IRAN UPDATE
April 14, 2008
ATOMIC FISSURES IN IRAN
The case for public diplomacy
What do Iranians think about their government's nuclear program? For a long time, the international community has believed that the issue of nuclear power -- and, with it, Iran's right to develop nuclear technology as it sees fit -- is one of the few areas of agreement between the regime and its people.
But now, a new survey calls that conventional wisdom into question. The study of over 700 Iranians, conducted by worldpublicopinion.org in early 2008, found that while the vast majority of those surveyed (81 percent) thought it "very important" that their country master nuclear technology, far fewer approved of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Indeed, three out of five Iranians surveyed believed this kind of development to be illegitimate and "against the principles of Islam."
For policymakers in Washington, these findings should serve as a call to public diplomacy arms. For years, Iran's radical regime has managed to monopolize the domestic discourse over its atomic ambitions, ridiculing and marginalizing legitimate international concerns over its many troubling nuclear practices. For just as long, American outreach to the Islamic Republic has failed to seriously engage the Iranian people on this issue and explain to them that Washington does not seek to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. Rather, America's concern is with this regime acquiring this technology in this fashion.
It all amounts to a fatal oversight. Iranians need to learn the very real potential costs associated with their government's nuclear ambitions, from international isolation to economic instability to outright war. And they need encouragement to think critically about whether the perceived benefits of nuclear acquisition for the regime are really worth the social, economic and political costs to them.
When they do, the West may just find that the Iranian people are the most powerful weapon in its arsenal to curb Tehran's atomic efforts.
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