Carrot and Stick – with Additional ‘Freebie’ thrown in for Good Measure

It seems that, once again, Mr Kerry, along with the serried ranks of the great and the good, have got together in conclave to close out a deal on Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. So, does this world of ours now breathe a little easier today and has it become a much safer place in which to live?

I guess it all depends on how this deal is viewed and what is expected to follow on from it.

Is it just a stop-gap measure, a policy born of desperation or exasperation?

An interim arrangement?

A solid start to a process yet to be fully finalised?

A playing for time, a wait and see approach?

A necessary compromise all round, half a loaf being always better than none?

The best outcome that can be had, given the circumstances as they appear to be?

Whatever the verdict, the general impression must be that the package agreed upon may be far from ideal but a beginning has been made and only time will tell if it was the right one.

Is there anything else that could be done to keep the situation on track, isolating it from future events arriving on scene with derailment in mind?

The carrot-and-stick method, which appears to form the basis of this agreement, does have its limitations. The principal parties involved may balk at further concessions and tomorrow might bring unforeseen changes to a direction already replete with more than sufficient tension and uncertainty to throw it off course.

Everyone’s best interests might be much better served if a ‘free offer’ could be attached to the current package.

Something like this:.

Dissuading Iran from acquiring nuclear club membership may be much better managed if it can be shown that these fearsome weapons of mass destruction are themselves on the verge of redundancy, obsolescent, old-hat, relics of a bygone age. They are now rapidly nearing their expiry date and, as is the nature of all such things, replacement by a more up-to-date, relevant, dynamic and much less expensive alternative becomes inevitable.

It would therefore be a much harder sell for the Iranian powers-that-be to convince a relatively young but internet-savvy population to shower serious taxpayers money on an outmoded and soon, perhaps, to be mothballed model of military hardware. This would be especially so when a perfectly good, top-of-the-line alternative may be found elsewhere.

www.laxiankey.com

No one likes to be palmed off with second-best, unfashionable stuff. And in that, I suspect, Iranians are no different from the rest of us.