"According to reports, Ahmadinejads speech was well received by the student
community."
WORLD AFFAIRS
Hounding Teheran
JOHN CHERIAN
The U.S. seems determined to impose sanctions unilaterally and even
exercise the military option to check Irans nuclear programme.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said that Bush, with Iraqi blood on his
hands, has much to atone for and little to lecture us on. Mugabe accused Bush
of rank hypocrisy for lecturing on human rights. His hands drip with
innocent blood of many nationalities. He kills in Iraq; he kills in
Afghanistan. And this is supposed to be our master on human rights.
SHANNON STAPLETON/AP
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Columbia University in New York on
September 24. THE last week of September witnessed frenetic diplomatic
activity involving Iran and its friends and enemies. Most of the action was
centred in New York where Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was attending
the annual summit at the United Nations. The Bush administration and its ever
complicit ally, the American media, have been demonising and denigrating
Ahmadinejad at every available opportunity ever since he assumed office. But
the decibel level of invectives reached a crescendo when Ahmadinejad set foot
on American soil. The devil has landed was how one American newspaper
headline greeted the visitor.
Around the same time, U.S. intelligence and security officials have been
telling the media that President George W. Bush has shortlisted 2,000 Iranian
targets to be bombed when hostilities break out. The media have been told that
diplomatic efforts to make Iran give up its nuclear programme have failed and
that military action is the only option now. The Pentagon has told the media
that a carefully calibrated programme of escalation, which will inevitably lead
to a military showdown, is under way. Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh,
who rarely gets his facts wrong, has confirmed in an article in The New Yorker
that plans to attack Iran are at an advanced stage. According to Trita Parsi of
the National Iranian American Council, recent events have shown that there is
a deliberate and concerted effort to bring the military option back to centre
stage.
Joining in the anti-Iran chorus is the new French President Nicholas Sarkozy
and his Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner. Sarkozy shocked the international
community by suggesting that military action could be an option if Iran went
ahead with its nuclear programme. He said that more sanctions, coupled with an
offer of negotiations, was the only approach that can keep us from facing a
disastrous alternative; an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran. Kouchner, who
had supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, was even more specific.
In a highly publicised television interview in mid-September, he actually
used the word war against Iran. We have prepared for the worst, the worst is
war. Other West European allies do not share the views of the Sarkozy
government and have been urging Washington to exercise caution.
Kouchner said later that he was misquoted. The Iranian news agency, IRNA,
quoted him as saying that the media had unrealistically portrayed his
comments. He told Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki in New York that
France supported the recent agreement Iran signed with the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA). The U.S. and France had tried to push for a third U.N.
Security Council resolution that would have expanded the sanctions on Iran.
Sarkozy is now pushing for separate European Union (E.U.) sanctions on Iran.
This move is opposed by the majority of E.U. members, including Germany and
Italy. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, according to the German
magazine Der Spiegel, is on the verge of releasing data that would reveal the
extent of the lucrative business American and French companies are currently
doing with Iran despite Security Council sanctions.
With China and Russia unwilling to back a new resolution on Iran, a new
deadline of late November has been set for Teheran to scale back its nuclear
programme. The Bush administration had earlier insisted that a resolution be
passed in September itself. Senior officials had publicly stated that the
U.N.s credibility was at stake. Better sense having prevailed, the Security
Council will now take a decision on additional sanctions on Iran only after it
receives two reports. One of the reports will be submitted by the E.U.s
foreign policy chief, Javier Solana. His report will focus on the Security
Councils demand that Iran cease its uranium enrichment programme.
Iran continues to insist that the programme is conceived purely to produce
energy for domestic consumption. Ahmadinejad reiterated this point in his
speech to the U.N. General Assembly. The Security Council has asked Solana to
meet Ali Larijani, Irans top security official, to lay the foundation for
future negotiations.
ELBARADEIS REPORT
The second report will be submitted by IAEA chief Mohammed ElBaradei.
ElBaradei and the Iran government had agreed on a plan that promises to shed
new light on some unanswered questions on Teherans nuclear programme. Iran had
told the IAEA chief in July that it would provide all the details about its
nuclear programme by the end of the year. ElBaradei has come under a barrage of
criticism from the White House for his initiative. He has repeatedly stated
that recourse to war on the nuclear issue should be avoided at all costs. He
has also been saying that he has seen no evidence to indicate that Irans
nuclear programme posed a threat. ElBaradei also pointed out that it was only
fair that after four years of cooperation between the IAEA and Iran, a few more
months should be granted to complete the task. Ahmadinejad told the U.N. that
following his countrys agreement with the IAEA, Irans nuclear case was now
closed as far as the U.N. was concerned. He said that only
the IAEA was authorised to monitor Irans nuclear activities.
ElBaradei is known to be of the view that additional sanctions on Iran or
resort to the military option will prove to be counterproductive. He recently
reminded the hawks in Washington about their Iraq fiasco. I would hope that
everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000
innocent civilians have lost their lives owing to the suspicion that a country
had nuclear weapons. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was quick to
criticise the Nobel Peace Prize winner saying that it was not the business of a
technical agency like the IAEA to engage in diplomacy. The IAEA chief, on the
other hand, maintains that he has been mandated by the Security Council to
clarify Irans nuclear history. The Bush administration had worked overtime
to stop ElBaradei from continuing in the post when he was up for re-election.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, supporting ElBaradeis position, said
in the last week of September that sanctions would
undermine the IAEAs efforts to provide answers to questions being raised
about Irans nuclear programme.
But the Bush administration seems determined to impose sanctions unilaterally
if the need arose. In the last week of September, the U.S. House of
Representatives passed a resolution designating Irans Revolutionary Guards as
terrorists and recommended sanctions. The Bush administration has accused the
Revolutionary Guards of fomenting violence in Iran and training and arming
militants in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki,
who was also on a visit to the U.S., however, gave Iran a clean chit, saying
that Iran did not interfere in the internal affairs of his country. The
Revolutionary Guards are a key component of the Iranian Army and are also
involved in important sectors of the Iranian economy. In retaliation for the
American move, the Iranian Majlis (Parliament) has passed a resolution branding
the U.S. Army and the Central Intelligence Agency as terrorist organisations.
In the same week, the U.S. Congress passed another resolution
recommending the division of Iraq into three parts, based on sectarian and
ethnic lines.
Rice visited the Gulf countries in late September and warned them about the
dangers posed by hegemonistic Iran. The U.S. has offered the Gulf monarchies
multi-billion dollar arms deals to bolster their defences against Iran. It must
be said to the credit of Iran that it has never launched a war against any of
its neighbours. However, Iran is not complacent. A top adviser to Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told the Iranian Pars news agency that the U.S.
should realise that their 200,000 soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are within
the reach of Irans fire. Khamenei said recently that cowardly hit-and-run
attacks on Iran will not be possible. He warned that if any country invaded
Iran, it would face very serious consequences.
INDIAS ABSENCE
The U.S., in order to ratchet up economic pressure on Iran, has forced some
important European banks not to do business with Iran. France has trimmed
export credits and instructed French oil companies not to invest in Iran.
Japan, which is dependent on Iranian oil to a great extent, has pulled back
from energy projects in the country. India was conspicuous by its absence at
the recent high-level talks on the Iran-Pakistan-India peace pipeline. Senior
American officials have been issuing warnings to the Indian government against
involvement in the multi-billion gas pipeline project. The Iranian Foreign
Minister told the media in New York that sanctions as a political tool for
exerting pressure would not make Iran give up its rational policy goals.
Rational discourse over Iran was, however, a casualty in the U.S. During his
visit, the Iranian President was not allowed to lay a wreath at Ground Zero,
the site of the twin towers that were demolished in the terrorist attack of
September 11. Iran was among the first countries to condemn the terrorist
attacks on American soil. Teheran did not raise too many objections when U.S.
forces invaded Afghanistan to take on Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Ahmadinejad
said that some circles in the U.S. want to put him in the same boat as Osama
bin Laden. Columbia University, which had invited him to deliver a lecture,
badly dented its reputation by extending a churlish and spiteful welcome. Lee
Bolinger, the university president, to the surprise of academic and diplomatic
communities, insulted the Head of State in his welcome speech by describing him
as a petty and cruel dictator. Bolinger came under heavy criticism from the
Israeli lobby and right-wing groups in the U.S. for
inviting Ahmadinejad to address the students.
MARK WILSON/AFP
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and French Foreign Minister Bernard
Kouchner at a news conference in Washington, D.C. According to reports,
Ahmadinejads speech was well received by the student community. He touched on
all the emotive issues of terrorism, nuclear energy and the holocaust.
According to Professor Juan Cole, an American expert on West Asia, there is
very little substance to the debates raging in the U.S. about Ahmadinejad. He
wrote that attacking Ahmadinejad is actually a way of expressing another
deeper anxiety; fear of Irans rising position as a regional power and its
challenge to the American and Israeli status quo. Ahmadinejad, in his speech
at the U.N., vowed not to bow down to the threats by arrogant powers. He
denounced the master-servant relationship of the medieval age that the U.S.
is seeking to impose in international affairs through the auspices of the
Security Council. He emphasised that his country had spared no effort to
build confidence and that it was only aspiring for civilian nuclear energy,
not nuclear weapons.
Bush, in his speech, called for a mission of liberation against countries
such as Iran, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Syria, Belarus and North Korea. The Cuban
delegation walked out when Bush insultingly said that the long rule of a cruel
dictator is nearing its end. Ahmadinejad joined other leaders in highlighting
the duplicity of Americas stance on issues relating to human rights and
democracy. Some nations do not value any nation or human beings, he said.
Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque, speaking as the chairperson of the
Non-Aligned Movement, said that Bushs performance in the General Assembly was
an embarrassing show. He said that the American Presidents speech reflected
the delirium tremens of the worlds policeman. The intoxication of imperial
power, sprinkled with the mediocrity and the cynicism of those who threaten to
launch wars in which they know that their life is not at stake.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said that Bush, with Iraqi blood on his
hands, has much to atone for and little to lecture us on. Mugabe accused Bush
of rank hypocrisy for lecturing on human rights. His hands drip with
innocent blood of many nationalities. He kills in Iraq; he kills in
Afghanistan. And this is supposed to be our master on human rights.
http://www.frontlineonnet.com/stories/20071019503604600.htm
With Regards
Abi
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