The relationship between the governments of Iran and the USA has been tense and nasty since the fall of the Shah. During the long Iran-Iraq War, the USA and her allies even supported the Iraqi regime when it invaded Iran. On July 3, 1988 the U.S. Navy’s guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655 (IR655) killing all 290 passengers and crew aboard, including 66 children.

It was the highest death toll of any aviation incident in the Indian Ocean and the highest death toll of any incident involving an Airbus A300 anywhere in the world. At the time of the attack, Vincennes, fitted with the then-new Aegis combat system, was traversing the Strait of Hormuz inside Iranian territorial waters, and the IR655 was within Iranian airspace. Worse still, after completing their tour, the Vincennes crew was awarded Combat Action Ribbons for having actively participated in ground or surface combat and its captain William C. Rogers III received the Legion of Merit.

Then came 9/11, which Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei condemned. Thousands of ordinary Iranians held candles during vigils in Tehran to mourn the loss of life in the United States. President Mohammad Khatami set the tone for Iran’s reaction with a statement that in Persian rang with deep compassion: “On behalf of the Iranian people and the Islamic Republic, I denounce the terrorist measures, which led to the killing of defenseless people, and I express my deep sorrow and sympathy with the American people.”

Then followed January 29, 2002, when President GW Bush in his state of the Union speech claimed Iran as part of an “axis of evil”. From that moment onward, there was hardly anything positive to build bridges between the two countries. Iraq, the other Middle Eastern country, belonging to Bush’s evil axis, has already been invaded and occupied in 2003 under the pretext of possessing the WMDs, which were never to be found. The Anglo-American invasion was itself declared illegal by no less of a figure than the Secretary General of the UN. Saddam Hussein was subsequently hanged. But who cares or dares to put Bush and Blair in the electric chair for their genocidal campaign in Iraq that killed thousands of Anglo-American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of unarmed Iraqi civilians, and destroyed the entire infrastructure of the country?

Iran remains intact, more than eight years after Bush’s evil declaration, much to the chagrin of Israel and her Amen Corner inside the Capitol Hill of the USA. They want Iran to be disarmed the same way Iraq was seven years ago so that there won’t be anyone left in the already emasculated Middle East to threaten or challenge the existence of the state of Israel. They claim Iran is developing nuclear weapons, which are, as they claim, existential threats to the only nuclear power in the Middle East. How wonderful!

There is no doubt that Iran has a nuclear program. It is actually 51 years old, dating back to 1959 when Iran purchased a research reactor from the USA. Mohammad Reza Shah, a trusted friend of the USA and Israel who was installed into power in a CIA coup that overthrew a democratically elected government, had a grandiose plan to build 23 nuclear power reactors by the 1990s. The USA and the western world had no problem with the Shah’s ambitious project. And yet Iran’s current plans to construct seven nuclear power plants (each of 1000 MW capacity) by 2025 to meet growing energy demand are considered too ambitious and unacceptable by the same countries. The question: why should Iran go nuclear when she has the third largest reservoir of oil and gas?

Forgotten in this context are the facts that Iran does not have enough refining capacity to process her own crude oil (forcing her to import refined oil from outside) and that when all the developed countries around the world are going nuclear or making serious efforts to go carbon-free, away from fossil-fuel based technology, why should Iran, a country with enormous talented human resources and a rich history of non-aggression, remain behind in technology evolution? Iran is neither Somalia nor Haiti. Her leaders have repeatedly assured the world that their nuclear program has nothing to do with weapons, which are considered haram by its Islamic clerics. Iran’s President Dr. Ahmadinejad declared, “We believe that the possession of nuclear bombs is immoral.”

The Iranian government has for long demanded a nuclear-free world, let alone the Middle East. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors have not found any evidence of weapons program either inside Iran. On September 2, 2009, its outgoing Director General Dr. ElBaradei said that Iran was not going to produce a nuclear weapon in the near future and the threat posed had been exaggerated. Unlike Israel, North Korea, India and Pakistan, Iran is actually a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and submitting itself to the jurisdiction of the IAEA. And yet it seems kosher for the nuclear Brahmin states to disallow Iran’s legitimate aspirations for nuclear power.

Israel and her western patrons are suspicious about Iran’s uranium enrichment program, suspecting that the enriched fuel could be used for the weapons program. However, the enrichment level of 3.5%, achieved thus far by Iranian scientists, remains far below what is necessary (90%) for highly enriched uranium or weapon-grade plutonium. Iran has a reactor in Tehran that produces nuclear medicine (20 different kinds thus far), based on radioactive technologies. She requires 19.75 percent enrichment to foresee her needs for the next two decades. Iran, being far short of producing that target, has been buying this material from other countries. According to President Ahmadinejad, Iran is even willing to purchase this material from the USA.

What is so bizarre in this nuclear debate with Iran is that the USA has no problem rewarding a country like India, which has not signed the NPT. The Obama administration renewed previous Bush commitment and signed a bilateral treaty with India last July for the construction of two U.S. civilian nuclear power reactors in India, which officials estimate could be worth about $10 billion to American companies.

From published reports it seems Israel has already chalked out a plan, under NATO protection, to knock out Iran’s suspected nuclear facilities. As we have already seen with Iraq, Mossad agents are active inside Iran in killing Iranian scientists that are affiliated with the state-run nuclear research facilities. Not to be left behind, some Iranian traitors, affiliated with the terrorist group MKO and the deposed Shah’s son (who lives in the USA), are trying to follow the footsteps of Ahmed Challaby (of Iraq) to manufacture a pre-invasion Iraq-like environment for overthrow of the current Iranian regime, tainted by accusations of fraud in the last presidential election.

As noted by keen observers and area experts, Israel and her Jewish friends outside remain the most vociferous opponents of Iran’s nuclear program. In recent months, Israeli leaders, all war criminals by any definition, are touring the world preaching for nuclear-free Iran.  As noted earlier, the Zionist state wants to remain unchallenged in the region while undermining and denying legitimate aspirations of other countries in the region for nuclear energy for peaceful purpose. With the powerful Israel Lobby active inside the USA and Europe, she has little to feel guilty of her criminal actions and illogical demands.

Fortunately, not everyone is fooled by Israel’s devious ploys. Last September while attending the 64th session of the UN General Assembly and following his meeting with his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Iran was entitled to the same rights as any other country in its use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. “I defend for Iran the same rights with respect to nuclear energy that I do for Brazil,” Lula told reporters outside the United Nations General Assembly. “If anyone is ashamed of having relations with Iran, it’s not Brazil,” he added.                                     

In September 2009 the General Conference of the IAEA passed a landmark resolution urging Israel to open its entire nuclear program to IAEA inspection and join the NPT. The IAEA resolution had likewise warned of ‘Israeli nuclear capabilities.’ Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, in a letter to all 15 members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), asked the council to enforce the observation. Aboul Gheit mentioned that Tel Aviv has been refusing to sign the nuclear NPT, adding that “Israel’s nuclear capabilities cannot evade world attention.” Egypt and other members of the Arab League upheld the decision which had been fiercely opposed by the US and its Western allies. Aboul Gheit also urged the UNSC to develop a timeframe for a nuclear-free Middle East.

It is worth nothing here that since 1958, when it began building its Dimona plutonium and uranium processing facility, Israel has reportedly manufactured hundreds of nuclear warheads earning reputation as the sole owner of such hardware in the Middle East. Former US president Jimmy Carter, aerial footage and decades of recurrent reporting have attested to the existence of the armament. However, as is glaringly obvious, the western countries, including the USA, are willing to overlook Israeli nuclear buildups in the region. Such a biased, hypocritical and criminal attitude does not allow any concerned person to hope for an easing of the tension in the Middle East.

Click here for part two