{"id":61116,"date":"2015-07-20T12:00:10","date_gmt":"2015-07-20T11:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=61116"},"modified":"2015-07-17T15:11:05","modified_gmt":"2015-07-17T14:11:05","slug":"congratulations-and-thank-you-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/07\/congratulations-and-thank-you-iran\/","title":{"rendered":"Congratulations and Thank You, Iran!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jan<\/a>

Jan Oberg<\/p><\/div>\n

Much better on the 14th of July, the French Revolution Day, than the 13th would have been. And it is a kind of revolution \u2013 namely, solving problems at the table rather than through yet another failed, counterproductive and self-defeating Western war on a Middle Eastern country.<\/p>\n

A victory for nonviolence and intelligence over violence and human folly.<\/p>\n

Truly a victory for civilisation, for civilised manners \u2013 and with the \u201cobject\u201d itself being a civilisation.<\/p>\n

Javad Zarif \u2013 Iran\u2019s brilliant foreign minister, perhaps the most professional and with the most friendly body language, including smiles, among peers anywhere \u2013 and his team achieved the impossible, namely to get a deal in an extremely a-symmetric conflict and negotiation set-up.<\/p>\n

A-symmetry? Yes, to the trained conflict eye.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been the Western bullying of Iran since the CIA-led US and UK coup d\u2019etat against Iran\u2019s democratic leader in 1953.<\/p>\n

There has been repeated bombing threats from the West, not the other way around. The Western backing to Saddam\u2019s horrible war on Iran. There\u2019s been killing of Iran\u2019s scientists, sanctions, humiliating words and demands.<\/p>\n

Why Iran in focus and not all those who have nuclear weapons? Why 5 nuclear weapons states at the table, all violating the Non-Proliferation Treaty \u2013 telling Iran not to have what they have?<\/p>\n

Why focus on Iran, not Israel which has nuclear weapons, much higher relative military expenditures, a record of violence?<\/p>\n

The little word \u201cwhy\u201d that signifies the tremendous a-symmetry that has never ever been allowed to surface in the Western biased media coverage of Iran: the bad and the treacherous and only that.<\/p>\n

I mean, did you see TV documentaries about Iran recently \u2013 its history, civilisation, culture, modern art, films or the life of the people?<\/p>\n

Did you get a reasonably balanced account of the US\/Western influence there since 1953? A fair assessment of Iran\u2019s light and dark sides \u2013 or did you get only the latter through Western eyes such as its human rights problems, the religious elite and the dress code for women in public spaces?<\/p>\n

Most of the answers can be found in the fact that\u00a0it was all a manufactured crisis \u2013 as has been shown by TFF Associate and world renown investigative analyst, Gareth Power<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Totally unnecessary, in other words. And that explains why Israel\u2019s prime minister\u2019s sounds so shrill these days.<\/p>\n

Problems ahead<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The Saudi-Arabia\/Israel\/Sunni\/IS\/Golf Cooperation Council emerging alliance sharing an interest \u2013 against virtually the rest of the world \u2013 \u00a0in sabotageing this deal. Problematic indeed for Washington\u2019s future navigation.<\/li>\n
  2. The emerging 100.000 new Saudi-led and bankrolled regional army with one likely target, Iran.<\/li>\n
  3. A possible Israeli attack on Iran \u2013 not in the interest of its citizens but to self-fulfil the paranoid prophecy of PM Netanyauhu who since 1992 has predicted Iran would be a nuclear power and today talks about it being a threat to the world, striving for world dominance and calls the deal a surrender.<\/li>\n
  4. A \u201cNo\u201d to the deal in the U.S. Congress.<\/li>\n
  5. Problems of interpretation of the deal\u2019s fine print when it comes to implementing its provisions on the ground in Iran.<\/li>\n
  6. Lack in the EU\/NATO\/US of anything that can be called a vision for the next 20-50 years for \u2013 and together with \u2013 the Middle East. And in the absence of that, a fall-back to warfare as an option. Be sure of one thing: Today\u2019s deal will reshape much of the Middle East \u2013 hopefully for the better.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Vision of Iran in the future<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Undoubtedly frightening to some, Iran can \u2013 and should \u2013 now achieve its rightful position in the region and the world.<\/p>\n

    Permit me to share one vision that I hold dear for the future:<\/p>\n

    Iran as a Switzerland of the Middle East \u2013 different in a number of ways, like Switzerland, and peace-oriented; a meeting place for people and countries all over the world, a country with experts educated, sooner or later, as peace researchers, mediators and reconciliators.<\/p>\n

    It is an Iran that, if embarking on it, may\u00a0assist others with its professionalism and inspire them with a peace vision \u2013 and which can provide wonderful nature good for meetings outside the spotlights of the media and a country that, relieved of the external pressures and harassment, can slowly but surely liberalize and thus utilise its tremendous human and cultural potentials.<\/p>\n

    This would be greatly facilitated through a new orientation in Israel, confidence-building and eventually peace and trust between Palestine and Israel.<\/p>\n

    It would also become more realistic with the implementation of the UN-declared goal of a Middle East free from nuclear weapons. Israel has no reason to keep its nukes when today\u2019s deal has been implemented.<\/p>\n

    Instead of walking out from the \u2013 unfair and a-symmetric situation \u2013 Iran has shown the way: non-violent struggle called dialogue instead of violence.<\/p>\n

    And for that we should all be grateful and hopeful.<\/p>\n

    _______________________________<\/p>\n

    TFF Director Prof. Jan Oberg is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

    Go to Original \u2013 transnational.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    It is a revolution \u2013 namely, solving problems at the table rather than through yet another failed, counterproductive and self-defeating Western war on a Middle Eastern country. A victory for nonviolence and intelligence over violence and human folly; for civilisation, for civilised manners \u2013 and with the \u201cobject\u201d itself being a civilisation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transcend-members"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}