As Iran moves forward with nuclear development, America has found itself in conflict with another Middle Eastern nation. Reminiscent of the 2003 lead up to the war in Iraq, inspections, sanctions, and "military options", have once again become part of the American parlance. This article aims to discuss American policy towards Iran by first highlighting a fundamental flaw in our policy, and second by proposing a possible solution.

America' foreign policy towards Iran can generally be summarized as follows. A nuclear Iran is intolerable; it will threaten Europe, threaten Israel, and may even threaten the United States. A nuclear Iran may also provide weapons to Hezbollah, or other Islamist groups. These groups could ultimately use nuclear weapons against Israel or the West. Thus, America needs to aggressively prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons using sanctions or perhaps military force. Beneath this debate is the specter of regime change. Removing the theocratic government in Iran and replacing it with a more liberal, pro-Western government will not only help impede Iran's nuclear ambitions, but it will also replace a repressive regime, with a more democratic regime. President Obama, as he tends to be, has not necessarily been clear on what he hopes to do. Sanctions are an option, he has said, but military force is also a possibility. Congress has taken a similar approach, fearful of another military engagement in the Middle East.

America's pleas to Iran will fail because American nuclear policy is plagued by a fundamental problem - a double standard. America is the most nuclearized nation in the world, possessing not only nuclear missiles, but advanced biological and chemical weapons. America is the only nation in the world to have launched a nuclear attack on another nations. Our strongest ally in the Middle East, Israel, a nation that the Iranian leadership does not perceive as friendly, also has a nuclear arsenal. The European nations that have been pressuring Iran to end its nuclear aspirations likewise possess nuclear weapons. And lurking beneath all of this is the Iranian memory of America's direct role in the overthrow of Iran's democratically elected prime minister and America's installation of the Shah -a repressive leader that denied Iranians basic freedoms for 26 years.

Thus, when America approaches Iran with pressure to denuclearize, Iran perceives arrogance and hypocrisy - a confirmation of its belief that employs two standards, one for itself, and another for the people of the Middle East. We should ask ourselves how we would feel if we were Iranians, and heard the largest military and nuclear superpower the world has ever seen demand that we abandon our efforts to pursue nuclear weapons. We all know what the answer to that question is, even though we may not like the answer. Unfortunately, putting ourselves in other peoples' shoes is not something that American foreign policymakers do particularly well.

So then what is the solution? First, the efficacy of sanctions is belied by history and common sense. Sanctions did not work on Iraq and Cuba, and threats of sanctions failed to convince Pakistan and India to abandon their nuclear aspirations. Yes, sanctions will hurt the people of Iran, but they will not react with gratitude to America. Instead, Iran will use sanctions to demonstrate that America stands against Iranian national pride and its people will turn away from, not towards, the United States. America cannot risk losing the support of the Iranian people, a people who, thanks largely to the Iranian youth who despise living under repressive, theocratic rule, are more pro-American than any other people in the region.

A military option is even worse. Attacking Iran will do what bombs tend to do, galvanize the entire Iranian population against America. Yes, we may destroy their nuclear facilities, but we will sow more hatred in the region, invite retaliation against our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and further destabilize an already instable world. It is simple psychological logic that bombs and invasions breed hatred; and that hatred breeds violent retaliation. There are too many endless cycles of violence in this world, we don't need more.

Instead, what we need to do is simply face up to the fact the only way to effectively convince Iran, or any nation for that matter, that they should abandon nuclear aspirations is to gain the moral high ground by doing so ourselves. America and its allies must firmly commit themselves to denuclearization -not as some lofty goal or some topic for a summit (there will be one in March) -but as a matter of national necessity. As the nation that spearheaded nuclear proliferation during the Cold War, we owe it to the world to fix this problem, one that could potentially result in the death of millions.

The common response to this plan is that other nations will not follow. They will see that America is denuclearizing, the argument goes, and will want to take over at the top of the nuclear ladder. Russia, could perhaps be a good candidate for this spoiler role. This argument ignores three important points.

First, it is in every nation's interest to end nuclear proliferation because each nation has an obvious interest in not being decimated by a nuclear weapon.

Second, if a nation does stand in the way after an effective coalition is developed, that nation will risk becoming a pariah, undermined by the moral force of a coalition that final decided to stand up and do something about weapons that can obliterate tens of millions of people with the push of a button (modern nuclear weapons have a blast power of about 50 to 100 times the bombs that our country dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.)

Third, what is the alternative? If we don't take a chance on denuclearization, no one else will, the world will continue to nuclearize, and every ten years or so, another nation will seek a bomb until eventually we all have them. This nuclear world of ours is already risky, and if we embrace the status quo, it will inevitably get worse. At least with the non-proliferation strategy, we give ourselves a chance.