Iranian Regime Supporter/Princeton Scholar
That seems inexplicable. That a high-level, trusted member of the political-scientific hierarchy of the Islamic Republic of Iran would attain the status of a visiting scholar at a prestigious American university.Yet, there it is - a man who was formerly a negotiator for Iran with respect to the country's high-grade uranium enrichment and nuclear program, under a former president is now a visiting scholar at Princeton University.
And he has the inside information about his country. Of which he is obviously a knowledgeable and patriotic member. He has not denounced the current regime, let alone its aspirations. He believes that his country is entitled to continue on its determined course to achieve nuclear power in every sense of what is achievable and possible.
And yet he has been given a prestigious post at a university that is one of the most highly respected academic institutions in the country. One whose reputation as a venue of outstanding scholarship is known world-wide. During an interview, Hossein Mousavian, from his perch in the United States, the very country that is now using all diplomatic means feasible to turn Iran from its stated course, has stated his opinion.
"I do not expect too much", he states baldly, in reference to the scheduled meetings between the international community and his home country. The United States, France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia; in effect the permanent members of the Security Council plus one (Germany) are attempting to use deepening economic sanctions as pressure exerted on Iran to convince it to backtrack from its uranium enrichment and nuclear program.
Mousavian is convinced, he claims, that Iran is prepared to proceed with a "big deal". The price, however, is not right. Tehran is prepared, according to their former negotiator, to make accommodations to satisfy the West, but not without their own price for that accommodation being met. Their own price would, of course, include not a cessation of nuclear installations and their use, but an agreement not to produce nuclear weapons.
Given the country's continued and continual secrecy, its covert activities meant to deliberately bypass inspections by the IAEA, and its game plan that it constantly indulges in of promising and then hedging, playing for time and in the interval gaining in their advances of their nuclear program to a point that has startled even those who do not think it can achieve its goal, why believe anything said by a stalwart supporter of the regime?
Yet what he says is given credence. However crudely he puts it. "President (Barack) Obama has very limited room to manoeuvre in an election year"; true enough. But the new proposal meant to restrict Iran's ongoing uranium enrichment in the secretive Fordow plant which Iran refuses to close as requested, has made no inroads in Tehran. There is no balance, they claim, there are no incentives for Iran to accede to the bargaining table.
"I believe this is diamonds for peanuts", Mousavian remarked on the proposal to supply Iran with radio isotopes and to ease commercial sanctions. "Therefore this is not something great to offer Iran". Of course the offer "was deliberately ungenerous" in the process of persuading the Republic that its status will be unchanged under the sanctions program unless and until it relents.
If the stated opinion of Hossein Mousavian, the exchange scholar at Princeton University is anything to go by, Iran will keep stalling, promising then backtracking, gulling those who continue to believe they can bargain 'in good faith' with a country whose guiding principle appears to present a facade of good faith until sufficient time has elapsed to enable it to reach its goal.
The final fait accompli will be the defining feature of the future of the Middle East - and the world at large.
Labels: Academia, Iran, Technology, United States, Values
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, June 16, 2012
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