Why Libya Abandoned its Nuke Program
While reading articles about Iran featured on my abbreviated news service this morning an opinion piece featured in The Guardian caught my eye. The author, Bennett Ramberg, penned that in December 2003 Libya abandoned its nuclear weapons program. Ramberg called this a dramatic shift and credited sanctions as the key motivator. He is hopeful that sanctions, plus other forms of pressure (like those used in Libya) will help turn Iran around. The key phrase, if you read his article closely, is “…plus other forms of pressure…” but he fails to mention what other forms of pressure he is referring to. Ramberg also fails to mention Libya is somewhat isolated from other supportive Arab states and that they don’t have much of a defense system. The other forms of pressure I believe he’s not crediting enough were those that could be exerted by coalition military forces. Sanctions within the realm of pressure-diplomacy are almost always effective when the country(s) enforcing the sanctions have a weaponized Blackhawk hovering over head. The element necessary for reasonable diplomacy to take hold is fear. Fear of loosing real-estate, possessions, supremacy, status, family and finally fear of loosing ones life. It is basic survival mentality, although during the last few hundred years we’ve dressed it up and called it different things: relationship building, negotiation, mediation, conciliation, compromise and so on. All these approaches work as long as the fear of loosing something is a part of the equation, and the only sure fire way to convey that is to flex muscle. This is not a psychological issue, subject to analyzing and treating in terms of civilizing the opponents, it is clearly genetic—a part of our DNA and neurologically hardwired into our brain. Don’t look to psychologist for answers to why we war, look instead to an anthropologist.
Marvin Wiebener
Visit Wiebener’s website at http://marvinwiebener.tatepublishing.net/ . He invites comments on any of his many articles about Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Agree or not, it doesn’t matter and he always responds.