So says the Iranian ambassador in London Rasoul Movahedian. Today, in a letter to the Guardian Unlimited he makes the point that Iran is not seeking to cause trouble in Iraq, and does not want war with the U.S. He starts by discussing the recent belicose talk from the neocons.
The latest salvo of rhetoric against Iran betrays a grand design to demonise the country and trigger a new adventurism in the highly sensitive Persian Gulf region. Again and again the "Iranian threat" is invoked as part of a neocon agenda to deepen US military involvement in the area. But its goal - to downgrade Iran's role in the region - is both implausible and ill founded.
He's right. The neocons are drooling over the prospect of a U.S. attack on Iran to cut off Iran's influence in the region. Just look what Bill Kristol wrote last summer in the Weekly Standard.
No Islamic Republic of Iran, no Hezbollah. No Islamic Republic of Iran, no one to prop up the Assad regime in Syria. No Iranian support for Syria (a secular government that has its own reasons for needing Iranian help and for supporting Hezbollah and Hamas), little state sponsorship of Hamas and Hezbollah. And no Shiite Iranian revolution, far less of an impetus for the Saudis to finance the export of the Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam as a competitor to Khomeini's claim for leadership of militant Islam--and thus no Taliban rule in Afghanistan, and perhaps no Hamas either.
You see, all of the problems in the Middle East are Iran's fault according to neocon Bill Kristol. Rasoul Movahedian continues in his letter to state that Iran does have influence in the region, but not through military power.
Iran, by contrast, has demonstrated throughout its history a belief in constructive engagement in international relations, at the same time as holding firm to its right to retain its important regional role. Our civilising contribution to the history of the region and the world is beyond doubt - and we are the region's largest democracy, so of course we hold influence. But that influence has never had any imperial aspiration. Iran's national security doctrine is defensive and does not consider military might to be an instrument of foreign policy.
Okay, Okay... I have a couple of problems with this statement. They are, in fact, closer to a democracy than any other nation in the region (with Israel being the exception), but the supreme leader is appointed by an assembly of Islamic scholars. So Iran is more like a pseudo-democracy because the president is elected by adult men and women. That's right, women can actually vote in Iran; quite a contrast to other countries in the Gulf Region. Also, one could argue that Iran does, in fact, use military might through a proxy named Hezbollah.
But anyway, let's get back to Rasoul's letter.
Iran has friendly, neighbourly and constructive relations with all countries in the region. Neither Iranians nor Arabs wish to repeat the bitter experience of the 1980s that followed Saddam Hussein's attack. Iran has appealed to Shia and Sunni alike to refrain from acts of violence. It condemns all atrocities in the either's name. It neither interferes in the domestic affairs of Iraq nor supports violence inside Iraq.
Iran has constructive relations with all countries except Isreal, which is an 800-pound gorilla of an issue in the Middle East. And president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said some pretty crazy things about Israel and Jewish people in general.
Iranian leader: Holocaust a 'myth'
"They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred and place this above God, religions and the prophets," Ahmadinejad said in a speech to thousands of people in the Iranian city of Zahedan, according to a report on Wednesday from Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting.
"The West has given more significance to the myth of the genocide of the Jews, even more significant than God, religion, and the prophets," he said. "(It) deals very severely with those who deny this myth but does not do anything to those who deny God, religion, and the prophet."
"If you have burned the Jews, why don't you give a piece of Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to Israel," Ahmadinejad said.
"Our question is, if you have committed this huge crime, why should the innocent nation of Palestine pay for this crime?"
Ahmadinejad is crazy if he thinks the holocaust didn't happen, but his point about the location of a Jewish state is an interesting one. It was Germans who committed the atrocities during World War II, not Palestinians, Perisans, Arabs, or any other Islamic peoples from the Middle East.
Rasoul, the Iranian ambassador, also reminds readers that it was Iraq who invaded Iran in the 1980s, and the U.S. did not seem to have a problem with it. The United States is more of an aggressor than the Irans by far.
Finally, Rasoul gets to the meat of the matter - Irans nuclear program.
As a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran retains the right to benefit from a civil nuclear programme. We demonstrated our sincerity to the world by sitting at the negotiating table for more than two years and suspending all our peaceful nuclear activities to show our goodwill; the result was nothing tangible, but a plan to develop Iran's peaceful enrichment technology.
Iran did agree to, and particpate in talks about their nuclear ambitions. They seem like they are very willing to talk to the United States directly. But our homicidal leader and his neocon buddies are unwilling to even give talks a chance. In their minds, war is the first and only option when it comes to dealing with Iran. Perhaps some dialog with Iran could lead to the monitoring of their self-proclaimed "peaceful enrichment technology". That sure would be better than not knowing, and thounds of times better than mass slaughter.
Any threat on the part of the United States government to initiate another military conflict in the region can only trigger new crises, wildly jeopardising global security and stability. We believe in a solution through negotiation and dialogue, a dialogue that addresses concerns on both sides, and in the meantime guarantees our inalienable right to pursue peaceful nuclear energy activity.
He is absolutely right that an attack or invasion of Iran would have disastrous consequences. Bush must be stopped.