The story of the world power’s treatment with Iran in the contemporary era is a sad and heartbreaking one. The colonial powers have been all the time after imposing disgraceful covenants and agreements on Iran to separate parts of the country’s soil and annex to that of theirs, attacking the country and killing its innocent citizens or depriving its people from their intrinsic rights and privileges.
Over the course past 100 years, Iran hasn’t invaded nor attacked any country. In such a turbulent and chaotic region as the Middle East, Iran has constantly been at the center of peacekeeping and peacemaking efforts and has regularly contributed to any genuine and legitimate peace initiative which the other countries in the region or other parts of the world have taken up.
Although it was attacked by the Ba’athist regime of the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein who was unreservedly supported and financed by tens of European countries and the United States in 1980s, Iran has never resorted to violent and aggressive options to defend its territory and security. The Iranians who remember the unforgettable days of the 8-year “Holy Defense” know well that how pure and uncontaminated the defense of the young Iranians against the Saddam’s regime was. Saddam had used all kinds of illegal and forbidden war tactics against the defenseless nation of Iran, including illicit chemical weapons provided to him by the U.S., UK and other Western states which cost the lives of more than 100,000 Iranians, but in response, Iranians never turned to such inhumane, appalling and unconventional alternatives.
Robin Wright once revealed in his 2008 book “Dreams and Shadows: the Future of the Middle East” that the CIA estimated in 1991 that Iran had suffered more than 50,000 casualties from Iraq’s use of several chemical weapons, while today, the actual number of victims is estimated to more than 100,000, since the long term effects still cause casualties to this day.
It’s said that after the United States, the UK, Soviet Union, France and Italy were the most prominent procurers of weaponry, military training and financial assistance to Saddam Hussein in the years leading up to the Iran-Iraq war and during the years of war itself. In the same tough and intolerable years, there was nobody to assist Iran and they were simply the empty-handed Iranian youths who rushed up to the frontlines to defend the invaded soil of their country.
However, that war is ended now, and what remains in the memory of Iranians is the brutality of Saddam who massacred tens of thousands of innocent citizens with the complicity and connivance of the West.
Now, the United States and its client state, Israel, persistently accuse Iran of sponsoring terrorism, deliberately overlooking the fact that Iran has been continually at the forefront of fighting and countering terrorism and at the same time, a silent victim of the West’s state-sponsored terrorism.
The bloodthirsty terrorist gang, MKO, which has enjoyed the backing and patronage of the United States and its European cronies since the victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979 is now seeking international support for finding a permanent residence after being sent away from the Camp Ashraf in Iraqi province of Diyala. The group is responsible for the lives of hundreds of Iranian citizens and tens of governmental officials and has proclaimed as its primary goal a regime change in Tehran with the support of Tel Aviv and Washington. The Western officials, for their part, have not hesitated to express support for the terrorist cult and in an effort which was an all-out declaration of war against Iran the European Union removed the name of MKO from its list of terrorist organizations in January 2009. Now, the U.S. officials are petitioning to persuade their government to do the same and give more room to MKO to carry out its anti-Iranian plans without being prosecuted as a terrorist organization.
And today, after the terrible years of war with Iraq and experiencing different plots and plans of the Westerners who seek to destabilize Iran at the expense of the life and security of Iranian nation, Tehran has come under escalating pressure over its nuclear program, being targeted with innumerable economic sanctions and war threats for simply trying to nationalize nuclear energy to be used for civilian purposes.
The United States and her allies, prompted by Israel are pressuring Tehran to give up its nuclear program or be penalized and even face graver consequences such as a military strike. And ironically, all of those who call on Iran to surrender its nuclear rights are owners of nuclear weapons who have used their atomic warheads on other nations or otherwise have threatened them that they’ll be doing so.
So, what’s the crime of Iranian nation who should be subject to all kinds of harassment and discrimination by the world powers and their allies? The answer is quite simple, while at the same time, thoroughly complicated and problematical.
Iran is a country whose history has been interwoven with peaceful coexistence with the other nations. Up to this day that you’re reading these lines, Iranians haven’t ever been considered a colonial power while in some junctures of the history they possessed the capabilities of becoming a colonial power. No country in the contemporary age can claim or testify that Iranians have plotted to undermine their security and stability. Iran hasn’t ever threatened any country with military expeditions to expand its ideology. The revolution of Iranians in 1979 was that of a kind of culture and religion. Iranians have always longed for living in peace and tranquility. It’s Iran’s independence and its non-alignment with the world’s superpowers that troubles them.
Today’s controversy over Iran’s nuclear program is an artificial and superfluous conflict on a dossier all aspects of which are clear and unambiguous. Iranians want to indigenize and nationalize nuclear technology, as they’re doing the same in other scientific fields such as astronomy and space, nano-technology, biotechnology, etc. That’s why the United States, Britain and Israel have mobilized all of their forces, including terrorist gangs such as MKO, to deliver a blow to Iran and bring the nation to its knees by derailing its economy, science, culture and history.
Iranians want to live in peace and this is what they have always called for. But, let’s judge fairly and equitably. How many enemies does Iran have, and what’s the reason behind these blind enmities? Isn’t it that Iran is becoming a peace-loving, peace-making superpower that’s challenging and rattling the bases of the Western powers’ supremacy and domination in the Persian Gulf and Middle East? Isn’t it that a nation with such a rich culture, civilization and history as that of Iran, threatens the pedestals and pillars of Western hegemony in the region and in the world?
Kourosh Ziabari is an Iranian journalist
