Julie Shilling, 4th Period. Iran and the United States’ proposal to resolve nuclear conflict.

Julie Shilling, 4^th Period.  Iran and the United States’ proposal to resolve nuclear conflict.

After years of imposing monetary and trade sanctions against Iran in order to stop them from developing nuclear weapons, the United States has decided to challenge Iran’s nuclear program in a different way.  During the years of trying to slow Iran’s development of nuclear weapons the United States even used cyber-attacks to stall their progress.  President Obama believes a binding agreement can be reached between the two countries where Iran is permitted to use nuclear fuel for energy and medicine and not weapons.  How and when the United States can verify if their deal is being kept is yet to be decided and depends on how much the United States trusts Iran. 

Reflection-- I picked this event because to me it is very interesting to know about the deals that the US is making with the rest of the world.  On one hand, you can see the benefits of this deal.  The deal would block the uranium enrichment, plutonium separation and covert paths to a nuclear bomb for the next 15 years.  However, with an Iran that is three months from nuclear capability with a stockpile of 10 bombs’ worth of low-enriched uranium, there is some question whether a deal leaves us any safer.  The deal places no limits on how much the Iranians can build or expand their nuclear infrastructure after the 15 year time period is over.   Even the monitoring provisions that would continue beyond 15 years may prove insufficient as the Iranian nuclear program grows.  The U.S. Can't trust Iran with this deal and that has been proven in the past when their government took U.S. hostages.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/03/02/world/middleeast/2015-03-02-iran.html?_r=0.