Thank you very much for a very thoughtful and interesting question.
Here are a couple of points. I see your points on the targeted sanctions. It's different with the blanket kind of sanction that western countries, particularly the United States, imposed on Iraq and other countries, for instance, which was quite destructive. On the targeted sanction, first of all, how can we be sure Russia and China would be a part of this sanction? If they are not cooperating with the sanction, again, it will be irrelevant.
The second point is how we can know what exactly to do about the so-called Revolutionary Guards, companies, or the financial resources. What source of reliable information do we have to get this kind of information and to be really targeted on it, right to the point?
The third point is that I guess any kind of economic sanctions would play into the hands of, again, the Revolutionary Guards, because they have already created a kind of mafia economy, a black market economy. Again, another round of economic sanctions, in my view, will play into the hands of the Revolutionary Guards in different ways, because there is always one way or another to exploit Iran's economic resources and get out of these so-called sanctions. But if we can find, perhaps, specific names or institutions with really, really reliable information, this might have some sort of positive impact on Iran's democratic movement.
On the issue of nuclear policy, if I may say a few words, from the Iranian perspective, I think this is what they simply argue. They suggest Iran has a legitimate right to pursue its nuclear policy for three major reasons. The first one is national prestige. Iran is the regional power, no matter whether shah or sheikh, ayatollah or zellolah, Islamist or post-Islamist governs the country. Iran is a major regional power. It's for this very reason. Nuclear science is the cutting edge of science at this point, and sooner or later Iran needs to get to this point, from the national prestige concern.
The second line of reasoning is for an alternative source of energy. We know that at this point Iran imports refined oil, which is quite a shame for some of the Iranians, they say. Iran is a big exporter, and at this point, thanks to the economic sanctions, and to some extent targeted economic sanctions in the past 30 years or so, Iran desperately needs refined oil. For this reason, they simply think they need another kind of alternative source of energy, and at this point they think that nuclear would be the first and the most important alternative source of energy.
The third line of reasoning for justifying Iran's nuclear policy is the security issue. For the security issue they have three reasons. The first one is that the longest war in the post-Second World War period, the Iran-Iraq war, was imposed on Iran for eight years. Iran was targeted by chemical weapons, and no one really cared about Iranians' complaints during the eight-year war because Saddam Hussein was instrumental in getting rid of the ayatollahs, and of course many western countries and even the Soviet Union were not happy with the Iranian government and they simply didn't care about their demands.
The second security concept, they say, is the fact that under President George Bush the U.S. had a regime change policy—the issue of the axis of evil—and was constantly threatening for regime change. Of course, they simply suggest that Iraq was not a nuclear power but was invaded, whereas North Korea, which was a nuclear power, was safe and was not invaded. So this gives some sort of realpolitik, rationalist and realist kind of thinking.
The third line of reasoning on the security issue is—