I began a series of articles back in 2005 that delved into the situation in Iraq, and specifically stated that our intent on invading Iraq was a precursor to an eventual attack on Iran. I’m not a well-known Political Commentator, and while I did note an occasional visitor from Iran, they were few and far in between; ever since I wrote Attack On Iran Slated For October 15th, Prepare For Disaster those numbers have changed drastically, and just this month we’ve received a 1,000 % increase of hits originating from Iran, a marked increase in the readership of this site from your country. Those are only the visits that we could verify, however know that many more than that have been logged by other programs. It seems that this small article has been read through-out the Middle-east and Europe, and now, Iran and other countries I never knew frequented this Blog are regular visitors.

As you have noted from previous articles, I am against a preemptive strike against your country by this administration, and sincerely believe that diplomacy, sanctions, and the internal politics of Iran, given enough time, will positively impact the current controversy in regard Iran’s nuclear issues with most of the free world. Too many people in the United States are unaware that the youth of Iran is very supportive of the United States, and their admiration and support was easy to see by their western-style haircuts, clothes, music, and even the concept of being free enough to indulge themselves in free expression, a right that is inherent in the United States, although under fire at the moment, just as it is in Iran.

I write these articles because I believe increasing the awareness of the general public is tantamount in the fight to stave-off war with Iran - and while I’m dead-set against an attack on Iran by the Bush administration, this cannot be construed as me supporting you - which I don’t, but can be viewed as me supporting the people of Iran, just as I do those here in America. There isn’t any question that when the world at large views you and President Bush, not necessarily here in the US or Iran, but even more so beyond our borders, they see two tyrants attempting to justify their actions - when both sides have made grave errors, and there is no justification for the behavior of either nation. This is a case of the “pot calling the kettle black”, as both of you have many of the same characteristics.

You ran on a platform targeting the economically challenged and campaigned with promises of a brighter economic future for those who were experiencing hard times, an audience that desperately needed help, and they placed their trust and votes in you, only to become disillusioned and witness their situations becoming worse, not better.

Ahmadinejad, a hardline conservative and Revolutionary Guard veteran, mounted a surprisingly strong challenge with a populist message aimed at the economically disadvantaged. He promised to strengthen social safety nets, offer subsidized food and housing for the poor, and institute monthly stipends for citizens. Much of Ahmadinejad’s support in the first round of voting came from poorer areas such as South Tehran. MUCH MORE

From what I’ve been able to ascertain, the Iranian economy worsens by the day, gas prices are rising, and the poor and disadvantaged are suffering worse now then before you took office:

Despite its continued bluster on nuclear issues, Iran is discovering that there are costs to be paid for maintaining its confrontational stance. Pressure from Washington to isolate Tehran financially has already succeeded in removing or significantly reducing such major European banks as Credit Suisse and UBS from the Iranian scene. Now several large German institutions are preparing to leave as well. Over the last few months Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank have withdrawn investments. Dresdner Bank has announced it will cancel operations within Iran altogether. It is believed that these banks fear losing U.S. business if they continue to operate in Iran. MORE

Excerpts from The BBC News Online:

America’s financial war on Iran

But there is also a second, potentially more powerful, element. Since September 2006, US officials have been traveling the world talking to banks and company bosses. They aim to persuade business to voluntarily abandon or scale back all dealings with Iran.

Mr Levey, who is spearheading the Treasury’s campaign, insists he is already getting results.

“There is significant evidence that it’s working in the sense that Iranian business is being subjected to greater scrutiny and it’s more difficult for them to operate,” he says.

“A number of major financial institutions have cut off doing business with certain Iranian banks or with Iran entirely.” MORE

The above information reflects pressure exerted by the US designed to force Iran into accepting the policies of the IEAA. The financial troubles began in Iran prior to those sanctions, and President Ahmadinejad needs to explain to his own people, as well as the world, why he has driven Iran back into the stone-age of social enlightenment, and instead of helping those he vowed to help,
President Ahmadinejad has made their conditions worse by spending Iran’s wealth on nuclear facilities, advanced weapons systems, and financial and logistical aid to known terrorist groups.

We in the European and Western nations who drink from the fountain of freedom, albeit diminished, find it hard to understand a society that murders those who exhibit a different different sexual preference than that of what is called for in radical Islam; we fail to understand why you have worked relentlessly to stamp-out any showing of western values in your own nation, and have actually arrested and persecuted those who didn’t follow your draconian dress and hair policies. The “morality police” are real in Iran, and many fear Americans will soon feel the heel of religious oppression via a Supreme Court that has been stacked with conservative Justices.

Iran is a nation rich in natural resources, mainly oil, yet you have built few, if any new refineries to ease the gas crunch in your nation, and the people of Iran do not benefit from Iran’s considerable wealth; armies and weapons are expensive, as are nuclear facilities and the constant financial support you offer to terrorist groups in Lebanon, Iraq, and the Palestinians… Why is it so important to ferment unrest and attempt to project Iran’s considerable local power upon others while allowing the Iranian people to suffer? The same question must be answered by President Bush, as Americans are also beginning to suffer from these endless wars. The people of the United States and Iran have similar goals, and that is to return their nations to what they were before you or Bush’s election (sic). (Again, similarities exist in your election and that of the Bush administration; Bush was “placed” in office in 2000 by the US Supreme Court, and your election was alleged to have been aided by illegal acts ordered by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and carried-out by the Revolutionary Guard:

IRAN: RUNNING TOWARD THE GASOLINE DUMP WITH A LIT MATCH

(Excerpts)

Ever since fanatical Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was installed by the Guardian Council last June via a questionable election, nearly every step taken by the former Commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s foreign assassination outfit has been designed to either solidify his hold on power by purging those in the Iranian government deemed not “revolutionary” enough or making it clear that he seeks confrontation with the west and Israel over the Iranian nuclear program.

Many analysts questioned Ahmadinejad’s victory in the runoff election against long time Iranian politico Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani whose loss to the little known former mayor of Tehran occurred under suspicious circumstances. Prior to the run-off, there were several charges of corruption, including the unleashing of 300,000 Revolutionary Guards to mobilize support for Ahmadinejad. Two newspapers who dared to print a letter outlining the charges from a reformist politician were summarily shut down. Then, in the subsequent run-off between Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad, ballot box irregularities were reported as a sizable segment of the population boycotted the election. Polling places that were deserted on the day of the election ended up showing thousands of ballots cast for the former hard-line mayor.

It is important to understand that the President of Iran is on a very short leash. His decisions must be ratified by Iran’s Supreme Leader who also controls the ruling Guardian Council which has absolute veto power over laws passed by the Iranian parliament as well as access to the big stick in Iranian society; the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). The Council is made up of 6 clerical members and 6 lawyers, all of whom are appointed by the Supreme Leader. The Council also has absolute authority in matters involving elections, determining who can run and, as we have seen, who wins and who loses. MORE

As we move on to the crux of the issue that has the European community, several Arab states, Israel, and the United States demanding an explanation of and a halt to Iran enriching uranium, Iran has cast its own shadow of doubt on her nuclear ambitions, and the aforementioned countries have every right to question a program you insist is peaceful; for eighteen years, Iran’s nuclear program was hidden from the rest of the world, and by running a covert nuclear program, Iran effectively demonstrated they were attempting to skirt International treaties and hide their nuclear ambitions - and that action in itself does nothing to bolster an air of trust, which is what Iran is requesting that all of the nations do, without any viable rationale or evidence that your programs are actually peaceful:

History

Iran’s interest in nuclear technology predates the Islamic revolution of 1979. Iran’s revolutionaries forced most western trained scientists, engineers and managers out of Iran, greatly slowing Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. In the late 1980s, Iran turned to the Soviet Union to restart its civil nuclear program, which at the time centered on the West German designed, but never completed Bushehr nuclear power reactor. Unknown at the time was that in 1985, Iran secretly tapped into the nuclear black market run by the father of Pakistan’s nuclear program – A.Q. Khan. Khan had established a robust network of front companies and clandestine shipments to fuel Pakistan’s own nuclear weapon program. For 18 years, Iran successfully hid – in violation of international law and its voluntary treaty commitments to the International Atomic Energy Agency – its clandestine nuclear procurement and development program. This technology was used to design and begin construction on the Natanz uranium enrichment facility where work resumed on January 9th.

International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards are used in most countries to provide confidence that peaceful facilities are not used for military purposes. This is the case in Europe and Japan, and US and Russian peaceful enrichment facilities are open to IAEA inspection. International confidence – albeit a subjective measure – is high that these countries will not use their peaceful enrichment facilities for the production of weapons.

Iran’s now documented 18-year track record of hiding nuclear facilities, and the behavior of its leaders and security forces provide the international community with much lower confidence in its peaceful intentions. Moreover, Iran currently lacks both the nuclear plants needed to make use of enriched uranium or the domestic stocks of uranium ore to justify the expense of a domestic uranium enrichment program. The existence of a robust and economically competitive international set of enrichment providers casts even further doubt on Iran’s motives for pursuing enrichment on such an accelerated and (previously) secretive basis. MORE

If your nuclear plans are peaceful as you claim, why was your nuclear program hidden from the world for eighteen years? Why did Iran also procure plans to build a nuclear weapon from Pakistan’s A.Q. Khan? The history of Iran’s so-called “peaceful” nuclear enrichment program is suspect at best based on Iran’s questionable activities prior to the discovery of their nuclear program - and it’s unreasonable for the world to accept a song and dance from President Ahmadinejad that the program is entirely peaceful until the IEAA is allowed to continue inspections throughout Iran; visiting sites that have been preprepared for international view is nothing more than an open-house into those programs that do comply with IEAA guidelines, however, until Iran allows the IEAA unfettered access to Iran in general, and is able to follow-up on any leads into suspected sites that could be used to produce weapons, the West, Israel, and the European community will remain skeptical of Iran’s intentions, and in this writer’s opinion the skepticism is well deserved.

President Ahmadinejad, the majority of the people in the United States do not favor a preemptive strike against your country, but there are several issues that Iran constantly skirts, and answers have been slow or downright impossible to receive that pertain to sites that we suspect are still operating in secrecy. I have no hard evidence that Iran is actively attempting to produce a nuclear warhead, and while the suspicions we hear may be political rhetoric with no basis in fact, Iran has made it exceedingly difficult to prove those allegations are false. Transparency in the nuclear cycle, from all of Iran’s nuclear facilities would go a long way to dispel those fears, and now we are faced with a situation where Iran can effectively diffuse the situation by cooperating with the International community - but you and those that control your policies are stubborn, refuse to halt uranium enrichment for a period long enough to successfully negotiate and build the trust we need to end this stalemate and enter a period of progress and understanding.

I’m not a diplomat and lack the ability to speak in guarded political terms, so from here forward I’ll just be blunt, speak my mind as an American citizen, which I am entitled to do - and I’ll do my best to communicate how you can help to end this stalemate, gain the trust of the International community, and how you can affect politics in the United States in a positive manner by acting responsibly and working with us to regain stability in the Middle-East as a whole and again bring Iran into the modern world, at least as much as your restrictive society will allow.

We know you follow American politics very carefully, and I have suspicions that many of your actions are based on a perceived belief that our President, George W. Bush, will not instigate an attack on Iran. Those “suspicions” could be true, however, if millions of Americans themselves also don’t trust Bush and Cheney - that should be a wake-up call to your country that a real danger exists - and as the President of Iran, in my humble opinion, rather than risk the lives of people who voted you into office because of a sense of national pride, wouldn’t it be wise to consider negotiating with a true spirit of diffusing the crisis?

As you know, there is now an impeachment measure in Committee to impeach Vice-President Dick Cheney, and if that measure succeeds, you can believe that Bush will be next. If you are a true leader, value the lives of your countrymen as well as the stability of the Middle-East - then what have you to lose to stop the nuclear enrichment program as we in America work to expel the warmongers from the White House and return our country to sanity, the Rule of Law, and halt the aggression of the Bush administration? Is your pride worth starting a war when it could be stopped by prudent action designed to allow negotiations to proceed in good faith? Are you a leader of the people, or a President that resembles our own, intent on furthering his own twisted agenda rather than one that would lead to peace and stability?

When two bullies square off to fight in a battle that everyone loses in the long run, who is the better man - one that decides to make the other look small by complying with United Nation mandates - or allowing the other bully to let your pride possibly cause the destruction of your entire society? Consider this; if Iran’s nuclear program is indeed peaceful as you state, then make a statement to the world, cease nuclear enrichment temporarily until the IAEE has definite proof that your plans are peaceful - and in the final analysis, if you’re telling the truth, who will emerge as the better leader, you who swallowed his pride and complied with the United Nations, or Mr. Bush and Cheney - who are looking for any excuse they can to start a war with your country? If the IAEE eventually does state unequivocally that Iran’s nuclear program is entirely peaceful, the blow you will deal to a President that has the lowest poll rating in US history will also have to bear the brunt of explaining why he lied again, and only you can make that happen by deescalating the crisis.

It takes two to tango, and while my father is no longer with us, he always stated the better man was the one that walked away from a fight. Which will you be, the better man, or will you continue to defy UN mandates and give Israel or Bush and Cheney an excuse to start World War III - and if you believe that any of us would survive that event, then you too have failed your people, just as Bush and Cheney have failed America and the world in general.

William Cormier