Iran's Nuclear Challenge

Domestic Trends in the United States, China, and Iran

“…19 In a 2005 study, a major m ultinational petroleum firm predicted that average growth in China will vary between 6.7 percent and 8.4 percent per year through 2025, with variations depending on global economic conditions and the internal Chinese political environment. 20 Using a hybrid approach that harnesses the advantages of both market exchange and PPP rates, RAND forecasts China's GDP to grow by an average annual rate of 6.59 percent through 2020. 21 Richard N. Cooper, an economist at Harvard, provides a useful and more detailed growth scenario that allows for focus on what this all means for China's development trajectory, relative to the United States, through 2025.…”

“…Chinese per capita GDP will remain at only about one-twelfth the level enjoyed in the United States and Japan, despite having increased fivefold since 2000. 22 With an economy the size of the U.S. economy in the late Cold War, China's future leadership will have the resources and capabilities it needs to project power internationally through foreign aid, defense expenditures, and other means.…”

“…21 The Iranian nuclear program was temporarily suspended after the 1979 Iranian Revolution in part because then-Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini saw the indiscriminate effects of nuclear weapons as inconsistent with Islamic canons of war. 22 However, Iran's present-day nuclear program has been developed and sustained by a range of political forces within Iran, including conservatives, pragmatists, and reformists. This co operation has led to a general public consensus within Iran that is based on the purported linkage between the nuclear program and the country's national interest.…”

“…Economist Intelligence Unit, "Country Report: China," June 2007b, p. 12 20. Jeroen van der Veer, "Shell Global Scenarios to 2025," The Hague: Royal Dutch/Shell Group, June 2005.21 For an explanation of this methodology, see Keith Crane, Roger Cliff, Evan Medeiros, James Mulvenon, and William Overholt, "Modernizing China's Military: Economic Opportunities and Constraints," unpublished RAND Corporation research, 2005, pp.…”

Iran as a ‘pariah’ nuclear aspirant

“…states that are opposed to, and isolated from, existing regional or international orders*have the 'clearest incentives' and the 'least to lose' from acquiring nuclear weapons (164Á165). However, the importance of these insights has tended to be downplayed in some recent treatments of Iran's nuclear program that emphasise either scientific/ technical aspects of Iran's program or US policy options (Bowen and Kidd 2004;Dueck and Takeyh 2007).…”