Follow-ups to Jeffery Lewis' three-part series
Dr. Jeffrey Lewis is posting this week at Joshua Micah Marshall's TPM Cafe. His first post asks "whether US & EU diplomacy might usefully exploit divisions within Iranian politics to slow Iran's nuclear programs". Its not how I'd approach the issue, since I think "utility" arises from necessity, and the necessity for Abenakis, Mainers, New Englanders, Blue Staters, "Americans" (minus the current Regime), North Americans, Atlantic Alliance-ians (ouch), North/Central/South Americans, and UN-ians (not quite as linguistically painful, but hard on the Birchers), for even having an opinion on an "Atoms for Peace" program in some South-West Asian state is beyond elusive.
One may be concerned about technical hygine and epidemology, examples are TMI, Chernobyl, Diné miner, and non-radiological carcinoginic clusters. One may be concerned about technical security, examples are the diversions of plutonium and enriched uranium over the past decades to Israel, and the modern recovery of HEU by Russian and American anti-proliferation efforts from research reactors. One might even be concerned about the theoretial possibility that the "Atoms for Peace" program, if it includes uranium enrichment or spent fuel reprocessing, may result in the accumulation of "weapons grade" fissile material.
Practially speaking, when "South-West Asian state" ment Pakistan, or India, or Israel, the level of concern, even when weponized inventories approached the level of the "minor" nuclear weapons states -- UK, France, or China -- has not been sufficient to motivate public discourse in support of aggression by direct military means.
I'm glad Jeffrey shared his work here.