The ‘haves’ must be ‘have nots’
How not to nuke the Iran deal
YESTERDAY, the United States and Iran were back on speaking terms. Well, sort of. Given the bad blood between the two, it is no surprise. History can sometimes be an enemy. The US has opted for indirect talks on a nuclear deal with Iran, whatever that means. This isn’t a good start. What’s worse is that the US is ambling into the talks expecting it to fail, though it was the US who walked away from the 2015 deal, not Iran. This isn’t the only problem. There are at least three others. Firstly, the US can’t expect Iran to be a willing partner to a nuclear deal when one after another of its nuclear scientists were bumped off. Never mind it happened during former president Donald Trump’s time. And earlier. Never mind, too, the killings were executed by Israel. The US can’t pretend not to know of the Zionist regime’s plots, some of which were on the urgings of the US. The Nov 27 killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh by a remote-controlled machine gun placed in a pickup truck, as reported by Iranian media, is too recent a hurt for it to be healed so quickly. Secondly, the US or others can’t continue to keep their sanctions alive and expect the Iranians to sign off on a nuclear deal that best pleases the West.
Sanctions hurt, whether Iran admits it or not. But they hurt all and sundry, not the ruling elite, the target of the sanctions. Also, the sanctions have achieved what the US and others may not have intended: growing contempt for the authors of sanctions by Iranians. Some US officials, though, have gone on record as saying that the sanctions are aimed at compelling the Iranians to call for a regime change. They will not. Iranians who see their loved ones die or suffer due to lack of medicines will not rally behind the authors of such cruelty. The US and its allies neither understand Iran nor the Iranians.
Finally, the mother of all problems that stands in the way of an Iran nuclear deal is Western bigotry. Anglo-Saxon bigotry isn’t just peculiar to nuclear deals. It is present where justice isn’t the goal. It is always okay for the West to do this and that, but not for the rest. Take nuclear weapons. It’s okay for the West and its allies to have nuclear weapons because they are not rogue regimes. This is hypocrisy pitched at the highest level. Guess who was the rogue nation that dropped the first two nuclear bombs? Just to give a perspective, consider the pre-raid population of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: 225,000 and 195,000. A total of 66,000 died and 69,000 were injured in Hiroshima, while 39,000 died and 25,000 were injured in Nagasaki. The Japanese, now the US’ best friend forever as The Economist puts it, are still paying the price in human and other costs. Just imagine the axis of evil bromide that would have issued out of the West if Iran had dropped the bomb on Tel Aviv. There is only one path out of this nuclear weapons mess begun by the US and speedily followed by the West and its allies. Get rid of them. Without any bigoted exceptions. Hypocrisy is a great enemy of peace. If we want a safe world, it has to be free of nuclear weapons. The nuclear haves’ argument that having the weapons prevents war is nonsense on stilts.
The nuclear haves’ argument that having the weapons prevents war is nonsense on stilts.