It must be condemned and it must not happen again

" Iran does not deny the Holocaust, the president does not deny the Holocaust. We believe that that was a genocide. It must be condemned and it must not happen again. It should not happen again to Jewish people nor should it happen again to any other group that have been subjected to systematic violations of their human rights. And that is the issue that Iran has been pursuing. Unfortunately, some people have tried to create public sentiments about a simple question that Palestinians had nothing to do with Holocaust."

Iran's Ambassador to the U.N - Feb.9 /2007

Iran has no interest in providing weapons to Iraq

"Iran, has no interest in providing weapons to any insurgents groups in Iraq. But the problem is that the United States has decided on a policy and is trying to find or fabricate evidence if it cannot find one — and I believe it hasn't been able to find an evidence – in order to substantiate and corroborate that policy. And that seems to be at the bottom of this problem, and it's an alarming problem because if you're looking for a crisis, then you're certainly not looking for solutions."

How Not to Inflame Iraq

"Now the United States administration is — unfortunately — reaping the expected bitter fruits of its ill-conceived adventurism, taking the region and the world with it to the brink of further hostility. But rather than face these unpleasant facts, the United States administration is trying to sell an escalated version of the same failed policy. It does this by trying to make Iran its scapegoat and fabricating evidence of Iranian activities in Iraq."

A genuine warning

" What I think many of us are concerned about is that we stumble into active hostilities with Iran without having aggressively pursued diplomatic approaches, without the American people understanding exactly what's taking place "

Sen. Barack Obama

A must watch video

I would encourage anyone genuinely committed to forming an objective and independent opinion about Iran's nuclear program to watch this video, here.

Breach of diplomatic immunity by the US: A dangerous precedent

When a group of Iranian students took over the American Embassy in 1979, the International Community was quick to react: Two Security Council resolutions (S/RES/457, S/RES/461), a couple of Presidential Statements were immediately adopted at the UN and every Western country almost instantaneously expressed its outrage at this unacceptable breach of International law and the concept of diplomatic immunity. Even though the act of seizing the embassy was in itself conducted by private actors in the heat of the Revolution, the newly born government of Iran was urgently asked to "release immediately the personnel of the Embassy of the United States of America being held in Tehran, to provide them protection and to allow them to leave the country". Fair enough.

Today, the US military impudently raided the premises of the Iranian Consulate office in the city of Arbil in Iraq, abducted the 6 diplomats present inside the building and took them to an undisclosed location. The raid took place, not by an independent group of any sort, but by soldiers in American uniform, taking direct order from the US military. Now, my guess is that the Iranian people - along with civil societies around the world for that matter - would at least expect the International Community to condemn this indisputable violation of International law and denounce United State's unacceptable breach of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, to which it is party. It is at least expected that the same members of the Security Council whom in 1979 adopted the above mentioned resolutions, now show some degree of decency and express as much as a "concern" over what could become a dangerous precedent in this "war against terrorism". Let's wait and see, but something's telling me it's not going to happen. Rather, it looks like the Snowballs, Napoleons and Squealers of this new "Animal farm" are rewriting the commandments of International law to change the principle of "All diplomats have immunity" to "All diplomats have immunity, but some have more immunity than others".

Reader contribution

Two of the readers have left interesting comments about my first post. Both of them have very articulately presented the two confronting views that exist about Iran in just a few lines. The first one argues that Iran is indeed a dangerous and perturbing element within the International community (based on a few common assumptions), and the second one provides a counter argument explaining why this is not the case.

I'll copy-paste these two comments here as I'm sure you'll find them interesting too:

Anonymous said...

While I can appreciate your view, I feel like your arguments under number 4 are a tough sell.

Maybe Iran has not waged war on other countries, but the current regime is also not passively minding its own business. They fund radicals in Lebanon, and, of course with the situation in Iraq, Iran has great influence in that country. Would any country in Iran's place use their position to their advantage in Iraq? Absolutely, but to say that they are not offensively active is hard for me to agree with.

Plus, while Ahmadinejad's comments may have been wrongly translated, it's still hard to conclude Israel being "eliminated from the pages of history" is a peaceful goal. If I told my neighbor that I hope to eliminate them from the pages of history, they would probably consider those fighting words. Especially, when you place that in the context of Ahmadinejad's actions and others statements, and the horrible conference he organized.

January 8, 2007 9:14 AM

Anonymous said [responded]...

The prior poster is missing a key point and is distorting 2 others:

1) Ahmadinejad's statement(s) is a call for regime change. A position held by many not radical supporters of peace, non-violence and human rights—NOT to say Ahnadinejad is one of these people just to say this is NOT a radical stance given Israel’s human rights and colonial record.
More Importantly, regime change is the same position the US holds towards Iran. The difference being Ahmadinejad has not threatened military force to do so. Instead he has threatened, god forbid, elections. And while the recent conference is offensive and stupid It doesn’t immediately translate into a military policy. Especially because an Iranian President has little power to being with.

2) It is highly questionable to call Hezbollah, Iran’s ally in Lebanon, radicals. While it is true they have some less than progressive social agendas and they have refused to disarm, Hezbollah is also equally an advocate of the poor and disenfranchised, has participated in the mainstream political system and maintains weapons largely because Israel continues to both occupy and threaten Lebanese territory. More Importantly, Hezbollah are no less oppressive and violent than the other factions supported by the US and Israel. Western powers support a wealthy minority that maintains economic and political control only because of built-in sectarian preferences in the constitution, which are hardly democratic. Iran’s sympathy’s for Hezbollah are part out of a shared religious identity but also out of an inherent anti-imperial world view—hence Iran’s growing relationship with Hugo Chavez. Also Iran has often acted as a moderating force on Hezbollah, who as of late have used the “radical” tactic of, god forbid, peaceful demonstration to further democratize Lebanon.

3) It is again misleading to call Iran’s support of factions in Iran offensive. The US is a country that openly called Iran “evil,” officially endorsed regime change and to this ends has finical supported, not the progressive pro-democracy movement in Iran but, a group of ex-monarchists and an Islamo-Marxist cult officially recognized as a terrorist organization. This same US (offensively) invaded Iran’s neighbor Iraq, forcibly imposed a non-elected government and destabilized the country. Only after the Shi’a forces, close to Iran, pushed for election did the US hold them (note: the Iraqi Shi’a are not controlled by Iran). And eventually Iraq spiraled into civil war. I would argue any country is acting defensively when it attempts to make sure a geo-political crisis, like the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, did turn into a crisis for itself (note: the burden of refugees and spill over violence).

January 8, 2007 7:18 PM