THE Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has declared that he is ready to talk to President Obama and other leaders and have a ‘fair, logical’ dialogue to solve today’s challenges.
Iran clearly wants a compromise and pledged that while it ruled out any discussion of its ‘undeniable’ right to nuclear energy, it wanted talks and to make an agreement with the global powers on its peaceful use.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also proposed a public debate with President Barack Obama of the United States on these and other issues.
Speaking about a deadline set by the imperialist powers, according to which Iran had to stop nuclear enrichment, Ahmadinejad said that such deadlines were ‘incompatible’.
The Iranian leader declared: ‘From our point of view, Iran’s nuclear issue is finished. We continue our work within the framework of global regulations and in close interaction with the International Atomic Energy Agency. . . We are ready for debate and talk on global issues and which is the best way to resolve world issues.’
The Iranian leader set out that Iran’s cooperation with the international community would be along two tracks, developing clean atomic energy for peaceful purposes and preventing the proliferation of nuclear weaponry.
One would think, proceeding from Obama’s pre-election propaganda, that this is just the opportunity that he has been waiting for.
But the opposite is the case. The US and UK leaders are talking about repulsing the Ahmadinejad offer and instead, imposing massive new backbreaking sanctions onto the Iranian people.
The Obama administration has set the deadline for the G-20 meeting later in September.
To prepare the ground for new sanctions on Iran, allegations are to be made to the week-long, just started meeting of governors of the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in Vienna, based on intelligence reports, that Iran has secretly studied ways to make nuclear bombs.
Iran has condemned these latest allegations as fabrications.
There is great pressure on the IAEA to condemn Iran opening up the way for new sanctions.
The imperialist powers should take the opportunity that Ahmadinejad has offered them to resolve their differences by diplomatic and peaceful means.
The alternative is imposing crushing sanctions on Iran and organising military intervention.
However the US is already in a desperate position in the region.
Yesterday Iran’s top military commander, Yahya Rahim-Safavi, stated: ‘It seems that the US military failure in Afghanistan is far greater than its failure in Iraq.’
He added: ‘There is a high probability that Afghanistan will turn into another Vietnam for the US and its allies.’
He observed that ‘The recent security pact between US and NATO and Afghanistan showed the United States has no plan to leave the region,’ and noted that the presence of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf, had been a cause for concern for Russia, China and Iran.
‘Russia worries about the US presence in Central Asia and China has concerns about US interference in its two main Muslim provinces bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan.
‘The Islamic Republic of Iran regards the presence of these forces as a main reason for insecurity and believes that the withdrawal of the occupiers will be the way to establish security and peace in the Middle East,’ he concluded.
The US and the UK would be well advised to accept Iran’s offer to talk, and to seek to withdraw their forces from the area, before they are so deep into the quagmire that withdrawal becomes impossible and a military catastrophe becomes inevitable.