Prevent a Military Attack on Iran - a response to the propaganda by the founder of CASMII

[oblivious]

The same points, of course, have been made over and over by DUers. More of the interview at the link.

Abbas Edalat is the founder of Campaign against sanctions and military intervention in Iran (CASMII) and Professor of Computer Science and Mathematics at Imperial College London. He is interviewed by Oscar Dahlston for Felix the student newspaper of Imperial College London.

Felix: Why does Iran need a nuclear program, given that it has so much oil?

Abbas Edalat: You should ask Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz who under President Gerald Ford successfully persuaded the Shah of Iran in 1970’s that his country needed a large nuclear programme with over twenty nuclear reactors for energy production. You see a great amount of hypocrisy here in the Western media. The truth of the matter is that Iran’s oil resources are depleting fast. In fact, Iran is spending billions of dollars a year to import petrol for internal consumption as its refineries were destroyed by the Saddam regime thanks to the support he received from the West for his 8 year war on Iran. As a developing country, Iran’s strategy is to sell its oil so as to be able to develop its basic and hi-tech industries and use nuclear power to generate its internal energy needs for a growing population of over 70 million. This is a perfectly rational and cost effective strategy.

Felix: Do you believe the Iranian leadership's claim that they are only intent on nuclear energy? Do you think that the crowds who show up on demonstrations in favour of the nuclear program in Iran tend to believe this claim, or are they hoping that Iran will secretly acquire nuclear weapons through this program?

Abbas Edalat: I do believe that the Iranian leadership is only intent on nuclear energy. There is a fatwa, a religious decree, by Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader, who is the highest authority in Iran, against the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons which are declared un-Islamic. The Western media, which often condemn the Iranian political system as theocratic, conveniently fail to let the western public know about this fatwa. The crowds which show up on demonstrations in support of Iran’s nuclear program fundamentally support the supreme leader and therefore his fatwa.

Felix: Iran's president Ahmadinejad is reported as having said that Israel should be 'wiped off the map' and organised a conference for holocaust-deniers. Is Israel right to feel an existential threat from Iran?

Abbas Edalat: It is a myth that Ahmadinejad has ever said that Israel should be “wiped off the map”. This myth was created first by a mistranslation of the statement Ahmadinejad made and later by its deliberate distortion. What he actually said in October 2005 is that “The Zionist occupying regime of Jerusalem should cease to exist in the page of time”. He has also specifically said in very clear terms that “Israel should go through a regime change in the same way that the Soviet Union went through a regime change.” The Soviet Union of course went through a bloodless regime change. Ayatollah Khamenei, who has the final say on any major state and foreign matter, issued a statement, after the mistranslation of Ahmadinejad, saying that Iran has not and will not threaten any country but that it will defend itself against any aggression. Of course none of this is ever really reported in the western media.

In contrast to Khamenei’s statement that rules out any threat by Iran against other countries, the Israeli and US leaders have not just called for a regime change in Iran but have publicly threatened, in violation of the UN charter, to launch an air assault on Iran and have been actively planning a regime change by covert military operations inside Iran to foment ethnic violence and unrest in the country.

It was foolish to organise the Holocaust conference in Tehran; it played right into the hands of warmongers in Israel and Washington. However its objective was not to deny the Holocaust but to investigate how it has been abused to justify the atrocities committed by Israel against Palestinian people.

Felix: The Director General of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) says that Iran is not fully complying with a recent UN security council resolution. Why is Iran not doing that?

Abbas Edalat: Iran is exercising its legitimate rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to enrich uranium up to 3 percent grade for a fuel cycle used in generating electricity, which is far short of the 90 percent enriched uranium required for a nuclear bomb. Iran considers the UN Security Council Resolution 1737 requiring Iran to halt its enrichment program as illegitimate since there is no of evidence for a nuclear weapons program in the country.

Iran is put on trial because of the suspicions of some western leaders about the intentions of Iranian leadership. The US is asking Iran to prove a negative, that it does not intend to develop nuclear weapons, and for the US “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”.

Felix: What would you recommend world leaders wanting to ensure that Iran does not build nuclear weapons to do?

Abbas Edalat: The US should enter into direct and immediate negotiations with Iran on all issues in dispute without any preconditions. Based on a grand deal that the US should offer, in exchange for security guarantees and lifting of US sanctions against Iran, an agreement can be reached which would provide Western leaders with the assurances they seek that Iran’s nuclear program will not be diverted into a weapons program.

http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/1623