In his speech last Sunday, Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said “That a country has no right to achieve proficiency in nuclear technology means it has to beg a few Western and European countries for energy in the next 20 years. Which honest leader is ready to accept this?”
Easy answer. No honest leader would accept it. And no honest leader of any other nation would ask Iran to accept it.
But then, few people these days will accuse George W. Bush of being honest, so he has an excuse, right?
Under the fold: expecting different results…
Clinging to Failure
Khamenei also said, “In Iraq, you [America] failed. You say you have spent $300bn to bring a government into office that obeys you. But it did not happen. In Palestine, you made every attempt to prevent Hamas from coming to power and again you failed.”
True statement, and a darn sight truer than anything young Mister Bush has ever said about U.S. adventures in Iraq and Palestine.
Khamenei on Europe: “Our government has healthy and good relations with European countries. These relations with Europe will be even better in the future, when gas plays a more important role as a source of energy. They need our gas.”
Nothing like being up front about things like, uh, realities.
Condi Rice has been telling us that the EU3 is all on board with backing the U.S. policy toward Iran. She’s been saying that since early 2005.
According to Khamenei, the “international community” cooperation with the U.S. isn’t all Condi cracks it up to be.
Some 116 non-aligned countries supported Iran in its bold move to acquire nuclear technology. The Organisation of the Islamic Conference has voiced support for Iran. Independent governments all support Iran. All those people who have acted as middlemen to repeat America’s words to us, under American pressure and out of courtesy, have told us in secret that they have been asked by the Americans to say so and that they do not think the same way.
What Khamenei had the good grace not to say is that one of the countries that support Iran’s efforts to acquire nuclear technology is Iraq.
Condi and the rest of the Bush inner circle (and their media echo chamberlains) continue to insist that Iran seeks the ability to produce its own nuclear weapons.
Khamenei denied this on Sunday, as he has consistently, that Iran has any such ambitions.
We have no problem with the world. We are no threat whatsoever to the world and the world knows it…
The other suggestion is that Iran is seeking a nuclear bomb. This is an irrelevant and wrong statement, it is a sheer lie. We do not need a nuclear bomb. We do not have any objectives or aspirations for which we will need to use a nuclear bomb. We consider using nuclear weapons against Islamic rules…
We think imposing the costs of building and maintaining nuclear weapons on our nation is unnecessary. Building and maintaining such weapons is costly. In no way do we deem it correct to impose these costs on the people.
I’m not entirely willing to take him at his word, but I know this: between him and Condi Rice, there’s no question as to which one has told the world the most lies.
Big Bang Diplomacy
Over at firedoglake, Pachacutec has a superb analysis of the Iran situation as it stands right now. (BTW, thanks for the plug, Pach.)
Perhaps his most salient point is the extent to which the Bush administration and its GOP yes men in Congress have weakened America.
Aside from the thirty-something percent of the U.S. population that still supports Bush, the entire world sees that our stance on Iran looks and sounds almost identical to the run up to our invasion of Iraq. The only real difference is that this time, we’re not even pretending to have any proof to support our allegations about the “bad guy’s” WMD program.
Everybody knows the administration is off on another snipe hunt. Everybody knows that when it comes to war and peace track records, the western world makes Iran look like a bunch of hippy dippy peaceniks. (Iran has fought one war in the last 100 years, and that was initiated when Iraq invaded it.)
They know that Iran has every right in the world to develop its own nuclear energy program, a vital component of which must be the ability to refine its own uranium.
They’ve watched us prove in Iraq that our “best trained, best equipped” military is incapable of creating the kind of world order that the neoconservatives envisioned.
They know that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, etc. are a bunch of megalomaniacal jerks.
And they’re perfectly willing to sit back and watch us pull the trigger again and shoot off the last of our toes.
Next World Order Foreign Policy
The neoconservative vision of creating a world order favorable to America at the point of a gun is a proven failure. Never in the history of humanity has so much power been vested in people who were so incapable of exercising it wisely.
In my Next World Order series, I’ve outlined a political model in which America, if it is to continue to thrive, must find a way to transition from a “failed hegemon” to a “first among nations.”
We’re not going to be able to achieve the “first among nations” status if we continue to pursue the delusional policies and strategies of the Bush administration. One of the best ways we can reverse course, right here, right now, is to drop our kindergarten position on Iran and encourage its efforts to develop a self-sustaining nuclear energy.
The surest way to create a stable Middle East is for the region to wean itself into the 21st century, and if Iran can emerge as the nation that will lead the Muslim world to modernity, wouldn’t that be a good thing?
The Next World Order Series
Part I: America’s 21st Century Military
Part II: Network-centric Warfare
Part III: America’s Military Industrial Complex
Part IV: The Revolt of the Retired Generals
Part V: What Good is War?
Part VI: Body Count
Part VII: Order in the Next World Order
Part VIII: The Cost of War and Peace
Part IX: Balance of Power
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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his weekday commentaries at ePluribus Media and Pen and Sword.