Iran and nuclear research.

Does the West realize how pathetic it sounds, both at home and abroad, in its reactions to Iran's nuclear programme?

Of course any proliferation of nuclear weapons is deplorable, and no one can be happy if yet another country, especially Iran under its present regime, goes in for it. But the protests and hand-wringing about it doing so, the threats of referring the matter to the Security Council and there urging all sorts of economic measures to bring Iran to heel are feeble, unrealistic and counter-productive, as well as resting on dodgy moral grounds.

They are unrealistic because, when push comes to shove, the Security Council is unlikely to do anything about it, if only because China, dependent as its expanding economy is on Iranian oil, would veto any measures against Iran.

They would be counter-productive because, as Ahmadinejad has said, the West needs Iran more than Iran needs the West. The West's energy crisis is quite bad enough as it is, what with Chinese demands for oil already pushing up its price and the Iraqi oil fields crippled by sabotage.

As for military intervention against Iran, that is simply not feasible, especially not after the experience in Iraq. Perhaps the Americans (or the Israelis) are toying with the idea of a pre-emptive air strike on Iran's nuclear facilities; but at the very least that would lead to an oil crisis which would make the 1973 one look like a storm in a teacup, and at the worst it could set the entire Middle East aflame.

So even if it were morally defensible to proceed against Iran, purely practical considerations argue against it.

But the moral grounds for lecturing the Iranians are also pretty dodgy:

1. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty came into force 36 years ago. Under the Treaty only the five Permanent Members of the Security Council had the right to produce and keep nuclear weapons. At that time these were also the only five countries which had the capacity to produce such weapons. Doubtlessly a number of the 189 signatories signed the treaty of their own free will because it would make for a safer world; but others did so surely under the pressure of the Big Five. The possession of nuclear weapons would enable small countries, which otherwise could not stand up to Great Power pressure, to do so; so from a Machiavellian point of view, it is perfectly understandable that the Big Five did not want their dominance challenged by smaller countries. But there was always something morally unsavoury about the Big Five safeguarding their right to produce nuclear weapons but denyig it to other countries. It is true that Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; but Article X gives signatories the right to withdraw from it.

2. Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea have all got away with producing nuclear weapons, in the latter three cases after the ritual splutterings from the West. And whereas those countries have made no bones about wanting to become nuclear military powers, the Iranian government has denied that its programme is designed to produce weapons. It is of course perfectly understandable that nobody believes that.

If we could stop the Iranians by pressure, there would be strong Machiavellian arguments for exerting it. But I don't think we can. I don't think the Iranians will be browbeaten. Neighbouring Middle Eastern governments will doubtlessly be nervous about a nuclear-armed Iran, but public opinion in those countries will merely be further inflamed against Western policy than it already is.

We are in a hole - and the least we can do is not to dig ourselves deeper into it.