The world is a bigger place than we think and not everyone sees the world the way Americans see the world. OK, I think most of us would nod our heads at that. Here, however, is the world seen through the eyes of a “moderate” Iranian news source. It sounds very different than the western news reports we’re used to reading about Iranian intransigence, doesn’t it?

The West Is Falling Into Iranian Trap
By Safa Haeri
Posted Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Paris, 17 Jan. (IPS) As the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council decided on Monday 16 Jan. 2006 in London to “agree to disagree” over the question of sending the Iranian controversial nuclear issue to the Security Council for possible sanctions, with an unusual diplomatic brinkmanship, the Iranians are bringing the international community into a trap they have carefully laid down: That of resuming all nuclear activities and blaming this to the Europeans and the Americans, according to well-informed Iranian political analyst.

“If we are referred to the United Nations Security Council, the Government has no other choice but ending all engagements it concluded concerning the voluntary suspension of its nuclear activities, as approved by the Majles (Iranian Parliament)”, Foreign Affairs Minister Manouchehr Mottaki announced on Thursday 12 January 2006.

If we are referred to the Security Council, we have no other choice but ending all engagements about suspension of nuclear activities”.
He was referring to undertakings made by Iran on October 2003 to Britain, France and Germany to suspend all nuclear activities on a voluntarily basis.

The talks came to a halt on August last year after Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadi Nezhad, a devout Shi’a Muslim and former Revolutionary Guards officer who was the Mayor of Tehran, became President and immediately started activities at the Uranium Conversion Facility situated near the central and historic city of Esfahan.

But frothy eight hours later, Tehran put a velvet glove on its iron fist. In a surprising move, the Foreign Affairs Ministry “invited” the European Troika to cool down and calmly come back to negotiation table, reiterating that doing nuclear research and development has nothing with enriching uranium which, like “many other process, remains suspended”.

“The best way to solve the nuclear issue of Iran is discussion, not a language of force and pressures. Anyway, we are not afraid of the United Nations, besides that we have devised our response to such a possibility. The main question is that Iran is given its natural rights and the Europeans to see their worries removed”, hammered out Hamid Reza Asefi, the official spokesman of the Foreign Affairs Ministry on Sunday 15 January.

Analysts said the Iranian soft attitude must have been the result of behind the scene warnings from the more moderate wing of the Iranian clerical-led leadership and possible advises from Moscow to deescalate the growing tension between Tehran and the international community.

“The doors to negotiations are again half open. Tehran expects the Troika call off the Extraordinary meeting of the IAEA’s directors and setting a date for meeting the Iranians again”, one Iranian analyst speculated in the absence of reaction from Berlin, London and Paris.

“”The Islamic Republic of Iran has predicted necessary strategies and has no concerns in this regard, Asefi told journalists during his weekly press briefing, adding, “We should not see issues in black and white. Talks with Russia, China, Europe, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) should be continued and judgment and evaluation should be then made”, Asefi told journalists during his weekly press briefing, adding that “Iran believes the two sides can find a solution through negotiations”.

“The election of Mr. Ahmadi Nezhad responded to the new policies decided by the most top ranking decision makers in Tehran, based on a 180 degree departure from the policy of détente followed by the previous government of the moderate Hojjatoleslalm Mohammad Khatami. The new policy is based on a return to the sources of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, on the leadership of the Middle East and the Muslims and internationally on provocation and confrontation”, the source told Asian Times Online during an off the record conversation.

Hence, more crackdown on the limited social, cultural freedoms and on the press and expression, ban of Western music, movies with the so-called feminist, liberal or secular tendencies, tight press censorship; escalation of verbal attacks on Israel, the State that Ahmadi Nezhad wowed to wipe off the map of the world and then negated the Holocaust, all aimed at uniting the Muslims, mostly the radical forces of the Arab world in anti Israeli crusade and internationally, a deliberate provocation over Iran’s nuclear activities.

“Unfortunately, the structure governing the domestic and foreign policies of the State is that it is stranger to the concept of détente. It enters the arena determined to win, but when faced with difficulties and obstacles, it prefers and defeat to retreat and compromise, for such a principle is considered as a red line. Reading Iranian political literature proves this claim. Therefore, one can conclude that with or without the Security Council, the nuclear question would lead to anywhere except a friendly issue”, said Mr. Abbas Abdi, a journalist and political analyst who spent years in prison after the polling company he was a director found out that more than seventy per cent of Iranians favour resuming relations with the United States.