My Persuasive Essay

Iran and its Nuclear Weapons

            I firmly believe that nuclear weapons are wrong but I also believe that other countries that currently possess them should not have right to tell Iran or any other country that it is wrong to do so. For example a key country in this polemic is the United States. In fact they are telling the world that they cannot make nor use them. And yet it is quite controversial that they are the only ones that used them and that still have them. The point I will prove in this essay is that even though nuclear weapons are wrong, It is also wrong for these countries (which include the U.S., France, England, Germany, etc) to still have nuclear weapons and keep telling the world to jettison them.

Over winter break I visited Hiroshima, one of the two places that were hit by a nuclear weapon. There I went to a museum that was about the bomb and nuclear history. There was a section in the museum that was dedicated to nuclear weapons of today. It had a map and on it there were dots that showed where in the world people had nuclear weapons. On this map there were dots on the U.S. as well as England, France, Germany, India, China and Pakistan. I would like you to reminisce that these are the countries that are making a huge deal about Iran’s nuclear facilities. Yet they never made a big deal about their own nuclear weapons.           

                                                                       
            The U.S. calls it a mistake what they did in Hiroshima and yet they still have their nuclear weapons and do not want to and will not get rid of them. After World War II the Cold War began. During this war there was a massive nuclear arms build up resulting in the manufacture and accumulation of more than enough weapons to destroy the environment and annihilate the human race. The nuclear testing sites destroy the global environment and harm many innocent victims in the vicinity of the testing sites. The Soviet Union, United Kingdom, France and China, all of them took part in this race. Afterwards it extended to regional emulations for example India developed nuclear weapons and in response Pakistan developed nuclear weapons. It is a cycle that continues on and on. The one reason I believe that countries have and are producing nuclear weapons is because of fear. Fear of what you might ask? Well it is fear of each other.

The U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday that Iran's latest actions "crossed the threshold" and that the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) board should hold an emergency meeting as soon as possible. By “latest actions” she meant that Iran had reopened its nuclear facilities after being forced to close them by the U.N. Security Council. She also said, "We have got to finally demonstrate to Iran that it can't with impunity just cast aside the just demands of the international community.” The demands of the International Community are to stop Nuclear War from happening and they can only do that by making sure that there are no countries that own Nuclear weapons. President Bush also said on Tuesday, "The Iranian government is defying the world with its nuclear ambitions and the nations of the world must not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons," in his annual State of the Union address. The Iranian president responded with this remark, "I am telling those fake superpowers that the Iranian nation became independent 27 years ago and ... on the nuclear case it will resist until fully achieving its rights."

          On August 6^th 1945, at 8:15 am, Hiroshima was hit by a Nuclear Bomb. They had no warning and had never seen that kind of bomb before. Immediately the whole city was in ruins. People were hit by the radiation or were burned alive by the intense heat. The people did not know about the radiation and went back into the city to find their friends and family. Later on they died of aftereffects. Afterward the radiation caused a cancer called Leukemia. Many people were affected by that too. The United States saw the, unthinkable, unimaginable, inconceivable, horror that they caused on that day. You would think that after the immense remorse they must have felt they would have stopped creating more bombs. But in fact they still actually own them. But to some extent they went around the world and told everyone else not to make them. It is like now they are trying inconspicuously to push the spotlight away from themselves and on to Iran.

On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said his nation was prepared to cooperate with the IAEA. He also said that Iran's nuclear activities were for "peaceful" purposes and that the "language of threat is not a good choice in diplomacy." He is correct in some ways. For example there is no proof that Iran is using its nuclear facilities for making nuclear weapons. At the moment Iran has 14 nuclear facilities. And yet still the U.N. Security Council made Iran shut down its main nuclear facilities. Their only reason to do it was because of suspicion. As a response the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said last week that Iran "has a legitimate right to the peaceful use of nuclear technology." Natural uranium ore contains about 0.7% uranium-235. Reactor-grade uranium needs a few percent. Nuclear weapons need more than 80%. This shows that by what Iran is saying they would need a lot more uranium to make a nuclear weapon. This does not give a good impression for the U.N. Security Council. It means that if you are a president of a major nation and you are trying to help in the prosperity of the world by finding ways to make nuclear energy and the U.N. Security Council suddenly decided that it almost looks like you are making nuclear weapons so you have to close your nuclear facilities. And yet that is what basically happened. As a defiant act towards the Council, Iran reopened its facilities anyway. For all we know they could be investigating on how to make nuclear energy safer. Iran is about 6 months away from finishing a 1,000-megawatt reactor being built at Bushehr. This reactor is specifically designed to use enriched uranium fuel, so everyone assumes that they will aim to enrich their uranium at some point in the future. That is how skeptical we are that Iran even has nuclear weapons.

The point that I am making in this essay is that people should not jump to conclusions and should not be hypocritical. I would also like to reiterate that I am completely against nuclear weapons. All of the G-8 countries have a responsibility to change the world. If they use their power correctly they can change a lot. But even though they have a lot of power does not mean that they can boss around other countries and tell them what is good and what is bad if they themselves are doing the bad. They cannot be deceitful. I also think that all the countries in the world should never jump to conclusions. That was how the war in Iraq started and if this continues it could cause a greater dilemma in the future. Make sure you know everything about a problem before deciding what side you are on.  So now that you have read this essay do you think you are ready to choose what side you are on? Make a difference today!