Iran's nuclear standoff: who is the loser?
Kourosh Ziabari
July 25, 2010
It's more than 8 years that the world's newspapers are filled with miscellaneous news, reports and commentaries concerning Iran's nuclear program. Controversy over Iran's nuclear program has spanned through two administrations in Iran: ex-President Mohammad Khatami's government and the incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration. The term "Iran nuclear program" returns more than 6 million results in Google web search. Thousands of scholars, journalists, politicians and political pundits have made their own statement regarding this debatable subject.
Terminologically, Iran's nuclear program calls to mind the words holocaust, Israel, Zionism, Axis of Evil, George W. Bush, stretched hands and uranium enrichment. The world is watching the uninteresting continuation of confrontation over Iran's nuclear program and the opportunist journalists find this tedious charade the best subject to entertain their readers and enrich their portfolio.
Iran says that it needs enriched uranium to meet its energy demands and produce electricity. The United States and its European allies claim that Iran wants to produce nuclear weapons in order to launch a military strike against Israel. Israel, over the past 5 years, has been incessantly threatening Iran with a preemptive attack, warning that it would not allow Iran to achieve nuclear technology.
The United Nations Security Council, under the pressure of United States and its stalwart allies, has imposed 4 rounds of backbreaking financial sanctions against Iran to dissuade it from developing "nuclear weapons". Iranian officials have repeatedly rejected the claims that they're moving towards developing nuclear weapons and called the sanctions ineffective, valueless.
These scenarios have been taking place over the past 8 years repeatedly and there was not a single magnanimous politician to put an end to the exhausting war of words between Iran and the West categorically.
There are only two possibilities which can terminate Iran's nuclear deadlock. The first solution is that Iran has to withdraw from its nuclear accomplishments and submit to the calls of Western politicians by giving up its uranium enrichment program. The other solution would be the West's abandonment of its uncompromising stance by accepting a new nuclear power in the Middle East.
Both of the solutions, however, seem to be impractical and unattainable as none of the parties involved in Iran's nuclear standoff have so far shown any sign of flexibility and reasonability. The West staunchly insists that Israel should remain the sole possessor of nuclear weapons in the Middle East and the employment of nuclear energy by the other countries, even for peaceful purposes, violates the policy of a Middle East with an unrivaled nuclear Israel. Iran, on the other hand, insists that it would never accede to halt its uranium enrichment program in lieu of receiving a certain amount of uranium enriched by a third country to be consequently transferred to Iran to be used in the nuclear reactors in Bushehr and Natanz.
Both sides of the game continue to stick to their stubbornness and adamancy. None of them retreat from their stances which have been indicated a number of times that are baseless and unfounded. The game which they've started has no winner. It's a "lose-lose" competition. Amidst their erosive and probably unending clashes, the Iranian people seem to be the only loser. They're the ones who should tolerate the intolerable consequences of financial sanctions. They're the ones who will be deprived of the barest rudiments of their daily life as a result of the financial sanctions which are purportedly imposed on the government of Iran.
The Iranian people are the only loser of power game between Iran and the West. They're competing to surmount each other in a nonstop match which is designed to show the most powerful competitor.
Once the turn comes to boasting of respecting the human rights and freedom, the Western leaders chant that they want the well-being, liberty and safety of the Iranian people. Once it's time to keep silent and watch, they interfere disturbingly and affect the political destiny of a nation. I'm referring to Iran's June 2009 presidential elections in which the Western politicians blatantly took the side of the reformist candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi and made an opposition figure out of him, laying the groundwork for his being demonized domestically; however, once it's time for them to take action and prevent the Iranian nation from being affected by the grave consequences of a meaningless power game, they vote in favor of a fourth round of financial sanctions against Iran unilaterally and prove that their claims are drastically futile and unrealistic.
The only losers of this power game are the ordinary Iranian people. There's no doubt about that.
Kourosh Ziabari is an Iranian freelance journalist. He has received the national medal of superior Iranian youth from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
additional reading:
Invisible Holocaust: Iraqi Sanction Criminals Seek Reprise in Iran
Written by Chris Floyd Tuesday, 20 July 2010 00:14
http://www.chris-floyd.com/articles/1-latest-news/1993-invisible-holocaust-iraqi-sanction-criminals-seek-reprise-in-iran.html
Harsh new US penalties against Iran
By Peter Symonds 5 July 2010
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jul2010/iran-j05.shtml
Amiri 'told CIA Iran had no bomb program'
By Gareth Porter July 20, 2010
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LG21Ak01.html
Scary Anti-Iran Talk Is Escalating
- And Weapons May Be Moving Into Position for Attack
By Conn Hallinan, Foreign Policy in Focus July 12, 2010 http://www.alternet.org/story/147504/
Chomsky: Is the US Gearing Up for the Destruction of Iran?
By Noam Chomsky, Noam Chomsky's Official Site July 15, 2010 http://www.alternet.org/story/147572/
Stirrings of a New Push for Military Option on Iran
by Jim Lobe, July 10, 2010
http://original.antiwar.com/lobe/2010/07/09/stirrings-of-a-new-push-for-military-option-on-iran/
Terror in Iran:
Another Day, Another Atrocity in the World of Dirty War
Written By Chris Floyd Thursday, 15 July 2010 21:28
http://www.chris-floyd.com/articles/1-latest-news/1991-another-day-another-atrocity-in-the-world-of-dirty-war.html
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Monday, July 05, 2010
The Glory of White-Wing Politics
By Sheila Samples
July 5, 2010
July 5, 2010
"Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress...but then, I repeat myself."
- Mark Twain
Much has been written -- argued heatedly by ideological TV pundits -- over the past several years about the inability of members of Congress to agree on anything. Republicans stomp around like elephants in a china closet, shouting "No! No! Hell No!" no matter what legislation comes before them. Democrats, in a timid effort to reach across the aisle, stumble and fall down, where they just sit, plaintively begging, "Please don't hurt me..."
Both parties are adrift; cut loose from their moorings -- in total disarray. Much of the chaos is a result of the previous administration lighting a myriad of fuses before slinking into the shadows, setting off a string of political and financial explosions designed to blow this republic all to hell. What they failed to consider -- and what the bumbling members of Congress have yet to realize is -- when the ship of state sinks, everybody on board is going down with it.
Which appears to be what the race-baiting Rush Limbaugh, the self-appointed "leader" of the Republican Party, is feverishly attempting to provoke. Anybody who doubts that Limbaugh hasn't been in racist meltdown since 2007 when it became obvious that Barack Obama was a threat to White-Wing Limbaughesque "values" just hasn't been paying attention. Throughout the campaign -- from constantly airing the insulting Barack, the Magic Negro jingle to calling Obama and actress Halle Berry "Halfrican-Americans," to accusing Obama of "disowning his white half and deciding to go all in on the black side" -- Limbaugh led the pack.
And he still does. Republicans are united in support of the "I Hope He Fails" Limbaugh Doctrine which El Rushbo announced as millions of relieved -- even giddy -- Americans gathered at the nation's capitol for Obama's inauguration. Just a day later, Limbaugh hit the racist trail, telling Fox's Sean Hannity...
"[r]acism in this country is the exclusive province of the left. We're witnessing racism all this week that led up to the inauguration. We're being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles. Bend over forward, backward, whichever, because his father was black, because this is the first black president. We've got to accept this. The racism that everybody thinks exists on our side of the aisle has been on full display throughout their primary campaign. So I think they've done a great job, the media has, of covering up his deficiencies."
So, it's all the Democrats' fault. The Democrats are militantly racist. If we buy into Limbaugh's rationale, none of his hateful, cruel, racist remarks would have been necessary if the Democrats hadn't selected a Halfrican-American who threw his grandma under the bus and then backed over her before going over to the black side as their candidate for president. On his October 12, 2009 show, Limbaugh explained just how innocent and colorblind he is...
"I'm interested in people's hearts and their souls, because that's what animates us as human beings. Not our skin color. I'm colorblind. I have reached the point where everybody professes we need to go. I treat everybody equally. Nobody is -- in the political arena -- I don't care. Male, female, black, white, gay, straight, bisexual. If you are opposed to the things I think are great for the country, I'm going to say so. I'm going to criticize you. Not because of whatever it is distinguishes you from me on a surface basis, but because of ideas. I'm just a lone guy here, in the arena of ideas, sharing mine."
The Democrats quake with fear at the thought of being labeled "racist." When Mark Halperin and John Heilemann in their January 2009 book, Game Change, wrote that, during the campaign, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was delighted that Obama was the Democratic presidential candidate, and had said privately that "Obama, as a black candidate, could be successful thanks, in part, to his "light-skinned" appearance and speaking patterns "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one," all hell broke loose.
Reid immediately apologized to the media, to "any and all Americans," and personally called President Obama, as well as "House Democrats Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and Barbara Lee of California; the Rev. Al Sharpton; CNN political contributor and Democratic strategist Donna Brazile; NAACP chairman Julian Bond; and the head of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Wade Henderson."
If there is evidence of Limbaugh or any of his White-Wing cohorts in the media, in Congress, or in the dangerously leaderless, out-of-control Teabagging movement offering even the semblance of an apology for their hateful rhetoric, I am unaware of it. Just last week, on July 2, Limbaugh was in full, bouncing racist fervor. According to Media Matters...
Rush stated that President Obama is "no different than Castro, in the sense that neither will be stopped by a governing document." He also asserted that "[w]e are not a Third World country here, putting up shacks and huts like the president's brother lives in." And if that wasn't bad enough, Rush "speculate[d]" that Michelle Obama did not attend the late Sen. Robert Byrd's funeral because of her "authentic slave blood."
Is anybody, other than a bunch of Dittoheads or his obedient followers in Congress, listening to this guy? As if we didn't have history to remind us, racism rots the soul of a nation, and the upheaval in Congress has its roots in racism.
This is about so much more than destroying one man, or even one party. Americans -- not just Democrats -- must find the courage to shout "No! No! Hell No!" to the destruction planned for this republic. Unless we stand up, shake ourselves off, and dare to fight back, the evil glory of White-Wing Politics will devour us.
We have no choice. Because this ship is going down.
Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is an OpEd editor, and a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites.
- Mark Twain
Much has been written -- argued heatedly by ideological TV pundits -- over the past several years about the inability of members of Congress to agree on anything. Republicans stomp around like elephants in a china closet, shouting "No! No! Hell No!" no matter what legislation comes before them. Democrats, in a timid effort to reach across the aisle, stumble and fall down, where they just sit, plaintively begging, "Please don't hurt me..."
Both parties are adrift; cut loose from their moorings -- in total disarray. Much of the chaos is a result of the previous administration lighting a myriad of fuses before slinking into the shadows, setting off a string of political and financial explosions designed to blow this republic all to hell. What they failed to consider -- and what the bumbling members of Congress have yet to realize is -- when the ship of state sinks, everybody on board is going down with it.
Which appears to be what the race-baiting Rush Limbaugh, the self-appointed "leader" of the Republican Party, is feverishly attempting to provoke. Anybody who doubts that Limbaugh hasn't been in racist meltdown since 2007 when it became obvious that Barack Obama was a threat to White-Wing Limbaughesque "values" just hasn't been paying attention. Throughout the campaign -- from constantly airing the insulting Barack, the Magic Negro jingle to calling Obama and actress Halle Berry "Halfrican-Americans," to accusing Obama of "disowning his white half and deciding to go all in on the black side" -- Limbaugh led the pack.
And he still does. Republicans are united in support of the "I Hope He Fails" Limbaugh Doctrine which El Rushbo announced as millions of relieved -- even giddy -- Americans gathered at the nation's capitol for Obama's inauguration. Just a day later, Limbaugh hit the racist trail, telling Fox's Sean Hannity...
"[r]acism in this country is the exclusive province of the left. We're witnessing racism all this week that led up to the inauguration. We're being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles. Bend over forward, backward, whichever, because his father was black, because this is the first black president. We've got to accept this. The racism that everybody thinks exists on our side of the aisle has been on full display throughout their primary campaign. So I think they've done a great job, the media has, of covering up his deficiencies."
So, it's all the Democrats' fault. The Democrats are militantly racist. If we buy into Limbaugh's rationale, none of his hateful, cruel, racist remarks would have been necessary if the Democrats hadn't selected a Halfrican-American who threw his grandma under the bus and then backed over her before going over to the black side as their candidate for president. On his October 12, 2009 show, Limbaugh explained just how innocent and colorblind he is...
"I'm interested in people's hearts and their souls, because that's what animates us as human beings. Not our skin color. I'm colorblind. I have reached the point where everybody professes we need to go. I treat everybody equally. Nobody is -- in the political arena -- I don't care. Male, female, black, white, gay, straight, bisexual. If you are opposed to the things I think are great for the country, I'm going to say so. I'm going to criticize you. Not because of whatever it is distinguishes you from me on a surface basis, but because of ideas. I'm just a lone guy here, in the arena of ideas, sharing mine."
The Democrats quake with fear at the thought of being labeled "racist." When Mark Halperin and John Heilemann in their January 2009 book, Game Change, wrote that, during the campaign, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was delighted that Obama was the Democratic presidential candidate, and had said privately that "Obama, as a black candidate, could be successful thanks, in part, to his "light-skinned" appearance and speaking patterns "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one," all hell broke loose.
Reid immediately apologized to the media, to "any and all Americans," and personally called President Obama, as well as "House Democrats Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and Barbara Lee of California; the Rev. Al Sharpton; CNN political contributor and Democratic strategist Donna Brazile; NAACP chairman Julian Bond; and the head of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Wade Henderson."
If there is evidence of Limbaugh or any of his White-Wing cohorts in the media, in Congress, or in the dangerously leaderless, out-of-control Teabagging movement offering even the semblance of an apology for their hateful rhetoric, I am unaware of it. Just last week, on July 2, Limbaugh was in full, bouncing racist fervor. According to Media Matters...
Rush stated that President Obama is "no different than Castro, in the sense that neither will be stopped by a governing document." He also asserted that "[w]e are not a Third World country here, putting up shacks and huts like the president's brother lives in." And if that wasn't bad enough, Rush "speculate[d]" that Michelle Obama did not attend the late Sen. Robert Byrd's funeral because of her "authentic slave blood."
Is anybody, other than a bunch of Dittoheads or his obedient followers in Congress, listening to this guy? As if we didn't have history to remind us, racism rots the soul of a nation, and the upheaval in Congress has its roots in racism.
This is about so much more than destroying one man, or even one party. Americans -- not just Democrats -- must find the courage to shout "No! No! Hell No!" to the destruction planned for this republic. Unless we stand up, shake ourselves off, and dare to fight back, the evil glory of White-Wing Politics will devour us.
We have no choice. Because this ship is going down.
Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is an OpEd editor, and a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites.
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