Iran’s nuclear aspirations are not a secret. Iran wants to have nuclear capabilities and an option at developing nuclear weapons. Iran’s defiance of the world leaders’ attempts at thwarting its nuclear goals have been futile, to say the least. Iran has not stopped developing nuclear facilities at all and is actually moving in a direction of making more uranium enrichment facilities.

World leaders are beside themselves. They constantly gather at the most famous institutions and issue statements and other such nonsense that is really not going to get their attempts to stop Iran anywhere. Recently, an article in the Wall Street Journal gave a detailed account in proving that Democratic U.S. Presidents have not been able to close nuclear proliferation treaties with Russia, except on only a couple of occasions. On the other hand, Republican U.S. Presidents have been able to muster up and get Russia to sign about eight different nuclear-control treaties. Why am I bringing this up? Because the concluding point of that article is that the U.S. Democratic Presidents that have made nuclear proliferation a major point in their campaign are way too eager and ambitious in accomplishing nuclear disarmament and that for Russia it has been seen as a point where they can have more political leverage.

Same goes for Iran. Heavy sanctions and other attempts to thwart Iran’s efforts presented by the Obama administration are not going to bring many feasible results. If anything, Iran will, in the end, give up a little bit to make the opponents of Tehran’s nuclear program claim a small victory but, actually, lose the war on Iran’s nuclear ambitions. In addition, the Obama administration is quite similar to current EU leaders, who are just as eager to see Iran halt its nuclear program. The only clear thinking country, out of the whole G-20 crew is Russia (I am excluding China for the reason that it does not voice an opinion on the matter and does not want to mingle in this meaningless, for them, affair). Russian diplomats have stressed that sanctions are a last resort because they don’t bring results. Sanction need to be used as a last resort because there are a lot more useful diplomatic tools.

And how can we leave out Israel out of this? Israel is one of the most important players in this theater. If anything, Israel has been the motive for Iran to have to go through with a nuclear program in the first place. Israel has nukes – that’s a fact and for one reason or another the United States or the EU does not consider that dangerous. Israel has been involved in more conflicts with a lot more neighbors than Iran has for the past half century and is then more prone to conflict and a potential use of nuclear weapons than anyone else in the Middle East, statistically speaking. Iran is a rising power in the Middle East with more and more support of the Arab world going to Tehran, Israel sees Iran as a rising counterbalance to its grip on the Middle East. Anyone who has been mustering forces strong enough to pose a threat to Israel has been swiftly taken care of either by Israel itself, if it concerns its immediate borders, or by the hands of Washington.

Iran has seen what happened to Syria, Egypt, Iraq, and Lebanon. It knows that Israel will use force if necessary. The only way to counter that is to build up a formidable force that will have Israel be reluctant to try anything, for the time being. Arms races are considered one of the driving forces behind conflicts, and because Israel has one of the most combat-efficient forces in the world, Iran sees that as a threat. One way to counter Israel’s potential attacks is to have a nuclear deterrent. That option is one of the best left for Tehran.

In conclusion, in order to deter Iran from building nuclear weapons, sanctions are not attacking the reason for this problem in the first place. The problem is Israel’s nuclear capabilities that put at risk Iranian security and Israel’s constant threat to use force. Hardliners are also a driving force for conflict in most cases. The sanctions that have been imposed on Iran have brought nothing but a greater motive for Tehran to go through with their nuclear program. The problem needs to be identified at the core and then dealt with in a respectful and decisive manner. Stop sanctioning Iran – it will do nothing but shake air and create headlines for the press.