Strike or not to Strike Options on the Table to Stop Iran from Going Nuclear
Latterly, various experts and political analysts have been hotly debating in the world press whether the West should strike Iran in order tostop its nuclear program. The first part of the article deals with argumentation whether to strike Iran in order to stop its nuclear programand simultaneously presents variant viewpoints on what specific threat nuclear-armed Iran poses. The second half of the article discussesa possible course of action the United States might take to curb Iran and consequential events. The article aims to arrive at a less destructivesolution to the problem.The article directs to the conclusion that Iran’s aggressive foreign policy bears defensive nature driven by the self-survival instinct of anisolated country. The nuclear program also serves this very purpose to provide more security guarantees for the regime, minimize therisk of external strike and increase its bargaining power during the negotiations. Currently, the regional spoiler role is the only one to beplayed by Iran, enabling this developing and unformed economy country to resemble a great power player. Thus, if the United States doeswish to neutralize nuclear-armed Iran and consequential threats, it should stop to isolate the latter from regional politics and let it becomeone of the building blocks of regional political security architecture, as this could assure Iran in the possibility of maintaining its securitywithout going nuclear.
Why Iran Should Get the Bomb
The past several months have witnessed a heated debate over the best way for the United States and Israel to respond to Iran's nuclear activities. As the argument has raged, the United States has tightened its already robust sanctions regime against the Islamic Republic, and the European Union announced in January that it will begin an embargo on Iranian oil on July 1. Although the United States, the EU, and Iran have recently returned to the negotiating table, a palpable sense of crisis still looms.
Analysis: The Agenda 2007 Proposals: Evolution or Revolution?
On 10 February 2004 the Commission published its proposal for the financial perspective 2007-2013. A week later it adopted the third report on economic and social cohesion. These two documents form the basis of the so-called ‘Agenda 2007 reforms’. They will be the greatest challenge for the enlarged EU after the intergovernmental conference, since they will determine the financial basis for EU policy-making until the middle of the next decade. The Agenda 2007 proposals certainly hint at courageous reforms, because they place a previously unheard-of emphasis on performance and quality. Under the proposals, structural operations should generate value for money, and the funds should focus on projects which generate added value at a European level. Overall the Commission’s proposals point in the right direction, because they balance, on the one hand, solidarity for the new Member States and weak regions in the old Member States with, on the other hand, investments in future tasks. Moreover, they constitute a paradigm shift. For the first time, the Common Agricultural Policy will not be the dominant expenditure category. Now it is up to the Member States to examine the proposals politically and find a compromise between sometimes very divergent interests. It is to be hoped that, during the debate over expenditure limits and division of funds, national interests do not outweigh European interests.