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One World
By lindamuralidharan on 2011-12-01 23:23:17
[caption id="attachment_2978" align="aligncenter" width="506" caption="Iran in the region of The Middle East, Asia and
MIDDLE EAST_
Africa"] . [/caption] Yes, we are one world.
One interconnected world. In the effort to reduce violent conflict, I pose many questions again about Iran. Do we as a
nation see it in isolation or as one part of a much larger picture? What is our role and who decides what that is? What is our
individual responsibility to ourselves, our country, and to our fellow world citizens, in Iran and elsewhere. Some of you may
have read my recent, overly long comment on parts of this subject on the page of another of our bloggers. See Comment #4
following the November 17 blog titled "If We REALLY Want to Help the Women of Afghanistan." Please read that if you
have not been carefully following my discussions of Iran and its nuclear program over the last couple of years. Here I want
to add some further comments without too much repetition of what has been said before. In summary, I have explained why
many people around the world are very skeptical of certain American claims that Iran is close to producing an arsenal of
nuclear weapons. I have explained that some American claims...that seem to be geared to working the American public up
against Iran and amenable to a US or Israeli attack on Iran..bear very close examination and taking them at face value could
possibly lead to some very bad decisions. The claim by the man in Texas that Iran was paying him to help assassinate the
Saudi ambassador in the US had more holes than my kitchen colander. The recent US anointed IAEA official's claim that
there is new evidence of Iranian nuclear weapons development has been pretty thoroughly debunked...at least outside the
"liberal" main stream media and the top people in the previous Bush administration and the present Obama and Israeli
administrations. (I don't know if people in these categories lie or are easily hoodwinked.) Now we read in the press that
our Secretary of State is visiting Thailand/Myanmar to, among other things, see how dangerous their (some thought)
rudimentary nuclear program really is. Have they gone quite far or not in utilizing technology the country is suspected of
obtaining from North Korea? If they are quite far along...we certainly want to pay attention because an important peace
promoting goal is to limit the number of nations who have nuclear weapons capability. Should we then, if all this proves an
actual reality, treat Thailand the way we treat Iran? Impose more stringent sanctions on this poor country, threaten a military
attack? Or do we truly have a warped view of the type of threat that Iran poses in doing nuclear research? Have we such a
narrow focus, perhaps tunnel vision, where Iran is concerned so that we ignore too many other "threats" (large or small)
around the world. And then there is China. They are permitted to have nuclear weapons and it would be responsible of them
to be more transparent about what kinds and how many. The accepted nuclear nations give some lip service to transparency
in the cause of arms reduction. A current news story says that a number of students and their professor have looked at all
kinds of data and concluded that China is building miles and miles of tunnels through which they move a missile system.
But nobody anywhere outside of China knows how many weapons China actually has. Who can deny that responsible
governments such as the US need to question how many and for what purpose? My point here is that it seems obvious to me
that world peace and the national security of many nations from Australia to the US to Israel would be enhanced by
attention and human energy and resources being directed to look at the big picture, to see many nations as of concern to
world peace and a world safer especially from nuclear war. Remember, too, that Japan is all ready to go. It has all
mechanisms in place to produce a bomb at very short notice. But since it has not actually put one together, it avoids
criticism or close scrutiny. Not that I think Japan is major threat but the point is that Iran is not quite the significant threat it
is made out to be either. Let us look at all the pieces of the puzzle that is a nuclear free world...or one in which arms
reduction and limitations exist in reality. While our government and some others focus narrowly on Iran, we seem to miss a
great deal of useful strategic analysis. Also in news now is the student attack in Iran on the British diplomatic corps. It
seems quite likely that these students are more or less stooges of the hard liners inside Iran...students who themselves tend
toward the excessively nationalistic and conservative factions. Instead of making threats, we could gain a lot by standing
back a bit and letting some of the internal rivalries and factions inside Iran play themselves out. The more divided their
leaders and/or significant factions and/or significant components of their government are, the better off we would be in the
short term. And so would the average Iranian. It would give the more moderate and democratic leaning factions some
breathing space to build up support for better elections or even taking to the streets again if it comes to that. But the more
us outsiders give the leaderships a scapegoat to focus the attention of the masses, the more they can continue business as
usual. There are also many folks these days trying to encourage the US to really push for a two state solution in
Palestine/Israel that would be implemented and not just debated. With fair treatment for Palestinians, certain leaders in Iran
would be deprived of another scapegoat and would need to focus policies more domestically, and where foreign policy is
concerned it would need to take a different tack. Insofar as I have heard, there is no legitimate Iranian policy that plans an
attack on Israel. We do hear quite regularly that Israel plans to attack Iran. Let's hope this is all talk and that Iran is honest
when it says it is only planning on developing peaceful uses for its nuclear research. While we cannot be sure our hopes will
be realized, we can take more realistic and effective views and actions to deal with these situations than is represented by
our present course of 1) continuing to vilify and isolate Iran 2) avoiding taking a stand as an unbiased participant in
Palestinian/Israel talks and negotiations 3) pursuing escalating sanctions that have not so far achieved the desired result 4)
making various sorts of veiled threats of military action..which if anything will raise nationalistic feelings among the
population and result in people being more supportive of the undemocratic regime than they otherwise might be .. and
probably justify any arms build up the leaders would like to do. If you are a Neocon at heart and want to attack as many
Mideast nations as necessary to get them all to be primarily capitalist in economic organization and to give the people the
democratic rights to vote for any of a number of more or less hand picked oligarchs while making sure that multinationals
have as much share of each country's resources as they want without regard to what the people want, then almost none of the
arguments or explanations above will matter to you. If you are a person who strictly adheres to the philosophy of "My
Country Right or Wrong" or "Israel Right or Wrong" I am wasting my key strokes on you. And, if you are an open minded
person trying to make sense out of confusing information or establishment propaganda, please read my comments on the
blog referenced above, read biographies and autobiographies of Iranian born authors, read novels by the same, read or
research a variety of views on the politics of Iran and on nuclear politics in general. Then come to some conclusions of your
own. And...above all...try to engage with a few real live Iranians..at public lectures or at gathering places where you can
converse with one or more in person.
