Central Asia and the Persian Gulf region have been engulfed in turmoil and instability with global ramifications for the last several decades… The turmoil in this region has shown that major-power rivalry has not been the sole source of the region’s miseries, because significant episodes of major-power cooperation did not bring about positive change. The source of trouble is not extremism either, as it has been a symptom and not the cause; not to mention the fact that today’s extremists were once close allies of their current antagonists. The problem lies in the prevailing paradigm, founded on the need for an enemy—real, perceived, imaginary or artificially manufactured—as a convenient tool for governance and global interactions.….
The interests of Iran and the United States, as well as security and stability in the Persian Gulf region, have long been hostage to an outdated paradigm sustained by mutual mistrust and heavy historical baggage, and nurtured with fact or fiction generated by those benefiting from confrontation and war. Iran has a national security interest in restoring regional stability and preserving and strengthening disarmament and non-proliferation. But, preventing the manufactured “Iran threat” from becoming the next global nightmare requires a drastic change in the U.S. approach—an approach that until now has impeded a genuine search for alternatives Read more....
"How not to inflame Iraq," New York Times, February 8, 2007
The American administration can also contribute to ending the current nightmare — and preventing future ones — by recognizing that occupation and the threat or use of force are not merely impermissible under international law, but indeed imprudent in purely political calculations of national interest. As authoritative studies have repeatedly shown, no initiators of war in recent history have achieved the intended results; in fact, in almost all cases, those resorting to force have ultimately undermined their own security and stature.
When 140,000 American troops could not bring stability to Iraq, and in fact achieved exactly the opposite, an additional 20,000 soldiers with a dangerous new mandate can only be expected to worsen tension and increase the possibility of unintended escalation. Only a reversal of the logic of force and occupation can dry up the hotbeds of insurgency. Read more....
...what we see in the US policy in Iraq is an attempt to sort of "escape forward" by creating, fabricating new facts to fit a policy that is dictated primarily by domestic considerations here in the United States. And a policy that has very little prospect of success even in ideal situations. The fact that this policy is clearly based on fabrications is alarming, should be alarming for everybody because it would be difficult to look for solutions if one side is trying to fabricate a crisis. I think this is what the US is doing with the Iranian nuclear issue and what it has done with Iraq, that it's not looking for a solution. So people must be concerned, not just in Iran but elsewhere, about the dangerous implications of policy-driven facts that are being created in Iraq. What can be done about this and what can Iran do about this is driven by the fact that the US is looking for a crisis. Read more.....
When the UN Security Council was forced to convene on the Saturday before Christmas to vote on Resolution 1737 — against Iran's nuclear program — it was only natural to ask what the urgency was.
Iran had not attacked or threatened to use force against any member of the United Nations; in fact, Iran has not attacked any country for more than two centuries. Iran was not on the verge of building a nuclear weapon. To the contrary, as a study released this week by the National Academy of Sciences concludes, Iran needs nuclear energy in spite of its oil and gas reserves. Read more...
As far as U.S. polices are concerned and the aftermath of the Baker-Hamilton report, what is needed is a change in the approach of the U.S. towards Iran, towards Iraq, and towards the region. What has brought all these miseries to the region is that the U.S. has dealt with the region based on wrong perceptions and a totally erroneous approach. The U.S. must come to realize that other countries have interests, have concerns, have anxieties. The U.S. must deal with these anxieties, concerns and interests, and not be concerned with only its own. Even the terminologies used by the United States in the liberal realist tradition—such as “carrot and stick”—are not meant for humans, but rather for donkeys. In studies of Orientalism, the Eastern part of the world is dealt with as an object rather than as serious, real human societies with longer, older civilizations with concerns and needs that have to be dealt with. Read more...
Suspension, Mr. President, is not a solution. It is at best a temporary –a stop-gap – measure to allow time to find a real solution. And such a suspension was in place for two years and contrary to the excuse that the proponents of the resolution have presented here and there, the IAEA repeatedly verified that Iran fully suspended what it had agreed to suspend in each and every report from November 2003 to February 2006. So, we had a suspension for two years and on and off negotiations for three. The question is: What has been done during these 3 years to find a solution? Read more...