Psychological Sources of the Conflict Over Iran's Nuclear Program

PSYCHOLOGICAL SOURCES OF THE CONFLICT OVER IRAN’S NUCLEAR PROGRAM

Christopher Ebbe, Ph.D.   11-13

ABSTRACT:  The motivational and psychological sources of the conflict over Iran’s attempts to have a nuclear bomb are elaborated.

KEY WORDS:  politics, nuclear bomb, Iran, fear of others,

            fear of difference

Many nations of the world are engaged currently in an effort to prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons.  There are many reasons for and justifications of these efforts.

Western democracies fear Iran, because there is still some hatred in Iran of the U. S. over its support for the ruler that preceded Iran’s Islamic republic and because more fundamentalist Islam perceives the West’s morals as completely insufficient and as leading people to have corrupt and dissatisfying lives.

A noteworthy problem in international relations is the habit of nations to use foreign policy to advance their own interests, often at the expense of other nations and peoples.  It is “natural” enough for human beings, as individuals and as nations, to seek to advance their own interests, but when they do so to the detriment of others, there will be at least resentment and contempt for that individual or nation later on, and there may be violent payback.  The U. S. has acted often in ways that were not in the best interest of peoples of other nations, by trying to get what it wanted by aligning with dictators and/or by taking resources with unfair compensation, and the U. S. now is paying a price in resentment and contempt, particularly in the Muslim world, for those short-sighted actions, which are interpreted by the peoples of those countries as statements of the values of the people of the U. S.

Some may react to the last sentence as “anti-American,” with the unspoken justification that since the U. S. is “good,” what it does must be “good,” too.  Since evaluations of whether our country is “good” or “bad” are almost always biased toward seeing ourselves as “good,” and since most nations think that they are “good and see a certain number of other nations as being “bad,” it is unlikely that all of them are “good”!  What is missing at that level of analysis is seeing one’s own country’s actions through the eyes of people in other countries, who do not have the same bias that we do toward seeing the U. S. as “good.”  Our government slants information to our public toward a positive picture of our country and its actions and never tells how the people of other countries perceive our actions.  Our news media, both conservative and liberal, does report reactions in other countries to our actions, to some extent, but still has a built-in bias toward assuming that our actions are “good.”

A more fundamental culprit is our very human inbred fear of difference.  The more different another nation’s customs and worldview are from our own, the more we will find them incomprehensible and fear their people, and we will probably dislike them and view them as not quite human since they are not like us, at least on the surface and in terms of their nation’s internal power structure.  This fear of difference is clearly salient in our fear and dislike of Iran, even though there are now large numbers of middle-class persons in Iran who no longer believe in or live by the behavioral strictures of Islam (no alcohol, keep women apart from public life, pray five times a day, etc.).

The common reaction to difference is to want others to change to be more like us, so that we can feel more comfortable with them.  Many people in Iran would like us to change our morals and beliefs to be more like theirs, just as we would like them to change their morals and beliefs to be more like ours.  People justify this by claiming to have a “better” culture or society, but this is never backed up with evidence.  People automatically think that their own culture is “better” since they believe that their customs and worldview are what makes it possible for them to live the lives that they have and because they have no knowledge of the benefits of other cultures to the people in those cultures.  We don’t have convincing reasons to claim that our country is “better than” other countries, unless we carefully assess the pros and cons of living in each country.

Human beings naturally seek their own advantage, but they generally accede to some concept of “social contract” with other residents of their own countries (i.e., accepting the rule of law within their own country, which to some extent restricts their own ability to treat others badly in exchange for restricting those others from treating them badly).  As human beings, we have much less “natural” inclination to extend that concept of “social contract” to other groups (other nations) and their citizens who are different from us. 

Apparently, when living in more difficult times and in villages rather than nations, competition for survival was more prominent than it is now, and there was little advantage for groups to include other groups in their “social contracts,” so we did not “learn” evolutionarily to get along by treating other groups as equals.  There are some attempts now to do just that, through institutions such as the United Nations, but many in every country view this as giving up their “rights” to those of other countries and giving up the sovereignty of their nations, and are fiercely opposed to doing so. 

Being willing to seek more mutual respect for the welfare of other nations and the people of other nations, in return for greater respect on their parts for our welfare, would move us in the direction of not using foreign policy to gain advantage over others or to get things we want at the expense of those of other countries.

Iran seeks to develop its nuclear power capabilities, just as other nations have, and since Iran remembers being attacked (by Iraq) and experiences being shunned by the West, it naturally would like to have a nuclear bomb, particularly since Israel has the bomb (along with the U. S., Russia, England, France, Germany, Pakistan, China, North Korea, and India, if not others as well).  Iran knows that an enemy, Israel, can easily strike Iran with nuclear weapons, so naturally it would like to have the bomb, just as we feel that we need the bomb to deter others from attacking us.  Since Iran fears other countries, just as we fear other countries, why does Iran not have the same “right” to nuclear weapons as we do?

The initial reaction of most Americans to the above paragraph would be that it’s OK for us to have the bomb because we would never do anything wrong, like pre-emptive war (attacking another country before war is declared out of fear of the other country attacking us without warning), but of course, the U. S. has engaged in pre-emptive war (Iraq), and given our approach to foreign policy—to gain advantage for the U. S. (albeit while trying also to “look good”), other nations should realistically consider what the U. S. is capable of and should have a realistic fear of the U. S.

We think that Iran “should not” have the bomb, since we don’t trust them and consider them to be unpredictable (because we don’t understand them).  Even though Iran talks big about “death to America,” etc., it has not attacked other countries (except through supporting rebellion in other countries), and we have attacked other countries.  Might does not make right, and there is no reason why other countries “should” trust us.  We should not claim to be better morally than they are, since our attempts to control the world, our murder rate, and our incarceration rate suggest otherwise.

As a nation, like other nations, Iran believes that it has a “right” to enrich Uranium (which could lead to constructing a nuclear bomb), and it is inappropriate for us to claim that they do not have such a right, since we claim that right for ourselves.  If our reasons for this claim are that (1) we are “good” and (2) we need protection, then other countries should, in fairness, have the same right.

It is probably true that the fewer nations that have nuclear bombs, the smaller the chances of having nuclear wars, and this alone is an appropriate justification for striving to keep Iran or any other country from having the bomb.  Other justifications are not needed, and criticizing Iran or demonizing it as a means of keeping it from getting the bomb only convinces Iran even more strongly that it needs the bomb. 

Nuclear containment would argue that some other countries that have the bomb should not have the bomb (that there are too many who have the bomb already), even some of our own allies.  There are no convincing moral arguments for the U. S. “allowing” some countries to have the bomb but not others who are just as fearful of their neighbors.  In fact, the nuclear containment argument might be used to argue that the U. S. should not have the bomb but that only one other, smaller country (Britain?) should have the bomb and be the worldwide guarantor of reprisal for any attack by any country on another country.

CORRECTIVE ACTIONS

Some changes in our attitudes and actions could naturally lower the level of conflict and hatred in the world.

1. We can change our foreign policy approach to one that takes better account of our impact on other people, by making human betterment (in the affected countries) a primary requirement of policy, instead of only a useful public relations add on.

2. We can stop trying to gain advantage over others through clandestine means, such as the NSA “snooping” programs and other spy activities.  We must, of course, consider the value possibly to be gained from such snooping and spying.  If these are the only way to prevent secret, large-scale attacks on this country, then we probably will continue these activities, but the government has presented no convincing evidence of this, and its policy of not disclosing the nature of its “secret” operations, so as not to let others know of what we are doing, gives us no assurance that we can trust it to be reasonable.

3. We can give up our distorted view of ourselves as better than others.  Educating ourselves about how other cultures and societies operate, and seeing the benefits and problems that they have, would put our own benefits and problems in an appropriate perspective.  International travel helps with this to some extent, but going in a tour group of those from your own country can lead to negative reactions and a maintenance of the “us” versus “them” distance that prevents us from empathically appreciating the lives of the people of other countries.

4. If we think that our system provides a better way of life than that in countries based on fundamentalist Islam, we should clearly identify the reasons that we think that.  We may have good reasons (at least to us), but if we are to be honest, we should look objectively at that way of life (the life that results when a society’s customs, beliefs, and attitudes are based on fundamentalist Islam) and identify its advantages and disadvantages, then comparing them with the advantages and disadvantages of life in the U. S.

5. We can work to reduce our tendency to act on our fears of difference, again by educating the populace better about other cultures and societies.  The more interaction there is between peoples of various countries (in addition to tourism), the more we will realize that other people are just as smart as we are, love their children just as much as we do, and want to get along with others just as much as we do.  Realizing that people everywhere have the same basic motives (have a pleasant life, raise children, contribute to the group) and realizing that the customs of each society were developed to make social living more comfortable and expeditious, even though they look different, will go a long way toward not seeing others as so “different.”

  

essays\nuclearbombrights