generalspeaking

Saturday, October 19, 2013

Iran's (presumed) New Regime, (presumptive)New Regimen

What a transformation. The Islamic Republic of Iran, so recently considered a threat to world peace and security, under a theocratic government awaiting the return of a historical personage called the 'hidden imam' whose reappearance will set the stage for a spiritual Armageddon elevating the faithful to the side of God, while those outside the faith will be consigned to everlasting Purgatory, a state government that sees fit to advance violent terrorism and threaten the existence of other states, has suddenly become a darling of the enlightened left.

Where the international community was once obsessed with the potential of a repugnant, human-rights-abusing religion-based ideology gaining the ultimate weapon of mass destruction and making good on its threats, made all the more believable by the state's investment in Islamist jihad and its furtive moves to attain a proscribed agent of universal death, the tide has turned for the cunning minds that find good enough reason to hold the reasoning of the West in contempt.

Any adversaries, however powerful, who are so easily led to believe what they wish to believe rather than the reality before them are obviously not worthy of respect and trust, and are fully deserving, as far as the Iranian Ayatollahs are concerned, of being led down the garden path of betrayal resulting from their naivete. That old adage of once fooled leading to a fuller understanding of the pitfalls of trust enabling one to avoid further such events, seems not to apply to those who are continually led by the nose only to discover their trust has been without merit.

The Republic of Iran has made a pastime of deluding its critics, lulling them by promises never meant to be honoured while it is prepared to swear that it harbours no evil intentions in its pursuit of the nuclear option for energy and medical isotopes, all the while surreptitiously and repeatedly pursuing its agenda apace to bring its scientific advances closer and ever closer to the conclusion it devotes itself to: the possession of the most awesomely destructive atomic weapon on Earth.

The sanctions that have been historically levied against Iran by the European Union, the United States, Canada and the United Nations have left the country financially partially disabled, but never sufficiently so that it has been rendered incapable of continuing its inexorable strides toward nuclear weapons production. All the while, Iran declaring its intentions are misunderstood and it has been penalized unfairly.

Now, with the world awaiting the fulfillment of the promise supposedly inherent in the country's election of a far cleverer, less bombastic, but equally devious and obviously dangerous prime minister in Hassan Rouhani, its emissaries to the United Nations and the IAEA speak soothingly of a new era dawning. Its foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif speaks at Geneva negotiations on Iran's nuclear program for "an end to an unnecessary crisis and a start for new horizons".

The new horizons of which he speaks so glowingly are those where the international community agrees to relax tensions with the Republic by withdrawing sanctions. In exchange for which Iran is more than prepared to offer concessions. Those concessions do not -- will not -- embrace surrendering its nuclear ambitions. Nor will they -- or do they -- include a cessation of uranium enrichment and the setting aside of its stockpiling of 20% enriched uranium readily upgraded to weapons-grade product.

The pompous declaration of a senior U.S. State Department official that the discussions had been workmanlike and worthwhile, do not engage one's confidence in the outcome. "For the first time, we had very detailed technical discussions, which carried on this afternoon", said the official declining identification under diplomatic protocol. A spokesman for Catherine Ashton, the EU's foreign policy official heading the discussions claimed as well the Iranian proposal to be viewed as "very useful". To whom, however?

Iran's deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, claims his country has the right to enrich uranium and will continue to do just that despite the demands of the Security Council that it must suspend enrichment until doubts relating to its program have been resolved. The level of that enrichment was not specified, since vagueness best suits the regime. In exchange for the Republic's non-statements of intent, Tehran expects sanctions to be lifted.

This is, after all, the new, enlightened Iran, a country that has elected a "moderate" as prime minister, although this moderate has always been within the trust of the inner sanctum of the regime, and is well known for having misled the International Atomic Energy Agency and the international critics of Iran's nuclear program when he was formerly the country's chief nuclear negotiator, to evade suspicion and to enable Iran's nuclear program to progress without the knowledge of its international and expert critics.

Iran's nuclear efforts, according to a senior American official, had advanced so greatly that Iran should now be required to take immediate steps to halt and even better, reverse its program. And then negotiations should get under way to approach a comprehensive agreement with everything on the negotiating table and assurances in place that no further subterfuges will take place to once again make a donkey of those observers whose expertise permits them to assess Iran's program and whose conclusions were those of alarm at the potential it so clearly aims for.

Much depends on it, for the safekeeping of the entire world. A despotic, deranged theocracy holds that world to the ransom of belief in its good intentions.

Labels: Capitulation, Iran, Islamism, Nuclear Technology, P5-plus-1, Terrorism, United Nations