PBS – Joshua Foust: Carrots, not sticks, for Iran
In his weekly column for PBS Need to Know, ASP fellow Joshua Foust offers an incentive-based approach of financial assistance and international agreements to dealing with Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
The introduction of nuclear weapons into Iran’s strategic calculus is worrying for many reasons: states can miscalculate, and more nuclear-armed countries increases the risk of accidental nuclear events. When coupled with Iran’s hostile relations with not just the west but several states in the Middle East, fears of what a nuclear-armed Iran would mean for global security are perfectly justified.
The trick is how one responds to that fear. Responding bluntly or with force only drives home to the Iranians how desperately they need to become stronger to as to resist or survive an attack.The Iranian nuclear program is the best way they have of deterring any attack, as no nuclear armed state, especially a western one, is eager or even very willing to attack another nuclear armed state.
The international community has tried to use threats and sanctions to coerce the Iranian government into giving up its weapons program. It’s failed. What the international community hasn’t tried is incentives – real incentives with dollar figures and new international agreements to back them up.
Read the whole article here.
