Originally published on the CGS blog on September 29, 2009.
The leaders of the Western world have finally come to the agreement that Iran is indeed in the process of developing nuclear weapons. The debate has now shifted away from the existence of the nuclear weapons to the possibility of Iran’s efforts to design a nuclear warhead. The warhead would be the final step in the completion of the nuclear weapon.
Each country has a different opinion as to the status of Iran’s nuclear warhead efforts. Israel believes that the effort to design the warhead has restarted, while Germany believes the effort had never stopped. The United States believes that the Iranian effort to develop a nuclear warhead did in fact stop in 2003 and has not yet been restarted. That is not to say that the effort will never be restarted, but at the moment the United States does not consider the warhead a concern. This opinion is based on the intelligence of various spy agencies, including satellite imagery and electronic eavesdropping.
The New York Times refers to this disagreement as the “mirror image” of the debate prior to the Iraq War. Again, the United States is in disagreement with the other Western states, yet this time it is the other states who are more concerned about the status of the nuclear weapons. The differences in opinions about this particular issue represent each state’s general feelings about how to deal with the Iranian nuclear weapons. The states who have voiced concern about the warheads want to pursue a proactive strategy, while the United States is less concerned about an immediate reaction.
This debate is significant because if the United States is able to convince other nations that the warhead is not an immediate threat, then conflict in the near future may be averted.
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