Last Updated : 02 November 2012 at 12:30 IST
It is about spirit. Survival of fittest is actually not the survival of a person who is oversupplied with resources but the person who is oversupplied with spirit. And what applies to individuals, often apply to nations.
US and its counterparts in Europe are well aware that the slew of sanctions imposed by the west would cripple Iran economically. But have they failed to notice that the Iranian regime is still standing tall with virtually no great domestic threats?
Of course, there have been protests in the streets of Iran as the Iranian currency Rial plummetted against dollar.
"People are not happy with the economic sanctions but will that push them to overthrow the regime? I don't think so," said Thierry Coville of the Paris-based Institute of International and Strategic Relations to iafrica.com.
The reason, as one may have stated above is that of spirit. Pakistan did make a bomb, although clandestinely and Iran will, if things would progress as currently seen.
As Zulfikkar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan said, "even if we have to eat grass, we will make nuclear bomb. We have no other choice."
Sanctions
Sanctions by nature are economic and political. But the triumph of human spirit far outweighs any sanctions. As Iranians fight a battle against the daily challenges brought forth by sanctions, they in turn develop a resilience, and with the current regime utilising and exploiting it to the nth degree would finally see them through the sanctions.
Invariably, the sanctions could prevent a popular opinion from forming against Iran's nuclear program resulting in a an acceleration of the same. This is the biggest threat emanating from sanctions and a tool that has been utilised to kill the nuclear program by strangulating the economy in effect would feed the program and could even become instrumental in midwifing a bomb.
This also runs the risk of Iran being portrayed as a victim of the machinations of ill-motivated moves carried out by the west. This could be one of the reasons why Iranian popular protests against the inflationary situation did not get inflated beyond a point.
More than anyone else, Iran knows that it has not much of time left to cook a bomb. And with popular opinion possibly rallying for the same, Iran may come out with one bomb quicker than anticipated. And negotiating or waging a war with Iran possessing a nuclear bomb and Iran without a nuclear bomb is entirely different.
Iran, no doubt would try hard to meet deadlines.
Putting the house in order
And as Europe comes up with sanctions after sanctions, may be it is forgetting its own state of affairs.
Minding the backyard is one thing and managing the house in order is another. In its eagerness to comply with US policies on Iran, Europe which unlike US has to depend on Russia and volatile West Africa for its energy needs, could not only face an energy crisis, but also the social unrest that may sweep the continent; thanks to its 'robust' economic situation.
Protests are spreading across Europe and the ambience, as has been pointed out before, could usher in a revolution preceded by unrest.
Ultimately unsound politics when it meets with unsound economy would see the Europe losing all the values that it has so painstakingly nurtured to the din of a revolution. As and when the policy makers try hard to topple Iranian regime, they should not see themselves wanting a chair. It could be awkward, to say the least!
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