from breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca to world@lemmy.world on 23 Feb 18:42
https://lemmy.ca/post/60870283
The government in Tehran sees capitulating to Washington’s demands on uranium enrichment and ballistic missiles as riskier to its survival than going to war, analysts say.
Facing high-stakes brinkmanship as American warships and fighter jets mass off its shores, Iran has refused to concede to President Trump’s demands on its nuclear program and weapons — a stance that has bewildered U.S. officials.
The authoritarian clerics who rule Iran see those concessions — which, in their view, could compromise their core ideology and sovereignty — as a greater threat to their survival than the risk of war.
A dangerous mismatch in perceptions between Iran and the United States is why efforts to negotiate a deal over Iran’s nuclear and military capabilities look increasingly fragile, experts say, and a new regional conflict seems almost inevitable.
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The real risk they should be worried about is the resource commitment required to run a nuclear program in the first place (to say nothing of their ballistic missiles which have consumed incredible resources over time only for them to have underperformed in the Twelve Day War).
Their domestic situation remains incredibly fragile, and every bit of money committed to a war machine is money that can’t be committed to domestic priorities like keeping the people from wanting to forcefully interface you with a piece of lighting infrastructure Mussolini-style.