suggesting that Iran is already approaching the point of “invulnerability” where a military strike on its nuclear facilities would be ineffective.

Indeed, the world is in dilemma with Iran and time is getting short, while tempers of the protagonists are fraying.