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Last month, as Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met for the final time as Heads of State, Truthout journalist Ann Wright and 3 other human rights activists met with Iranian government officials, business leaders, students and average citizens to find out their perspective on US/Israeli – Iranian relations and to get their views on the issues between the 3 countries. The following should shed some light on Iran that the various war-hawks are either not telling people or are deliberately lying about.
War with the west:
Chemical weapons:
Iran’s nuclear program:
Iran’s support for Hamas and Hezbollah:
Iranian – Israeli relationship:
Human rights and issues with current government:
It is pretty obvious, Iran is not the big, bad bear war-hawks in this country and Israel are making out to be. And we must realize there are two sides to every issue. But before we go spending more tax dollars on US aggression around the world, we should do our civic duty as American’s and become more educated on the issues that affect our governments’ foreign policy.
Anyone that disagrees with the comments above, is welcome to comment below.
The Iranian views stated above were taken from the following article:
War with the west:
- Iran desires peace with the United States and Israel, not war.
- Unlike the United States, which has invaded and occupied Iran's neighbors Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran has not attacked a single country in the last 200 years.
- Ahmadinejad did not call for the destruction of Israel. This is a misinterpretation of his reference to an old speech by the Ayatollah Khomeini.
Chemical weapons:
- The US provided chemical weapons to Iraq, during its 8 years war with Iran, that were used 50 times against civilian and Iranian military targets.
- During this time, the Ayatollah Khomeini had mandated that it would be against Islamic precepts to bomb Iraqi cities or use chemical or unconventional weapons on Iraq.
Iran’s nuclear program:
- Iran has had a nuclear program for almost 50 years, having purchased a research reactor from the United States in 1959 during the Shah's reign.
- The US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) made public December 3, 2007, concluded with "high confidence" that the military-run Iranian nuclear weapons program had been shut down in 2003.
- Iran is in compliance with the IAEA standards, according to the November 2008 IAEA report, despite interpretations of the report by the United States and Israel.
- On August 9, 2005, at the IAEA meeting in Vienna, 60 years after the US atomic bombing of Japan, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei announced that he had issued a fatwa, or religious mandate, forbidding the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons.
- Iran is a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (unlike nuclear states Israel, India and Pakistan, which refused to join the NPT and developed nuclear weapons purposefully outside the treaty.)
- Iran has a right to develop nuclear power for peaceful energy uses.
Iran’s support for Hamas and Hezbollah:
- On the Iranian government's support for Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon - Iranians pointed out that the US has consistently and heavily funded Israel during its 62-year existence (US provides about $4 billion per year to the Israeli government and the Israeli Defense Forces).
- Palestinians who have lived in refugee camps during those 62 years must be provided assistance.
- Hezbollah is not only a military group but a political organization that won seats in the Lebanese government, has a radio and satellite television station and provides social development and humanitarian assistance for much of southern Lebanon.
- Hamas is the legally elected government of Gaza, needs financial support, particularly now in current extraordinary humanitarian crisis due to the lengthy Israeli blockade of foods and services into Gaza.
Iranian – Israeli relationship:
- Israel, like the United States, had a long history of selling arms to the Shah.
- In 1980-82, during the Iranian Revolution and war with Iraq, Ayatollah Khomeini's government sold oil to Israel in exchange for weapons and spare parts.
- During the American hostage crisis (1979-1981), in which 52 US diplomats were held for 444 days, Israel made weapons deals with Iran.
- Ronald Reagan's Secretary of State Alexander Haig gave permission to Israel to sell US-made military spare parts for fighter planes to Iran in early 1981.
Human rights and issues with current government:
- Iranian citizens have issues with their government not unlike American’s and Israeli’s have with theirs.
- Iranians want change to come from within their society, not imposed by another government, especially one, as we were reminded, that has its own human rights issues, including incarceration of the highest percentage of its citizenry of any country in the world, high rates of execution (Texas in particular), state-sponsored kidnapping from other countries (known in the Bush administration as extraordinary rendition), imprisonment without due process, extrajudicial courts and a military and an intelligence agency that are notorious for torture.
- 70 percent of all university students are women, 30 percent of doctors in Iran are women, 80 percent of women are literate (88 percent of men can read), women receive 90 days of maternity leave at two-thirds pay and right to return to their jobs.
It is pretty obvious, Iran is not the big, bad bear war-hawks in this country and Israel are making out to be. And we must realize there are two sides to every issue. But before we go spending more tax dollars on US aggression around the world, we should do our civic duty as American’s and become more educated on the issues that affect our governments’ foreign policy.
Anyone that disagrees with the comments above, is welcome to comment below.
The Iranian views stated above were taken from the following article:
