Efforts to bully Tehran into abandoning uranium enrichment are both futile and dangerous. (Guardian)

from the Guardian UK:

Iran must have the Bomb
Efforts to bully Tehran into abandoning uranium enrichment are both futile and dangerous.

David Cox

All David Cox articles

The proposed new package of United Nations sanctions against Iran is far from being the breakthrough it has been hailed. The world's fourth-largest oil producer has little to fear from modest economic restrictions. If Iran wants nuclear weapons, it is going to get them. The indications are that it does want them, and with good reason.

The country faces the continuing hostility of the United States, which is engaged in a "war on terror" and has called Iran the world's "most active state sponsor of terrorism". The US has already invaded Iran's next-door neighbour, Iraq, but North Korea has shown that the Bomb provides immunity from American attack. Iran's most obvious potential antagonist in its region, Israel, possesses nuclear weapons, as do surrounding countries such as Pakistan, India and Russia.

The British government has just announced that it considers nuclear weapons essential to its own security, for reasons far less obvious than those that must occur to any Iranian. British politicians are also in the habit of pointing out that possessing the Bomb guarantees global influence, something which Iran might well covet.

Within living memory, Iranians have seen foreign powers invade their country, appropriate their oil resources and impose puppet rulers on them. Fewer than 20 years ago they were fighting an eight-year war on their border that claimed more than a million lives. It is entirely understandable that they should now wish to maximise their security. Any regime in Tehran that neglected to develop nuclear weapons would arguably be failing in its duty. ....(more)

The complete editorial is at: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/david_cox/2007/03/iran_must_have_the_bomb_1.html