Wednesday, October 02, 2013

Op-ed: Can Iran Trust the United States

My latest op-ed, "Can Iran Trust the United States?," points out that the full historical context indicates that Iran is the aggrieved party in its conflict with the U.S. government. It is up to President Obama to demonstrate his peaceful intent. He should start by lifting all economic sanctions.

Read it here.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Simple answer is NO. Iran can not and should not trust US or its minions.

Here is why (And yeah, it is long):

1- Western countries led by UK started to steal Iran's hydrocarbon reserves specially oil from 1901 and this oil was the only oil UK used during world war I and world war II. All royal navy ships and planes and trucks running in Europe, Africa or South Asia was being fueled by Iranian oil which Iranians never got paid for. Infact UK had nationalized Iranian oil in 1914 and all Iranian oil and gas had become property of British crown forever. After Iranians tried to get it back, UK with US help orchestrated operation Ajax. After this color revolution brought about by operation Ajax, Iran got some small share in oil revenues but still the biggest share holders in Iranian oil remained British, French and Americans.

2- Western countries after the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, which cut their access to Iranian oil greatly, supported Saddam to invade Iran and play havoc with its economy through sanctions. This was more than a revenge. It was being done to make sure, Iran would remain a poor country despite its oil wealth and stop Iran's technological progress. US directly sided with Saddam and militarily attacked Iran on behalf of Saddam and since Saddam did not have a navy, US navy was used to support him to the point that US shot down an Iranian civilian airliner killing 290 people including 66 children. In addition west provided Saddam with WMD's which he used on Iranians making Iran the second largest victim of WMD in the world after Japan.

3- Iran had paid tens of billions of dollars to American and British companies in 1970's to supply it with numerous weapon systems eg. Kidd class frigates, submarines, tanks and war planes etc etc. None of them reached Iran and neither the money was returned. US and France continued to supply Saddam with helicopters and war planes and holding back Iranian purchased weapons during the war. This was being done to ensure Iranian defeat and humiliation. Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Mr. Jalili was a soldier in that war and he lost his right leg during the fighting with western supported Saddam. Today he walks to the negotiating table with a leg prosthesis.

4- Iran had paid 3 billion dollars to Germany in 1976 to build two nuclear power reactors for Bushehr plant which Germans never completed despite Germans being under obligation to complete under IAEA rules and NPT mandate which calls for nations with nuclear technology to help NPT members with all their needs. Germans only erected some buildings and refused to work any further. Germans never returned the money and Iranians had to literally beg the Russians for the technology. Russians took advantage and got maximum benefits from both Iranians and western countries by procrastinating the project. Finally the project which was supposed to be finished by Russians in 1999, became fully operational in 2012, that is 13 years later.

Continued...

Anonymous said...

... Continued

5- Iran had paid billions of dollars to France in 1970's for France to build a nuclear reprocessing plant in Iran which they never did. Iran had also paid France to build Darkhovin nuclear power plant, which of course French never did. The Iranian paid reactors were instead installed in a French nuclear power plant and are now working there at Graveline C nuclear power plant. Iran had also shared the costs of building Eurodif Uranium enrichment plant which Iran owns 10% share of, to this day and France had agreed to provide Iran with enriched Uranium from that plant as well as the transfer of technology for Uranium enrichment. Iran never got even one gram of enriched Uranium from France neither got its share money.

6- Iran in 1970's had invested in Rössing uranium mine, the world's third largest Uranium mine and to this day owns 15% of the mine with government of Namibia holding 3%, South Africa holding 10% of shares and the Anglo-Australian corporation Rio Tinto having 69% of the shares. But as is the case, Iran still has not received a single gram of Uranium or any of the profits of the mine due to western pressures. Almost all of the Uranium taken out of this partly owned Iranian mine goes to US and EU and used in their nuclear power plants or used to manufacture nuclear bombs with which they threaten Iran.

7- The west is supporting terror inside Iran by financing Jundallah and MKO, this despite the Algiers agreement of US with Iran, which had called for US to stop interfering in Iran's internal matters, US has kept interfering inside Iran. Now with unfair sanctions, US is trying to arm twist other independent countries that are trading with Iran as well in order to make Iran subservient to western desires for plunder.

8- US has been attacking Iran using sanctions, proxies, terrorists, media agitation, economic warfare, smuggling of drugs from Afghanistan into Iran, cyber attacks, assassinations etc. All these instances are declaration of war against Iran. Fortunately Iranians have been very restraint and have played cool. But this might not be the case in future.

9- Iran has been losing its territory to western and other imperialist powers and interests like Russia and UK since 18th century due to the bigger fire power of global imperialist powers. Iran still remains at risk today with so much terrorism against Iran and the fact that global imperialist powers openly talk about defeating Iran and breaking it up or encouraging secession from Iran. Under such serious threats, the only thing that guarantees peace from Iran's stand point is nuclear weapons. Only nuclear weapons will be able to secure Iran against much larger, lunatic and aggressive powers like United States whose president is talked by God to invade other lands or arms infiltrating wahabi cannibal terrorists.

10- Almost all sanctions against Iran have been passed by US congress which is very and highly anti-Iranian and will not remove them short of after complete destruction of Iran. The US president has nothing to offer Iran. Even if Iran gives up its entire nuclear program tomorrow, the sanctions are going to stand. These sanctions are designed to weaken Iran over time and prepare it for an eventual invasion by US/NATO. Only one thing can stop it. Iran building nuclear deterrence and Iran building its industries taking care of national needs such as medicines, machines, etc. The sanctions were never designed to be removed. It is a folly to think that if Iran gives up its nuclear program, then everything is going to be ok and Iran is going to become a paradise.

Anonymous said...

And about the airliner shot down by US navy.

One has to remember that US was pushing for Iran to accept defeat. A few days after US shot down Iranian airliner and Saddam was threatening daily to use chemical weapons against large Iranian cities, Iran's leader Khomeini went on TV and publicly admitted defeat and in his own words drank the poisoned chalice.

That shoot down was purposeful. The official reason for it was BS. F-14, specially those provided to Iran, did not have any anti-ship or even air to ground strike capability, whatsoever. This technicality is almost never spoken of. Since it brings down the pack of lies about that atrocity.