Statement: Engaging militarily with Iran is better than Iran developing nuclear weapons.
Issue: Iran
Strongly Supports: 1562
Supports: 3306
Neutral: 1939
Opposes: 2769
Strongly Opposes: 2450
Average position: 'Neutral' (based on '12026' opinions)
Iran has a gas-centrifuge-based uranium enrichment program which, according to Tehran, is solely for peaceful purposes. But much of the world fears that this program is designed to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons.
Gas centrifuges can produce both low and highly- enriched uranium. Both of these can be used as fuel in nuclear power reactors, though LEU is considerably more common nowadays. But HEU can also be used as fissile material. Iran is building two centrifuge facilities - a small pilot facility and a much larger commercial one.
Iran also has a uranium conversion facility, which converts yellowcake (lightly-processed uranium ore) to uranium hexafluoride - the gas used as feedstock in gas centrifuges.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been investigating Iran for 3+ years. During that time, it has discovered that Iran conducted several nuclear activities -including work on uranium enrichment - in violation of its IAEA safeguards agreement. (States belonging to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) have to sign such agreements, which allow the agency to monitor their nuclear facilities to ensure that they are not used for military purposes.) On top of that, there are several outstanding issues regarding Iran's nuclear program that Tehran has failed to address. These violations form the core of the international community's suspicions that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons program.
These suspicions are heightened by other Iranian efforts to conceal its enrichment program that were inconsistent with the spirit, if not the letter, of their safeguards agreement. For example, Iran did not disclose its centrifuge facilities to the IAEA until their construction had advanced considerably. This decision did not violate Iran's safeguards agreement, but raised suspicions for obvious reasons.
Iran's program also fuels suspicions regarding Tehran's intentions because the program lacks an economic rationale (especially given Iran's oil and natural gas reserves), Iran's indigenous uranium reserves are insufficient for a nuclear power program, and Tehran has continually failed to cooperate fully with the IAEA. This US briefing on Iran's nuclear program provides a good summary of Washington's complaints.
Iran is the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world. Iran has threatened to attack the U.S. and our ally Israel. The president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, does not recognize Israel as a country and has called the holocaust a "myth".
Iran will attack us if they have nuclear weapons. If negotiations and economic sanctions don't work, we will need to pursue military action.
Iran has the right to pursue nuclear technology which they claim is for generating power. Iran also has opened up to the IEAE inspectors and requested diplomatic talks with the U.S.
Other opponents argue that the Iran is only pursuing a nuclear program because they are scared of the U.S. and Israel and feel threatened.
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