Iran’s Quest for Nuclear Weapon Status

Abstract

In recent times, US policy towards Iran’s nuclear ambition has become one of the most contested and hotly debated issues in the US and elsewhere. As the Bush administration ended with little tangible success in addressing the proliferation concerns involving Iran, the issue has come to hunt the Obama administration as well. The American strategic community largely agrees that Iran has the ambition to acquire nuclear weapon status and thus the debate revolves around how best to respond to it. Vigorous arguments have been paraded to assess the cost and benefits of a US pre-emptive strike against Iran’s nuclear installations. Similar and equally vital deliberations abound in the strategic circles with respect to the option of an Israeli strike and its implication for US foreign policy. The article attempts to analyse this dynamic American debate at a critical juncture as President Obama, previously seen as the anti-thesis of the Bush era, seems to be facing the same sort of constraints that his predecessor was up against, while searching for a sound policy to deal with the Iranian conundrum.