IRAN has lashed out at US officials for making ‘meddlesome’ remarks about domestic developments in the country, saying the world public opinion is well aware of America’s dark human rights record and will no longer be deceived by its political stunts against Tehran.
‘Despite the hypocrisy and continuous lies of the American statesmen, the world public opinion is well aware of the black human rights record of this regime and will not be deceived by their rhetoric and political shows,’ Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani said in a statement on Thursday.
The US history and approach to human rights in the past and present show that the issue has had no real bearing on its politics and performance, he added, emphasising: ‘The American regime has always had a political, instrumental and dual attitude toward the issue of human rights.’
‘Some of the world’s most tyrannical governments and regimes, including the apartheid Zionist regime, on whose paradoxical behaviour in violation of human rights everyone is of the same opinion, are among those considered America’s strategic friends and allies,’ he said.
Kan’ani said the latest remarks by the US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan were another proof of the country’s intervention in the internal affairs of Iran and support for the recent riots there under the guise of defending human rights, women and prisoners.
Sullivan on Wednesday welcomed a ‘historic’ UN vote to remove Iran from its Commission on the Status of Women in response to what it claims to be Iran’s ‘systemic repression’ of women and girls.
He said the vote is ‘another sign of the growing international consensus on Iran and demands for accountability’.
Kan’ani pointed to the US’s false claims and the political nature of its human rights gesture, saying during four decades of its ‘maximum pressure’ and unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic, Washington never heeded the wide-scale consequences of these restrictions on the livelihood, health and security of the Iranian people and ‘imposed cruel and, in their own words, crippling bans with no exception on all Iranian people, including children, women, girls and mothers’.
The 54-member UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) adopted the US-drafted resolution to ‘remove with immediate effect the Islamic Republic of Iran from the Commission on the Status of Women for the remainder of its 2022-2026 term’.
Twenty-nine members of the ECOSOC voted in favour of Iran’s expulsion from the United Nations women’s body, eight countries voted against and 16 abstained.
Kan’ani on Wednesday vehemently condemned ‘the US-led non-consensus resolution’, saying it countered the UN charter and set a wrong precedent.
- Iran and Russia have enhanced their mutual cooperation over the past years, in defiance of Western sanctions, apparently worrying the West. In recent years, relations between the two countries have been developing in all areas, from trade to military deals.
The outgoing year has, particularly, seen the strengthening of mutual cooperation in a number of strategic areas. Iran’s ambassador to Russia elaborated on that at a press conference in Moscow.
While the West is expanding sanctions against Moscow and Tehran over their military cooperation, the potential for developing relations between the two countries is huge, since Russia and Iran are under tough Western sanctions and therefore have little to fear.
At the press conference held in Moscow, Iran’s ambassador to Russia summed up the outcome of relations between Moscow and Tehran in 2022.
He noted that Russia’s rouble is used in more than 40% of trade between the two countries, and that the Russian currency may become the main one in bilateral trade.
According to his remarks, Tehran supported the idea of using the rouble as the main currency in regional unions such as the EAEU. He also referred to efforts to integrate the national payment systems ‘Mir’ and ‘Shetab’ as part of financial and economic cooperation between Russia and Iran. According to the Iranian envoy, Russia and Iran are seeking to reduce the dominance of certain currencies, including the dollar, in bilateral trade and economic relations. Jalali further said the automotive industry and space sector have become another field of cooperation between the two countries. In August, Russia launched remote sensing satellite ‘Khayyam’ into orbit on behalf of Iran.
Iran is investigating the possibility of producing cars jointly with Russia. Two leading automakers of the Islamic Republic, SAIPA and Iran Khodro, took part in last summer’s exhibition in Moscow and held negotiations with the Russian side. In addition to the joint production, the two countries are also discussing the possibility of sending Iranian cars to Russia.
Russian and Iranian officials have time and again said that the two countries are determined to further expand bilateral ties. They have expressed confidence that the aim will materialise, despite all the challenges the two nations might face, given the numerous capacities the two sides have.
- A coalition of 37 rights organisations and anti-war groups have urged the US Congress to repeal the 2002 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) against Iraq, noting that such a measure could assure no other ‘unchecked’ president could ‘misuse’ the law to wage other wars.
The coalition has sent a letter to several Senate and Congress members, calling on the lawmakers to take action on what they called a ‘long overdue repeal’.
‘Repealing this outdated and unnecessary law would constitute a basic act of constitutional hygiene while also ensuring that the 2002 Iraq AUMF cannot be misused to breathe new life into an unforeseen national security crisis, driven by an unchecked president,’ reads part of the letter.
The 2002 resolution, dubbed the ‘Authorization for the Use of Military Force’ (AUMF), was overwhelmingly passed by the US Congress, granting the American president permission to wage military action – without the need for any Congressional approval – as laid out in the specific terms set in the legislative measure.
The resolution was used by former US president George W Bush to invade Iraq in 2003. However, the next presidents also used that despite the war in Iraq having ended.
One of the latest instances of reference to this resolution was in early January 2020 when ex-president Donald Trump ordered the assassination of Iran’s top anti-terror commander, Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, along with the deputy chief of Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Units (PMU) Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
‘This scenario has already played out once, in early 2020; there is nothing to prevent it playing out again, until Congress takes the 2002 Iraq AUMF off the books,’ adds the letter.
A veteran US congresswoman and the only lawmaker to vote against a broad authorisation for the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 is now pushing for a congressional measure to limit the White House’s power to wage foreign wars.
By repealing the 2002 AUMF, Congress ‘would finally reclaim its constitutional war powers in a manner both deeply significant and increasingly uncontroversial. We urge you to seize this opportunity to get it off the books for good,’ added the letter.
Efforts for repealing the resolution come as there is a still wider-ranging 2001 AUMF in place which was adopted in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
The congressional authorisation has been applied entirely in Muslim-majority countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen.
A 2021 report prepared by Brown University’s Costs of War Project found that the US-led ‘global war on terror’ has led to the deaths of nearly one million people, and cost more than $8 trillion.
