Iran’s Nuclear Standoff: Who Is the Loser?

It’s more than eight 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 five 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 four 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 reason. 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 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 the 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 award-winning Iranian journalist and media correspondent. His articles and interviews with prominent world leaders, politicians, diplomats and academicians have appeared on many leading web sites. A collection of his articles and interviews can be found on his website at: www.KouroshZiabari.com? Facebook: www.facebook.com/Kourosh.Ziabari? Twitter: www.twitter.com/KZiabari Read other articles by Kourosh.

9 comments on this article so far ...

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  1. Cameron said on July 27th, 2010 at 8:48am #

    Hmm! Your articles appear in Tehran Times which is the mouthpiece of the Iran’s Revolutionary Guards who torture, rape, beat, and kill political prisoners in Evin and Kahrizak prisons among others.

  2. MichaelKenny said on July 27th, 2010 at 9:22am #

    I wouldn’t be surprised if recent EU sanctions on Iran were a consequence of Wall St’s attack on the euro. Clearly, the EU will have had to concede something to beat off the attack. Iran is one of a number of possibilities and the US elite are probably furious at the way the EU and Russia have successfully stalled sanctions until US public opinion turned against the whole Middle Eastern adventure.

  3. Mulga Mumblebrain said on July 27th, 2010 at 10:43am #

    Oh, Cameron,you can’t believe everything you read in the Zionist media. In fact you can’t believe anything you read, or hear, there,

  4. shabnam said on July 27th, 2010 at 5:04pm #

    {Both sides of the game continue to stick to their stubbornness and adamancy.}

    Mr. Kourosh Ziabari thank you for your concern about the threat of military action on Iran. People of the world must raise their voices against military threat made by the war criminals against Iran and Iranian people. Iranian people and their leaders are trying to protect their rights UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW. Iran is under supervision of IAEA and is signatory to NPT. Obama should go after countries who have refused to sign NPT yet they been showered by technical and economic assistance, Israel, India and Pakistan. We know what happened to the most ‘powerful ‘ man at the WH, when he asked Israel to sign NPT. Israel sent him a message and told him never repeat your demand again. He shut up immediately, instead, he promised to assist Israel with her nuclear program and told the world Israelis are ‘chosen people’, thus their nuclear weapon is ‘unique’ and ‘special’ and cannot be addressed. This double standard created more hatred and tension toward the international regime since this setting is nothing but IRON CAGE where should not be accepted by anyone on earth.

    Thus, the dominant power is using manufactured crisis to bring more sanctions to strangulate Iran economically and lead it into ‘regime change’ like they did in Iraq. They are following the same manuscript as they did in Iraq.
    The informed people on Iran know that well that Iran has done nothing wrong to be treated and insulted by war criminals since revolution of 1978- 79. Informed people know that Iran enrichment program is LEGAL and under super vision of AIAE and the agency has found no violation. The war criminals know that they cannot convict Iran on legal term, therefore, they have chosen disinformation to form public opinion based on lies and deception. As Scott Ritter written:

    {The U.S. policy objective was never to provide Iran with 19.5 percent enriched uranium fuel rods, or to lock Iran in at a 3.5 percent enrichment threshold, but rather to get the majority of Iran’s existing stocks of 3.5 percent enriched uranium out of the country, thereby eliminating any scenario that had Iran using this low-enriched uranium as feedstock for any breakout nuclear weapons production capability, no matter how farfetched such a scenario might be. This is why the Obama administration never paid much attention to the details of such a swap, since these details simply didn’t matter. The U.S. approach was never about facilitating a swap so much as it was about facilitating a kidnapping. The policy objective was to get the majority of Iran’s enriched uranium stocks under international control. Once Iran no longer had access to 1,600 kilograms of its 1,800-kilogram stockpile of low-enriched uranium, the Obama administration could blunt the fear-driven concerns over the immediacy of any Iranian nuclear capability. It would take Iran several months to reconstitute its low-enriched uranium stocks to the level needed to produce its hypothetical nuclear bomb. During this period, the U.S. would redouble its demands for suspension of uranium enrichment and develop a comprehensive package of stringent economic sanctions that would be imposed on Iran should it fail to cooperate.}

    The Zionist policy is already in place. Obama, is following the advice of Dennis Ross, a fifth column from the lobby, putting pressure on Iran and signing more sanctions to force Iran to stop her LEGAL enrichment program. The Zionists know that Iran will not stop her enrichment program since Israel wants to have exclusive right. They are making demands on the Iranian leaders, like Palestinian leaders, knowing that NO LEADER CAN DELIVER.
    The aim of these kind of demands, like in Palestinian case, is to have time to manufacture crisis for destabilization process to bring Iranian population into the street to create a phony “opposition” against Dr. Ahmadinejad, the elected President. Fortunately, Dr. Ahmadinejad has ENOUGH CONFIDENCE, contrary to Zionist stooges like Mousavi and his wife, to stay firm in place and protects the interest of Iranian people against the WAR CRIMINALS.

    People must understand that Iran legal enrichment program is used to create tension to form public opinion through propaganda to bring different parties on board to carry out, like in Iraq, regime change to remove another obstacle for the interest of the Zionist expansionists.
    Therefore, it is necessary for Iranian people to be united and talk with one voice against the main enemy, to overcome this critical time. Meanwhile, American people should help Iranians by going into the street to demand that Zionist stooges to be removed from the power and bring the army home.
    Ahmadinejad is coming from a poor background, thus, he has not been accepted by corrupt Iranian elite like Rafsanjani, Larijani or Khatami where all have been defeated in the election by Dr. Ahmadinejad. No one from the elite can defeat Ahmadinejad through a free election. That’s why they have created the election ‘fraud’ hoax to delegitimize Ahmadinejad where did not work.
    During Khatami presidency, the privatization bill passed from the parliament which pleased many Iranian impotent capitalists. The speed of privatization was the highest during Khatami presidency where created the largest gap between rich and poor. This was one of the reasons let to defeat of Rafsanjani, father of market economy American style in Iran, against Dr. Ahmadinejad where he never recovered and these group are after Ahmadinejad since. The Iranian elite cannot defeat AHMADINEJAD. It has been reported that Mohammad Khatami and Massoomeh Ebtekar, was involved in hostage taking after the revolution, were invited to Bilderberg secret meeting, in 1999 in Portugal. You can find their names among other participant in the following link.

    http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=3702

  5. Rehmat said on July 27th, 2010 at 6:00pm #

    Following the footsteps of Ben Obama’s additional sanctions against the Islamic Republic (on top of the fourth round of UNSC sanctions approved last month), the EU too has come up with additional sanctions to calm down its paranoid masters in Tel Aviv. And let us not forget the Canadian government of Harper, who is listed as an “author” on Israel Hasbara Committee list. Its FM Lawrence Cannon has tightening the country’s ‘non-existent’ trade relations with the Iiislamic State. “No state can threaten international peace and security without consequence,” said the dude without realizing that a Poll taken among 15 EU member states in late 2003, 59% of the 7,500 participants named Israel as the greatest threat to the world peace and security.

    Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which toppled the most friendly US-Israel regime of King Reza Shah – every Zionist stooge in the White House has considered Tehran to be an eminent threat to the very existence of the West’s Zionist experiment in the Middle East.

    The current propaganda against Iran’s civilian nuclear program is part the same on-going Zionist crap against the Islamic regime in Tehran. The Israelis have been able to convince the western ZOGs that by putting sanctions against Tehran would make the Iranian public rise against the Islamic government. Now, how stupid one could be to believe Israeli dream – which Israel itself could not achieve by putting crippling sanctions against Islamic government of Hamas in the Gaza Strip since 2006. Hamas is still in power which the Zionist entity has been more isolated in the world community since its coward commandos attacked the Gaza aid flotilla at the international waters murdered nine of Turkish aid workers in cold blood.

    Both the US and Israel have been threaten Islamic Repbulic with military action if Tehran doesn’t stop its nuclear enrichment activities, which the country is entitled under NPT (Israel, India and Pakistan all are nuclear powers and none of them is willing to sign NPT). Tehran has been allowing the IAEA teams to inspect its nuclear facilities and in all their reports, the IAEA has confirmed that it has not find a single concrete evidence that Tehran is involved using its nuclear program for military use. Both India and Pakistan have sometimes allowed IAEA teams to visit some of their nuclear plants – but Israel has always refused to allow IAEA team to visit its nuclear facilities at Dimona. According to the former Mossad agent, Mordechai Vanunu, Israel may have between 240-400 nuclear bombs to nuke most of the Middle East and Europe.

    Israel’s Prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu (Bibi) who could be arrested in several European countries on charges of ‘mass muderer’ – has called the Islamic Republic “the ultimate terrorist threat”, while Bibi’s Zionazi deputy, Moshe Yaalon has boasted that Israel has improved military capability (thanks to Washington’s annual military aid of $3 billion) which could be used against foes in Gaza, Syria, Lebanon or Iran.

    The majority of Middle East political analysist agree that the UNSC sanctions are not going to stop Iranian nuclear program, but it might give the hawks in Iran to push the Spiritual Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei to restart the abandoned (in 2003) nuclear program for military purposes.

    The ultimate victims in the USsrael-Iran future war would be Iranian public and the US soldiers.

    http://rehmat2.wordpress.com/2010/07/27/bibi-iran-is-the-ultimate-terrorist-threat/

  6. Cameron said on July 27th, 2010 at 6:09pm #

    Mulga, I get my news from people and sources that I trust. I don’t listen to the propaganda machinary sources, the so called the news media. To that end, let me say that the speech above looks like one of those propaganda speeches right out of the Iran’s Revolutionary Guards headquarters. The clerical criminal regime in Iran is exteremly oppresive. The fact that imperialist/zionist powers have staged a mock battle doesn’t justify our support of that regime. I support the working class of Iran. The real row between imperialist/zionists and the regime in Iran is over the support of reactionary Islamic forces. Comdemn both sides. The regime in Iran has been and is persecuting progressives in Iran. They execute tens of thousands of progressives in prison during the time when Moussavi was the prime minister. There are many labor activists that are in prison and those who were recently executed. With all due respect Mulga, I wonder where you get your news from. I hope it’s not Tehran Times.

  7. Cameron said on July 27th, 2010 at 6:16pm #

    I was not referring to Rehmat’s comments above. I was not aware of his until I posted mine. They both went in at almost the same time.

  8. Andres Kargar said on July 27th, 2010 at 10:38pm #

    This is not the first time Western colonialism has opposed transfer of technology to Iran. The Iranian people faced Western resistance when they attempted to bring railroad to the country.

    Years later, when Iran attempted to import the steel industry, the Western financial institutions refused to finance the endeavor, claiming Iran did not need the steel industry. It was only with assistance from the Soviet Union that the first steel plant was built in Iran.

    Despite such obstructionism from Western colonial powers, the people have been able to achieve their goal.

    Today, regardless of whether the Iranians support the Islamic regime or oppose it, they are united in support of the nuclear technology for peaceful purposes and despise outside pressure and manipulation.

    On the other side, the ridiculous claim that an invading, occupying, and oppressive power (Israel) should be entitled to have nuclear weapons for the sake of its “security” stinks of imperialist arrogance and must be resisted not only by the people of the region but of the whole world.

  9. Rehmat said on July 28th, 2010 at 6:43am #

    Iranian President Dr. Ahmadinejad has accused the US and Israel of planning to invade two regional Muslim countries to pressure the Islamic Republic. First I thought he meant Syria and Lebanon – but after studying the recent Wikileaks (twin Jewish sister of Wikipedia) – I have decided to bet my Canadian dollar on Pakistan and Lebanon. Why? Because Pakistan is the sole Muslim nuclear power and Lebanese Islamic Resistance, Hizbullah, is the only Muslim militia which has defeated the Jewish army twice (in 2000 and 2006).

    The 91,000 ‘leaks’ documents expose US propaganda lies about its military success, carpet-bombing, civilian death and US-appointed Hamid Karzai government to cover its nine-year-old war in Afghanistan conceived by the neocons (mostly Jewish) several month before the 9/11. The two main reasons for the invasion of Afghanistan were the Caspian Sea oil/gas reserves and the supply of opium. Both of the desired aims were to benefit Zionist elites and Israel in the long run. In 2010, the US taxpayers are going to pay towards Washington’s wars for Israel in Afghanistan ($65 billion), Iraq ($61 billion) and Palestine ($6 billion). The US-Canada alliance in Afghanistan is expected to cost US$22 billion to the Canadian taxpayers.

    http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2010/07/28/wikileaks-zionist-plot-to-invade-more-muslim-lands/