Oil 1 Peak Oil 21

Iran 2AC Shell (4/4)

3. 
   The result of Iranian nuclear capabilities will be widespread proliferation,
   

Henry Sokolski, (Executive Director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center), October 2005, GETTING READY FOR A NUCLEAR-READY IRAN, www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub629.pdf

These workshops identified three threats that are likely to increase following Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapons option.
1. Even More Nuclear Proliferation. Iran’s continued insistence that it acquired its nuclear capabilities legally under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) would, if unchallenged, encourage its neighbors (including Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, and Algeria) to develop nuclear options of their own by emulating Iran’s example, by overtly declaring possession (in Israel’s case) 2 or by importing nuclear weapons (in Saudi Arabia’s case). Such announcements and efforts, in turn, would likely undermine nuclear nonproliferation restraints internationally and strain American relations with most of its key friends in the Middle East.

2. Dramatically Higher Oil Prices. A nuclear-ready Iran could be emboldened to manipulate oil prices upward. It might attempt this either by threatening the freedom of the seas (by mining oil transit points as it did in the l980s, or by threatening to close the Straits of Hormuz), or by using terrorist proxies to threaten the destruction of Saudi and other Gulf state oil facilities and pipelines.

3. Increased Terrorism Designed to Diminish U.S. Influence.

With a nuclear weapons option acting as a deterrent to the United States and allied action against it, Iran would likely lend greater support to terrorists operating against Israel, Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Europe, and the United States. The aim of such support would be to reduce American support for U.S. involvement in the Middle East, for Israel, and for actions against Iran generally, and to elevate Iran as an equal to the United States and its allies on all matters relating to the Persian Gulf and related regions. An additional aim of the terrorism that Iran would support would be to keep other nations from supporting U.S. policies and the continued U.S. military presence in the Middle East.

All of these threats are serious. If realized, they would undermine U.S. and allied efforts to foster moderate rule in much of the Middle East and set into play a series of international competitions that could ultimately result in major wars. Most U.S. and allied policymakers understand this and are now preoccupied with trying to prevent Iran from ever acquiring a nuclear weapons option. As Iran gets closer to securing this option, though, two questionable courses of action―bombing or bribing Iran―have become increasingly popular. Neither, however, is likely to succeed and could easily make matters worse.

Uniqueness- Nukes

MICHAEL EISENSTADT, (Senior fellow and director of the Military and Security Studies Program at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy), October 2005, GETTING READY FOR A NUCLEAR-READY IRAN, www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub629.pdf

(BBC, 2-10-7, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6348797.stm)

But any statement is likely to be as much about political positioning as real technical progress, according to nuclear analysts.

But Iran's plan to initially run 3,000 centrifuges before moving towards an ultimate goal of 54,000 has run into obstacles and delays and is well behind target. Even the cascades in the pilot plant have seen problems.

However, once Iran has mastered the technology of enrichment and the ability to enrich gas at high speeds in a centrifuge then transferring it to a larger scale presents a lesser challenge.

Uniqueness- Nukes

(BBC, 2-10-7, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6348797.stm)

Whether or not there has been extensive covert activity directed at Iran (and by definition it is hard to discern the truth), the variety of technical problems mean that its hard to know if Iran is actually far away from mastering nuclear technology or relatively close to it and thereby able to make the relatively short journey from "peaceful" civilian technology towards manufacturing nuclear material for a bomb.

One of the most important is exactly how much help Tehran received from the Khan network.

The network first sold centrifuge designs to Iran in 1987 and provided on-off help for more than a decade after, including parts and designs for more advanced machines.

But international investigators remain unsure that they have an understanding on the full extent of the assistance, not least because no-one outside Pakistan has been able to question Khan directly whilst he remains under a form of house-arrest in Islamabad.

However, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has not been provided any information on such work.

If Iran was able to run a parallel, second enrichment program which it had managed to keep secret, then many of the estimates of how far Iran was from mastering the technology might be way of the mark. But this remains an unknown.

Israel is keen to emphasise that it sees the shorter time-frame as the valid one and is willing to take action.

Uniqueness/Link- Oil Revenue

Iran is now taking in huge amounts of revenue from high oil prices

Patrick Clawson, (senior editor of the Middle East Quarterly and director for research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy), WINTER 2007, Middle East Quarterly, VOLUME XIV: NUMBER 1, http://www.meforum.org/article/1068

As Iranian confidence has grown in recent years, the West's ability to pressure Tehran has eroded. Iranian leaders are self-assured: the collapse of both the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Baath Party in Iraq has lifted the chief threats on Iran's borders. Insurgency and Iranian-backed militias have transformed the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq into a vulnerability and liability for Washington. Pro-Iranian forces won both Palestinian and Iraqi elections. The Iranian regime has also reaped an economic windfall: oil and gas exports have shot up from US$23 billion in 2002-03 to $55 billion in 2005-06.[4] This windfall has enabled an explosion of off-budget spending that has sent economic growth shooting up on average 6.2 percent a year from 2002 to 2006, discounting for inflation. Foreign exchange reserves have reached $47 billion, more than twice the amount of Iran's foreign debt, and will only rise further as oil prices remain high.

Impact- Corruption

New Oil revenues will be used to fuel Iranian corruption.

(Meir Javedanfar, ME Analyst with Masters in IR and Strategic Studies, 5/29/08, Pajamas Media blog, http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/mega-scandal-in-iran-35-billion-in-oil-money-missing-from-state-coffers/)
In what appears to be the biggest case of corruption in Iran, and perhaps in the Middle East, the Tehran-based Shahab News reported that the chief auditing office of the Iranian parliament (Majlis) has revealed that close to $35 billion of oil income from the financial year 2006-07 is missing.

According to Iranian law, this money should have been paid by the government of President Ahmadinejad into Iran’s central bank. Once there, the government can request the withdrawal of funds for projects, depending upon the approval of the Majlis. However, the new investigation shows that the government never paid the money into the central bank, and no one knows what has happened to it. Although it has not yet been proven, many suspect that the money has been used to finance corrupt activities of politicians surrounding the president, or the president himself. After all, it is very unlikely that this could have happened without his knowledge.

This is a serious allegation, as this amount constitutes almost half of Iran’s total oil income for that year.

To make matters worse, this is not the first time since the start of the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that money has been used without the Majlis’ knowledge. One other famous case took place during the 2007-08 financial year. It was revealed later that $2 billion was used to import gasoline, without any consultation or approval of the members of the Iranian parliament.

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