Iran

The sanctions are intended to prevent Iran from pursuing its nuclear programme, which, not very plausibly, it insists is for merely peaceful purposes. But the sanctions aren't likely to work. Iran has nuclear-armed enemies and fresh memories of being attacked by chemical weapons while the world looked the other way; and in any event, refusing to back down under foreign pressure is a first principle for the Islamic Republic. Though it craves international recognition, it has weathered isolation before and is in some ways more comfortable with it. (In this it is not unlike Israel, a state which also speaks in the name of a persecuted minority and justifies its defiance of international law with a rhetoric of religious nationalism and righteous victimhood.) Isolation has nourished self-reliance, self-reliance has encouraged sacrifice, and sacrifice is widely seen as proof of virtue. The Islamic Republic's tenacity during the war with Iraq should give pause to anyone who imagines that it will bend under sanctions – or as a result of Israel's assassination of its nuclear scientists. The nuclear programme is broadly popular with the public, which sees it as a deterrent and can't understand why Israel, Pakistan and India[…]

EXCERPT FROM

25 April 2013. "London Review of Books." LRB Ltd., 2013-04-18T12:53:57+00:00. iBooks.
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