Last week’s U.N. Security Council Resolution 1887 aimed at curbing the nuclear capabilities of Iran, North Korea and other nuclear-aspiring nations was merely the first development in setting the international stage for this Thursday’s talk in Geneva, Switzerland regarding the fate of Iran’s nuclear future.

Acting as Chairman of the Security Council — a first for an American president — President Barack Obama advanced a resolution that would close the gaps in international nuclear regulations that are often exploited by nations seeking to establish weapons programs.

The resolution aims to make it more difficult for countries to convert peaceful nuclear programs into weapons projects. At the Security Council meeting last Thursday, Obama sought to generate wide-ranging support for rewriting old agreements such as the 1972 Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and encouraging countries to adopt new restrictions on the transfer of nuclear material and technology.

As the members hammered out details of the resolution, there was talk of a “nuclear free zone” in the Middle East. However, some members of the Council were reluctant to incorporate that point into the resolution since they interpreted it to mean that Israel would be required to give up its nuclear weapons, according to The New York Times.

Russia and China caused another contentious point when both sought to exclude naming Iran in the resolution, according Iago Gocheleishvili, a lecturer in the near eastern studies department. Russia and China are reluctant to fully embrace the U.S.’s restrictive approach because of their significant economic ties to Iran.

Gocheleishvili believes that last week’s U.N. resolution is considered a success for the U.S. because it was able to generate international support behind a U.S.-drafted and promoted resolution. However, he remains skeptical about the resolution’s ability to achieve any significant alterations in Iran’s nuclear program — the resolution itself does not call for forced inspections of countries assumed to be developing weapons.

“Iran has not changed its position and the Iranian president [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] has already declared that the resolution and the rhetoric that [the] U.S. has deployed are a mistake that will not lead to any progress in Iran-U.S. relations,” Gocheleishvili stated in an e-mail.

However, Iran’s revelation to the U.N. last week that it was developing a second nuclear facility that would be used to produce nuclear fuel might complicate matters. According to Iran, the plant is not yet operational. Iran already has one enrichment plant.

Since revealing that it possesses a second nuclear facility, Iran has already executed three rounds of missile tests as part of drills beginning last Sunday, further straining tensions with the international community.

In response to this disclosure, the U.S. and its allies are seeking to impose sanctions on Iran that would target its energy, financial and telecommunications industries if Iran does not comply with the U.S.’s request that it reveal all the details and open its facilities to extensive investigations by International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors. The Obama administration hopes that the sanctions will force Iran back into negotiations over its nuclear program. However, this goal might be compromised without the support of Russia and China.

Iran has had some form of sanctions imposed on them since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, according The Times. But many in the international community and at Cornell are doubtful that the proposed sanctions will lead to the desired results. Moreover, some are worried that the sanctions will actually help the Iranian government because if ordinary people are cut off from key resources, this deprivation would weaken any potential protest movement.

Prof. John Weiss, history, also expressed some concern that the Iranian people would turn against those countries imposing the sanctions. Specifically, he explained that sanctions would provoke a patriotic reaction against the U.S., even if the population hates the mullahs.

Instead of pursuing sanctions and a “hard line” against Iran immediately, a better response would have reconsidered “a tone that is so hysterical and paternal toward the Iranians,” according to Weiss.

Weiss, who founded an on-campus group called Team Iran that studies U.S.-Iran relations, said it would have been much more advantageous for the U.S. and the international community to simultaneously welcome Iran’s admission of having a second nuclear facility and admonish Iran because the site was secret and the third violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Weiss further suggested that this alternate approach could have indicated a willingness to negotiate on several issues in order to give Iran a sense of security and recognition by the countries in the Middle East.

But ultimately he said, “The first sentence should be we welcome [to] the fact that you guys confessed.”

Gocheleishvili and Weiss agree that one way to modify the U.S.’s and the international community’s approach to handling Iran is to “widen the agenda” at this week’s talks and in the future.

This change in tactic would include negotiations on less controversial issues where there is shared interest. For instance, the U.S., Russia, Iran and China all have a mutual interest in creating an economically stable Iran and fostering stability in nearby Afghanistan.

Sanctions are not only the way that nuclear weapons capabilities could damage the country internally. According to Orfeh Vahabzadeh ’12, an Iranian-American, if one group of Muslims possesses nuclear capabilities, it would create an imbalance of power between the Shiites and the Sunnis and further escalate tensions and animosity between the two groups.

Vahabzadeh added that pursuing a nuclear weapons project is not just bad for the Iranian public image, but it also hurts Iranians by diverting money away from areas that are sorely in need of public funding. For example, she explained that there is such rampant unemployment in Iran that highly qualified, educated people cannot find jobs.

She said, “[The government] could’ve redirected the funds toward jobs, infrastructure, social welfare, but it’s not. It’s pursuing something else and that speaks to the regime’s priorities.”

Vahabzadeh explained that there are legitimate uses for nuclear energy that could spur growth and be helpful to the Iranian population. Some alternatives include allowing scientists from countries other than Iran to oversee the development of Iran’s nuclear program, which functions as external oversight, and finding ways to use nuclear energy for medical purposes.

Of significant note is that in the recent Iranian presidential election, none of the four presidential candidates, neither conservative nor reformist, expressed a readiness to abandon a peaceful nuclear program if there were elected to the office. “In fact,” Gocheleishvili stated, “polls conducted in Iran have shown that the majority of Iranians also see it as the country’s natural right to pursue a nuclear program as long as it is for peaceful purposes and is aimed at the economic development of the country.”

Along those lines, Vahabzadeh explained that many Iranians feel they should have the right to develop a nuclear program because of the trauma incurred in Iran’s war with Iraq in the 1980s.

She said, “There were deformities caused by the chemical weapons used and [the effects] are still very much present today. It scarred Iran. [The nuclear program] is a way to have equivalent chemical security.”

Given both the U.S. and Iran’s recent behavior in the last few days, the negotiations on Oct. 1 could prove to be the precursor to a continual contest where both countries try to outdo the other.

Weiss said, “It’ll be a continuation and outbidding game and that’s the reason for the Iranian missiles.”

Vahabzadeh added, “Many people could argue that this could lead to a 21st century cold war and I think that it is very much a possibility with the tension surrounding Iran and with so many people focused on its nuclear agenda, especially in such a volatile region. I don’t see the U.S. or Iran taking a dramatically different stance on Thursday.”