I know there are many people including our President and Congress who feel that lifting sanctions against Iran must be strictly dealt with tit for tat regarding nuclear inspections to assure they are not making more weapons grade fissionable material.

My contention is that it is in part our sanctions against them that created an atmosphere of hostilities between them and us that created the need, in their minds, for nuclear armament.  Israel’s nuclear threat also plays a significant role.  Had we not imposed sanctions on them in spite of their government’s religious leader’s distrust of the U.S. I honestly feel that they would not have perused nuclear capability as vigorously as they have and relations between us would have improved over time.  This would have given them more of the feeling that the US would stop Israel from nuclear attacks upon them.  As things stand they believe that the US would be supportive of a nuclear attack by Israel against them thus their efforts to have nuclear weapons as a defense and deterrent.

It is because we have the most powerful military force in the world that we use it so much to get our way.  We send ship out to enforce sanctions against nations such as Iran as a form of siege warfare to starve a nation into submission.  This strategy can sometimes work but it can also have unintended consequences such as Iran’s vigorous pursuit of nuclear capability providing them an even stronger bargaining chip for now negotiating the removal of sanctions.  It also creates greater animosity and distrust of us making any negotiations that much more difficult.

Had we not imposed sanctions or had we removed them much earlier before they were so advanced in their nuclear development program this issue would not have been such a major bargaining chip and relations between our two nations would have had fewer constraint.

It may seem strange to our ears but I am proposing a very Christian concept that presumes peace and understanding are mightier than the sword.  Yet for a Christian country such as the U.S. nothing is further from the truth.  We appear instead the instrument of God’s wrath exactly as we accuse Muslims in the Middle East of practicing.  We inflict terror with machines and technology blowing up people as they use human bombs to kill us.  Some of us hate Muslims just as some Muslims hate Christians and Jews.  We insist upon human rights and our form of democratic government yet we are strong allies of Saudi Arabia, a religious dictatorship with human rights violations often worst that the nations we insist should abolish theirs.  We want disarmament yet insist upon having a strong military presence abroad.  We appear to other nations full of contradictions thus a nation not to be trusted.

What if we unconditionally lifted sanctions against Iran and encouraged trade with them.  What if we treat them, a quasi-democracy, with the same consideration we do Saudi Arabia, a dictatorship with human rights violations, and buy their oil?  What if they even become a nuclear power like Israel, Pakistan, India, North Korea, China, the US, etc.?  What if Iran consequently became a far more affluent nation?  What would be the consequence to us?  Would they pose more or less a threat to the United States even if they developed nuclear weapons capability as Israel, Pakistan, China, Russia, and North Korea have?