Children of Jihad: A Young American's Travels Among the Youth of the Middle East by Jared Cohen Page B
Authors: Jared Cohen
Tags: Religión, General, Social Science, Travel, Sociology, Islam, Political Science, middle east, Islamic Studies, Political Process, jihad, youth, Middle East - Description and travel, Political activity, Political Advocacy, Children's Studies, Cohen; Jared - Travel - Middle East, Youth - Political Activity, Muslim Youth
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blizzard. The snow had disappeared and I now found myself in the barren desert of central Iran; it seemed we were now the only car on the road. Out the right side of the car, I could see an endless horizon of sand, and on the left, a snowcapped mountain range. I had thought that from Esfahan it would be a drive with no stops until we reached the holy Shi’ite city of Qom. Instead, we made an unexpected stop in Natanz.
I had nearly fallen asleep when my driver alerted me to an unusual attraction out the left window of the car. The car came to a brief stop as he pointed out his window: “Do you see this?” he asked me.
I saw what looked like a power plant or some kind of factory. There were clusters of large buildings, smoke coming out of cylindrical structures, and a serious fence encircling the compound. The fence was lined with machine gun towers, each separated from the next by only a few dozen yards. In what seemed to be yet another layer of defense, I could see small bunkers with antiaircraft weapons pointed upward.
The driver gave a small laugh.
“This is what causes all of these problems,” he told me. To my left was the Natanz nuclear facility, the notorious site that had been exposed as a uranium enrichment plant capable of producing nuclear weapons.
D espite all of the current controversy surrounding Iran’s nuclear aspirations, the actual nuclear program is relatively old. The Iranian nuclear program is often talked about as if it were a new phenomenon, but it began as an American-supported project in the late 1950s and early 1960s. At the time, Iran was America’s principal ally in the region, aside from Israel. Throughout the early part of the Cold War, the United States had enjoyed a strong alliance with the Pahlavi monarchy in Iran and the Nuri al-Said monarchy in Iraq. When the Iraqi monarchy fell to a revolution in 1958, Iran was the last reliable ally among the predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East.
When the United States worked with the shah to create the beginnings of the Iranian nuclear program, it was a task undertaken for a very different purpose from what is presumed to be the intention of today’s very different regime. In 1959, the shah established the Tehran Nuclear Research Center at the University of Tehran. Run by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, the facility became the country’s first and achieved operational capacity by 1967. The facility is built around its five-megawatt nuclear research reactor provided by the United States in 1967 as part of bilateral talks between the two countries.
The following year, Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, in which Iran, along with other signatories, agreed to a wide range of issues ranging from disarmament and nonproliferation to the peaceful pursuit of nuclear energy. Under the auspices of the treaty, Iran has always been permitted to pursue nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, but the treaty forbids the pursuit of nuclear energy for military purposes.
With America as his ally, the shah initially had no reason to pursue a militarily oriented nuclear program. Additionally, during the 1970s, the United States and the Soviet Union also undertook policies based on détente, in which both parties at least appeared committed to nuclear arms reductions and some form of rapprochement. Despite détente, however, the shah still enjoyed the support of the United States for his nuclear aspirations. During the Nixon administration, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger envisioned an economically fruitful scheme that would use the allure of nuclear cooperation from private companies and the U.S. government to entice Iran to increase substantially its oil output. As a result, the shah began an ambitious plan to construct several nuclear facilities, using the current high oil prices and soliciting the help of willing American companies. In the late 1970s, President Carter called on the shah to relax his
I had nearly fallen asleep when my driver alerted me to an unusual attraction out the left window of the car. The car came to a brief stop as he pointed out his window: “Do you see this?” he asked me.
I saw what looked like a power plant or some kind of factory. There were clusters of large buildings, smoke coming out of cylindrical structures, and a serious fence encircling the compound. The fence was lined with machine gun towers, each separated from the next by only a few dozen yards. In what seemed to be yet another layer of defense, I could see small bunkers with antiaircraft weapons pointed upward.
The driver gave a small laugh.
“This is what causes all of these problems,” he told me. To my left was the Natanz nuclear facility, the notorious site that had been exposed as a uranium enrichment plant capable of producing nuclear weapons.
D espite all of the current controversy surrounding Iran’s nuclear aspirations, the actual nuclear program is relatively old. The Iranian nuclear program is often talked about as if it were a new phenomenon, but it began as an American-supported project in the late 1950s and early 1960s. At the time, Iran was America’s principal ally in the region, aside from Israel. Throughout the early part of the Cold War, the United States had enjoyed a strong alliance with the Pahlavi monarchy in Iran and the Nuri al-Said monarchy in Iraq. When the Iraqi monarchy fell to a revolution in 1958, Iran was the last reliable ally among the predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East.
When the United States worked with the shah to create the beginnings of the Iranian nuclear program, it was a task undertaken for a very different purpose from what is presumed to be the intention of today’s very different regime. In 1959, the shah established the Tehran Nuclear Research Center at the University of Tehran. Run by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, the facility became the country’s first and achieved operational capacity by 1967. The facility is built around its five-megawatt nuclear research reactor provided by the United States in 1967 as part of bilateral talks between the two countries.
The following year, Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, in which Iran, along with other signatories, agreed to a wide range of issues ranging from disarmament and nonproliferation to the peaceful pursuit of nuclear energy. Under the auspices of the treaty, Iran has always been permitted to pursue nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, but the treaty forbids the pursuit of nuclear energy for military purposes.
With America as his ally, the shah initially had no reason to pursue a militarily oriented nuclear program. Additionally, during the 1970s, the United States and the Soviet Union also undertook policies based on détente, in which both parties at least appeared committed to nuclear arms reductions and some form of rapprochement. Despite détente, however, the shah still enjoyed the support of the United States for his nuclear aspirations. During the Nixon administration, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger envisioned an economically fruitful scheme that would use the allure of nuclear cooperation from private companies and the U.S. government to entice Iran to increase substantially its oil output. As a result, the shah began an ambitious plan to construct several nuclear facilities, using the current high oil prices and soliciting the help of willing American companies. In the late 1970s, President Carter called on the shah to relax his
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