Dont Forget About Iran

After we did the Iranian crisis simulation, I had a new appreciation and understanding for the gravity and seriousness of the situation us, and the world, are in with unstable relations with Iran. But more than once when thinking back on it, I found myself thinking in past tense "what if Iran had..." or "were lucky they didnt...". I think the reason for this is because Iran seems to be just a side note in todays news, something that was huge a few years ago but today has fallen by the wayside, maybe because we have all gotten used to the threat. As an example, most of the crisis articles we read were written in 2006, and articles on Iranian nukes today are somewhat of a rarity. There was a recent surge in articles related to Iran, but that was because of the 2009 campaign and a journalist who had just been released from prison there. It seems like we have placed Iran in the category "yea its there, we'll deal with it later". But it is important to continue to keep Iran on the front of our international topics, since a search of the words 'Iran' and 'nuclear' on CNN yield a few alarming articles which for some reason never gained headline priority. One article details a report which claims the Iran may have enough material for a nuclear weapon in a matter of months. Even more worrying, it also goes on to explain that Israel may have been planning a strike on Iran only a few months ago but backed out because the US would not support them. This undoubtedly means tensions are still high and a possibility of confrontation is still very likely, so why have people stopped talking about it outside of American Studies simulations? My blunt answer is that we have become bored with it. The media is simply a business, and they cater to what we want. After a few months of high tensions regarding Iran, people realize there are more pressing matters for them and move on. The same has happened with North Koreas Nuclear program many times. Kim Jong Il detonates a bomb or something, and he gets center stage for international media, and thus gains attention in relations between countries. After a few months, however, interest in North Korea dies down and Mr. Il finds another way to capture our attention. The same situation can be seen happening in Iran, except they are not trying to gain our attention by flaunting their technology because unlike North Korea, Iran is not in dire economic need or on the brink. So being left alone to play with nuclear material is perfectly fine for them. But not for us. Unlike many other topics we have studied, the Iranian crisis is very current, and is still a major issue. Just because we have finished our Unit and Iran isnt blowing stuff up, we should still pay attention to it because it has the potential to turn into World War III, as our simulation lightly displayed.