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. They 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.

Let's now review the issues of the last few months following Iran's rejection of the preliminary agreement that was reached between the two sides on Oct. 1, 2009 in Geneva. Under the deal, Iran was supposed to send 75 percent of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Russia for conversion into fuel for a research reactor in Tehran. Russia was supposed to enrich Iran's LEU to 19.75 percent, and France to convert it into fuel rods. Iran also agreed to allow the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to visit the newly disclosed uranium-enrichment facility in Qom - called the Fordow facility - within two weeks. Iran delivered on that promise. After the visit by the inspectors, Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, the IAEA outgoing director-general, declared that the facility was a "big hole in the mountain" and nothing to worry about. The inclusion of France and Russia in the Geneva Agreement to reprocess uranium was rather precarious given both these countries' monumental records of cheating and ignoble intentions. Thus, the Geneva Agreement was widely unpopular inside Iran. The opposition leader Hossein Mousavi called the agreement "astonishing." Finally, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in the most important issues facing the nation, rejected the proposal. 

Iran then made a counterproposal to the P5+1 group (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany) in which Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki declared that Iran was open to a simultaneous exchange of fuel rods for its research reactor with Iran's LEU in Tehran. As per this proposal, Iran would ship its LEU in several batches, rather than all at once, in order to guarantee that once the LEU is converted to fuel rods, it will be returned to Iran. But EU diplomats and the United States and its allies in the P5+1 group quickly rejected this suggestion angrily. This attitude only deepened Iranian suspicion about western ulterior motives. 

The USA and her allies lobbied the IAEA to pass a resolution on November 27 to censure Iran for the construction of the Fordow enrichment plant. The resolution, drafted by the P5+1 group, demanded that Tehran stop uranium enrichment and immediately freeze the construction of the Fordow nuclear facility. It passed in a 25-3 vote with six abstentions. As expected, Tehran rejected the IAEA resolution, the first one passed against Iran since 2006, as "politically motivated" and "illegal," aimed at depriving Iran of its basic rights. And Iran is right to say so. 

As a signatory to the NPT, Iran has all the rights to pursue its nuclear program for civilian use. By demanding that Iran suspend all its nuclear operations, the IAEA continues to violate its own charter (e.g., Article IV), much like what its BOG (Board of Governors) did back in February 4, 2006 when it illegally referred the matter of so-called non-compliance to the UNSC. 

An objective analysis leads most neutral observers and analysts to conclude that the western powers, esp. the USA, have been insincere and untrustworthy from day one and have set a trail of double-standards when it comes to resolving the nuclear problem with Iran peacefully and fairly. It is quite obvious that their agenda remains denying Iran the right to exploring nuclear technology for civilian use, under the smokescreen of claiming that Iran would use such for military use - an allegation, much like Iraq's WMDs, which has been rejected by the UN watchdog group, IAEA. It all goes back to the same rogue mentality of Bush and Cheney when they, aided by disinformation campaign of the Jewish neocons and Israel, were cocksure about the Saddam Hossein's WMDs. Their savage formula: hang the innocent before he commits a crime. After all, as the Mafia Dons of our world they ought to know better! 

In recent days we hear that the United States and France are again threatening more sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, drafting a resolution to present to the UNSC. Against that backdrop of western threats and blackmails, it is good to notice China's position which has been calling for a diplomatic solution to the dispute over Iran's nuclear program. On December 27, during a joint press conference with his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu, Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi of China again made the proposal in Istanbul.

So, how to resolve the tense relationship between Iran and the West, esp. the USA? As noted by many experts, war is not a solution. The cost-benefit ratio is unfavorable to the West. Even if the nuclear facilities are destroyed completely by joint Israel-US air raids, the regime has oil money, and with heightened national support and resolve, it could quickly rebuild most of its facilities. A better option lies in not exaggerating Iran's nuclear ambition. Much in contrast to the reassurances of her leaders, even if Iran were to produce a nuclear bomb sometime in the future, our world, including the Middle East, will not end, nor will Israel be threatened. At its best, the Iranian bomb can actually be a deterrent to future wars in the region. 

Mending good relationship with Iran would serve the interest of Washington and its European allies better. However, as we have noted earlier, Washington was never serious about improving relations with Iran. Even today, when it comes to dealing with Iran, sadly, the Obama administration has not revised the stupid policy of its predecessor. That's a non-starter! For a genuine dialogue with Iran to succeed, our western leaders need to make a much more active effort to engage the Iranians, listening and responding to their concerns, allaying their suspicions, ending "regime change" policies and offering the real prospect of recognition to the Islamic Republic and normal relations with the United States. The Iranian people do have some legitimate security concerns. They feel surrounded on all sides by governments that are backed either by the USA or Russia, each with problematic past of subjugation and crime committed against the Iranian people. They live in a neighborhood surrounded by nuclear powers-Israel, Russia, China, India, and Pakistan - each capable of becoming an existential threat to Iran. If the West lessen such legitimate fears and concerns, Iranian leaders will be more likely to cooperate on the nuclear front. 

Professor Muhammad Sahimi, an area expert on energy issues who teaches at the prestigious University of Southern California, believes that only a clean diplomacy without prejudice, double standards, and illegal demands can settle this nuclear tug-of-war with Iran. He believes, "If a solution is reached, it will allow Iran's democratic movement to advance further. If Iran does become a democracy, the question of its nuclear program should become moot."

Will the nuclear Brahmins ever have the wisdom of giving clean diplomacy a chance for a peaceful world?

*****

[Dr. Siddiqui has authored nine books. His book: "Democracy, Politics and Terrorism - America's Quest for Security in the Age of Insecurity" is available through the Amazon.com.]