How the U.S.-Iran Standoff Looks From Iran: Hossein Mousavian

[xchrom]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-17/how-the-u-s-iran-standoff-looks-from-iran-hossein-mousavian.html


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The past six U.S. presidents have employed a policy of sanctions, containment and deterrence against Iran. Earlier in his tenure, President Barack Obama tried to change course by offering instead to engage, stressing “diplomacy without preconditions.” Two years later, however, the talk in Washington is of an inevitable coming war.

This is entirely the wrong direction for the U.S. to be taking. The consequences of a military strike on Iran would be catastrophic for the U.S., Iran and Israel.

Whether Iran should be able to build its nuclear program cannot be dealt with separately from the larger issue of the confrontational relationship that Iran and the U.S. have had since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. In his recent memoir, former International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said he doubted policy makers in Washington were ever truly interested in resolving the Iranian nuclear issue, but that they sought instead to achieve isolation and regime change in Iran.

Regardless of whether ElBaradei was right about that -- and having sat at the other side of the table as an Iranian nuclear negotiator, it seemed that he was -- it’s safe to say there won’t be a solution to the Iranian nuclear dispute as long as officials in Tehran and Washington continue to base their relationship on escalating hostility, threats and mistrust, particularly if the ultimate U.S. goal is regime change.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

1. "If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots." Napoleon

[Douglas Carpenter]

2. thank you for posting an intelligent article by someone who knows what they are talking about..

[woo me with science]

3. K&R