Customer Reviews

Iran's Nuclear Ambitions

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This book is a very concise, short analysis of the book's title - Iran's nuclear ambitions. However, it's main flaw is that Chubin doesn't analyze the historical context, which I believe is essential to understanding Iran's current behavior. Otherwise, the book is an invaluable resource for understanding current events, and specifically, provides some of the best arguments for just why Iran shouldn't acquire nuclear capabilities.

This is an excellent book on Iran's nuclear program. It is brief but gets the point accroos forcefully.

This is not so much a book as a long article. But it reveals more about what Iran thinks about the nuclear issue than any other work I have read recently. It is critical of the Iranian leadership but its assessment of their ambitions and goals is balanced and revealing.

Plenty of nations have nuclear weapons. Why is it that some people are worried about Iran obtaining them? Part of the reason may be that the risk to everyone increases as more and more nations possess such weapons. But the author adds the following:

"In its refusal to dispense with the cult of victimhood, revolutionary rhetoric, and subversive acts and in its unwillingness to assume normal relations with others lies the origin of the reluctance of others to see Iran acquire a nuclear capability."

Of course, nations can change with time. A nation that behaves reasonably could change for the worse after it builds some nuclear weapons. Or it could change for the better. However, if Iran does not become more reasonable, the world will become a more dangerous place.

Is there a way to convince Iran to avoid becoming a nuclear power? According to the author, it would take some sort of threat to accomplish this. Absent an external threat, Iran will get nuclear weapons, it will remain "reflexively hostile to the United States and Israel," and it will use its nuclear weapons to elevate its "penchant for brinkmanship." That does not sound good, but I think we all need to be aware of it even if we have no plans to do anything about it.

Nuclear weapons are only part of the problem Iran poses for itself and for others. Still, Iran really might use nuclear weapons directly (say, against Israel) or transfer them to a terrorist group. The book has some recommendations about what we ought to do, but I think the point is that we need to think about it and make up our minds rather than simply ignore the problem.