Myth And Menace

"They created the myth of nuclear weapons so they could say the Islamic Republic is a source of threat. No, the source of threat is America itself, with its unrestrained, destabilizing interventions."
"The other side is methodically and shamelessly threatening us militarily ... even if they did not make these overt threats, we would have to be prepared."
Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

"We will respond with hot lead [bullets] to those who speak of it [IAEA inspection of Iranian military sites as part of a nuclear relaxation agreement]."
"It means humiliating a nation. They will not even be permitted to inspect the most normal military site in their dreams."
General Hossein Salami, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps

An Iranian military truck carries a Bavar-373 air defence missile system past a portrait of Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei during the Army Day parade in Tehran on April 18, 2015. Photographer: Behrouz Mehri/AFP/Getty Images

That inspection -- so critical to determining whether the Islamic Republic of Iran is to be trusted when it repeatedly asserts it has no interest whatever in creating, stockpiling and threatening to use nuclear warheads to fit so snugly on its technologically advanced missiles with their increasingly longer geographic reach that the world seems to insist represents an imminent threat within the Middle East and to the larger world in good time -- which the six world powers thought they had successfully negotiated, has now been resoundingly repudiated by Iran.

That nation that so excels at offensive attacks and threats and condemnation of others, has spoken through its most powerful cleric, accusing the United States and its "chained dog" Israel -- which had no presence whatever in the negotiations -- of engineering a 'myth' for their own demonic purposes; that peacefully innocent Iran is a deceitful, cunning enemy of global peace. With a sense of humour aptly demonstrated when it threatens to destroy Israel. Yet America, alongside Israel, to shield world scrutiny from their evil deeds, portray Iran in a black light of condemnation.

Anyone and everyone should be aware that Iran has no interest in creating strife and unrest in the world, much less create an atomic bomb, for it is a country hugely interested in world peace and harmony among nations. All of which could take a lesson from the Republic on how to nurture human rights by observing Iran's peerless record on the matter. Iran is interested in creating civil energy from nuclear power, and medical isotopes, as would any responsible government; a world-class glut of oil comprising its natural resources notwithstanding.

"Those of us who know the regime well speculate that the government feels as if it has somehow surrendered to the West during the nuclear agreements, and fears appearing weak domestically. As a result, it is flexing its muscles by increasing the number of killings— an escalation that is staggering even for the Islamic Republic, which already holds the record for the highest number of executions per capita throughout the world. The authorities also may want to create fear so that the unhappy population dare not revolt, or even speak out against the regime, during the regime's perceived time of weakness. It is important to note that this government has stayed in power for 36 years solely by systematically killing its opponents both inside Iran and abroad.
"We recently received a report that strongly disturbs even the most seasoned human rights activists; it came from Zabol prison in the Baluchistan Province of Iran. Reliable sources told us that prisoners condemned to death are tied to a pole, and are left without food or water the day before they are hanged. No one ever heard of this sort of treatment before. The regime is becoming more barbaric with each day that the world remains silent and refuses to hold them accountable for human rights violations. I am not sure how much more has to happen or be documented before the world starts to take notice. The question I would like to ask the P5+1 negotiators is: Can a country with such extensive, grotesque human rights violations be trusted in any way?"       Mina Ahadi, founder, International Committee Against Executions

The very fact sheet that the U.S. administration was swift to produce after the early April initial agreement was supposedly successfully completed to everyone's satisfaction with the framework accord states that Iran would be required to grant International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors free access to any "suspicious sites". And as soon as that fact sheet became publicly acknowledged, Iranian negotiators produced a fact sheet of their own, disowning most of the points on the U.S. fact sheet.

Belarusssian S-300 mobile missile launching systems drive through a military parade during celebrations marking Independence Day in Minsk July 3, 2013. (Vasily Fedosenko/Courtesy Reuters)

All of which makes it enormously helpful that Moscow has decided to honour an earlier contract which it had suspended temporarily under the UN sanctions imposed against Iran agreed upon by the Security Council. That Russia is now insouciantly prepared to deliver to Iran S-300 missiles, anticipating the full lifting of sanctions as demanded by Iran, speaks to the utter failure of world powers to seriously impede this terror-inciting and -committed country in its larger aspirations, inclusive of nuclear weapons realization.