Iran:
The Price Of Being Defenceless
By Ghali Hassan
19 April, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Ever
since the U.S. began its preparation for aggression against Iran, Western
media and Western elites have continue to demonise Iran and provide
misleading propaganda to justify U.S. attacks against the Islamic Republic.
On her part, Iran has the right to defend her sovereignty against any
unprovoked act of aggression. A defenceless Iran would pay the heavy
price Iraq is paying.
The same Western media and Western analysts who demonised Iraq to justify
the illegal aggression are at it again, promoting new war of aggression
against Iran. Like Western governments and Western media, the American
linguist Noam Chomsky wasted no time in condemning Iran. In a recent
article (Tom Dispatch, April 05, 2007) Chomsky writes: “Doubtless
Iran's government merits harsh condemnation, including for its recent
actions that have inflamed the crisis”. What “actions”
did Iran take to deserve “harsh condemnation”? Chomsky doesn’t
elaborate?
If the “recent actions”
are the apprehension of the 15 British “sailors” by the
Iranian Navy, then Iran acted within her sovereign right to apprehend
them.
The “sailors” have admitted on Iranian TV that they were
knowingly trespassing in “Iranian water”. According to Sky
News, the captain of the British ship admitted that part of his team's
mission in the Shatt al-Arab waterway was “to gather intelligence
on the Iranians”. In fact, the British Defence Secretary, Des
Browne, defended the operation as an “important intelligence gathering”
to “keep our people safe”.
Unlike Iraqi prisoners and
detainees in Iraq, who are enduring torture, and sexual abuses by U.S.
and British occupying forces, the British “sailors” were
well-treated and released unharmed.
It is astonishing that the
abduction, imprisonment and torture of five Iranian officials –
in violation of international accords – in Iraq by U.S. forces
seem to have escaped Chomsky analysis. This wilful blindness of condemning
Iran provides the U.S. with the necessary propaganda to demonise Iran
and provides legitimacy for economic sanctions and war. Moreover, Chomsky
failed to show any hard evidence that Iran is actively engaged in anti-Occupation
activities and supporting the Iraqi Resistance against the occupying
forces in Iraq.
Furthermore, citing Peter
Bergen and Paul Cruickshank (Mother Jones, March 01, 2007), Chomsky
reinforcing the liberals’ propaganda that an attack on Iran will
increase “terrorism”. Since when are the legitimate rights
to self-defence and resistance to unprovoked aggression has become “terrorism”?
Are the Iraqi people – the victims of terrorism – terrorists?
Chomsky should know better. Moreover, credible sources reveal that Israel
and the U.S. are interfering in Iran domestic affairs and are fomenting
civil strife in the country, provocations acknowledged by Chomsky.
Lacking from Chomsky’s
analysis is also the role of Israel and pro-Israel Zionists promotion
for war against Iran. There is overwhelming evidence that Israel and
the pro-Israel forces in the U.S. are promoting the current anti-Iran
propaganda. It is Chomsky’s brilliant way of shielding Israel.
What is so ironic is that
Iran, who is signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT),
is being accused of having “nuclear ambitions” and threatened
– with war – by the U.S. and Israel. Israel, meanwhile,
continues to enjoy Western policy of deliberate hypocrisy and unconditional
support. Israel has refused to sign the NPT despite having the largest
arsenal of nuclear weapons in the region.
The aim is to fabricate pretexts
(e.g. Weapons of Mass destruction), engineer crisis and justify war
of aggression against Iran for the sake of Zionism. Since it’s
creation on Palestinian land, Israel has lived with the myth of military
“superiority”, dominating the region and terrorising the
defenceless Palestinian people and expropriating their land. Nevertheless,
challenge to Israel domination and monopoly on violence by Palestinian
and Lebanese resistance has demolished the Israeli myth and Israel’s
misguided Zionist policy.
As a result of its defenceless
state – enforced by the 13-years U.S.-Britain genocidal sanctions
–, Iraq paid a heavy price. From 1991, U.S. and British forces
subjected Iraq to daily indiscriminate air bombardments. The U.S.-Britain
imposed illegal “no-fly zones” were designed to violate
Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Unhindered by Iraq’s
inability to defend its national airspace against invading aircrafts,
U.S. and British warplanes were killing Iraqi civilians and destroying
properties in violation of international law and civilised norms. The
aim of the daily aggression and the economic sanctions were to prepare
Iraq for the 2003 illegal invasion and Occupation.
As the Indian scholar, Aijaz
Ahmed, pointed out in a recent article (Frontline, Mar. 24-Apr. 06,
2007): “The war against Iraq began not in 2003 but in 1991, when
the U.S. attacked the country in order to recover Kuwait and ruin Iraq.
U.S. aircraft flew 110,000 sorties between January 17 and February 28,
1991, averaging one aerial attack every 30 seconds, and dropped 88,500
tonnes of explosives, which is the TNT equivalent of seven and a half
Hiroshima’s. No accurate figures are available but many sources,
including the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), estimated that
perhaps as many as two million Iraqis died during the six years between
1990 and 1997, including more than half a million children” under
the age of five years.
Professor Ahmed added that;
“some two million [Iraqi] refugees have left the country; almost
an equal number have become refugees within Iraq; over half of Iraq's
4.5 million children are malnourished; and unemployment stands at over
70 per cent. These numbers should be seen in the perspective of the
total population of the country, which was considerably less than 25
million at the onset of the war. We are talking of perhaps as much as
half the population killed, maimed and injured, driven out of the country,
driven into starvation, malnutrition, epidemic diseases, despair, and
even crime”. Why?
According to recent reliable
estimate, over a million innocent Iraqis have been murdered in cold
blood, as a direct result of four years of Occupation. The majority
of the victims were innocent women and children. In addition, hundreds
of Iraqis, including women and children are enduring torture and sexual
abuses in hundreds of U.S.-Britain run prisons throughout Iraq. The
situation for Iraqi civilians is in “ever-worsening humanitarian
crisis” with the worst decline in child mortality, said the recent
report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). “The
suffering that Iraqi men, women and children are enduring today is unbearable
and unacceptable”, said Pierre Kraehenbuehl, the director of operation
of ICRC.
Iraq’s health situation
accurately summarised by Bert De Belder of Medical Aid for the Third
World in Belgium as: “[W]orse than ever because of the U.S.-led
Occupation. The only way in “[r]eversing the current trend of
ever-deteriorating health conditions requires first and foremost the
end of the Occupation”, added De Belder. (Al-Ahram Weekly, 5 -
11 April 2007).
In sum, an entire nation
was violently taken hostage and deliberately and brutally destroyed.
The U.S.-Britain aggression against the Iraqi people and the destruction
of Iraq are premeditated war crimes.
Instead of being held responsible
and tried for war crimes, the perpetrators of the aggression against
Iraq have been re-elected, and are preparing for another war of aggression.
Their agenda is the domination of the entire planet – hegemonic
imperialism – through violence. The declared objective and true
intent are to conquer people’s natural resources and using these
resources to enhance an imperialist ideology.
If Western governments, the
U.S. and Britain in particular, are sincerely committed to disarmament,
peace and “democracy” in the region as they pretend to be,
then they should disarm Israel of nuclear weapons, liberate the Palestinian
people from Israel’s terror and end their imperialist Occupation
of Iraq, as demanded loudly by the Iraqi people.
Finally, Iran is an important
Muslim nation. After the destruction of Iraq, Iran remains the only
nation in the Middle East not under Western-imperialist (U.S.-Britain)
domination. Therefore, Iran struggle is a struggle for the liberation
of Muslims not only in the Middle East, but also around the World.
To counter this imperialist
threat, Iran should pursue a strategy of self-defence to deter any foreign
aggression on her sovereignty, and protect the Iranian people.
Ghali Hassan is an independent writer living in Australia.
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