PALO ALTO, California - Despite
a strong pitch by Iran, the United Nations has
failed to condemn the latest assassination of an
Iranian nuclear scientist, thus sending a bad
signal about the UN's determination to fight
global terrorism and to condemn all acts of
terrorism even-handedly.
Instead of a
swift and decisive response to the letter by
Iran's ambassador to the UN, Mohammad Khazaee, to
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the 15 members
of the UN Security Council and the president of
the UN General Assembly, requesting the UN's
condemnation of the terror of scientist Mostafa
Rahimi Roshan and his driver in Tehran this week,
the only reaction so far has been by Ban's
spokesperson promising "to study" the request.
This silence in the face of a clear act of
terrorism, attributed to
United States and Israel
intelligence services by Iran's Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in his message of
condolence on Thursday, speaks volumes about the
UN, the fact that it is under the sway of the US
and other Western powers that pay-lip service to
human rights when it comes to victims of terrorism
in Iran.
Roshan, 32, was killed when two
men on a motorbike attached a magnetic bomb to his
vehicle in Tehran. His driver/bodyguard later
died. Roshan was a deputy director at Iran's
Natanz uranium enrichment facility, according to
the website of the university he graduated from a
decade ago, Sharif University.
The UN's
Human Rights Council, as well as an array of
rights activists who are always up in arms in
condemning rights abuses in Iran, have been quiet
with respect to the assassination.
This
does not bode well for an international
organization committed to the maintenance of
global peace and security, especially since such
violence begets more violence, in light of popular
fury in Iran and the growing calls for Iran to
retaliate - some have even called for targeting US
and Israeli scientists who regularly attend
international conferences.
According to a
source in Iran, Tehran is on the verge of making
clear that "all bets are off and one more incident
like this and then their [US and Israeli]
scientists will be fair game".
Roshan's
murder coincided with the second anniversary of
the assassination of another scientist, Masoud Ali
Mohammadi, a Tehran University professor, who was
killed in a similar manner by a bomb attached to
his vehicle.
"This cowardly terror is a
sign of global bullying powers' desperation in the
face of determined Iranian people," Khamenei
stated.
Other Iranian officials, including
first Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi and
various members of the parliament (Majlis), have
connected this assassination to the parliamentary
elections scheduled for next month, accusing
"foreign powers" of seeking to destabilize Iran.
The US and Britain have denied any
involvement in the assassination, although a front
page story in the New York Times detailed the
specifics of a stepped-up campaign of terrorism,
cyber-attacks, etc in Iran aimed at halting Iran's
controversial nuclear program. Some US editorials,
including one in the Los Angeles Times, have
categorically denounced the terror attack and have
likened it to al-Qaeda terrorism. [1].
But, whatever the intention of the
perpetrators, the act has backfired in sections of
the global community by turning the tables on
Iran's wealth of adversaries and depicting Iran as
a victim, rather than an instigator of terrorism.
This was most vividly visible in President
Mahmud Ahmadinejad's Latin America five-day tour,
which ended on Thursday with a meeting with
Ecuador's President Rafael Correa, this after a
private chat with the ailing Fidel Castro in
Havana in Cuba on Wednesday and attending a
ceremony for Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega
on Tuesday, the whole trip serving as a snub to
the US and its coercive diplomacy toward Iran.
In addition to harvesting timely Latin
solidarity, Iran also received a big break from
Europe, which has decided to delay a decision on
an oil embargo on Iran for another six months,
clearly unhappy news for Washington and Tel Aviv,
whose envoys are busy lobbying various nations to
go along with the US-imposed sanctions on trade
with Iran.
Russia, too, has announced that
it opposes oil sanctions, calling for new
multilateral talks with Iran on the nuclear issue,
a move supported by Iran's key neighbor Turkey,
which is pressing hard for new "Iran Six" talks to
be held in Turkey in the near future. These
suspended talks on Iran's nuclear program - which
some suspect to be designed to develop nuclear
weapons - include the five permanent members of
the UN Security Council - the US, Britain, France
China, Russia - plus Germany.
A clear
affront to the US and the pro-Israel lobbyists,
the Turkish government has sent a clear signal
that it will continue its voluminous trade that
includes a growing energy partnership, despite US
sanctions. Similarly, Pakistan has announced that
it will continue normal trade with Iran and that
it is intent on finishing the badly-need
Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline.
A big question
mark, however, hovers over China, whose leaders
refused to consent to the US lobbying for
curtailing energy trade with Iran, pitched by
visiting Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Most
likely China will sustain its energy links with
Iran while simultaneously seeking to further
diversify its sources of foreign oil imports.
On the con side, as far as Iran is
concerned, is the news that Geithner had a more
successful trip to Tokyo, which has agreed to cut
down its energy ties with Iran, yet falling short
of an all-out embargo. Much depends on Tokyo's
follow-up action, the amount of reduced oil from
Iran, before one can conclude if (the weakened)
Japan has actually become another compliant
follower of the US's coercive policy toward Iran,
just as South Korea has announced its compliance
with the US wish ahead of Geithner's Asia trip.
This is not to mention the rumor mill that
India has ordered its oil industry to prepare for
reduced dependence on Iranian oil. Overall, with
Russia and China resisting the US-led sanctions
regime and Europe delaying action, as far as
Tehran is concerned the bottle is still half-full
rather than half-empty.
In conclusion, to
return to the subject of the UN's inaction with
respect to anti-Iran terrorism, this will be
harmful to Ban's image and will likely strengthen
Iran's hands in its alliance politics focused on
the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), in light of a
letter by Iran's envoy to the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA), Ali Asghar Soltanieh, to NAM
nations requesting their steadfast condemnation of
such blatant acts of terror against nuclear
scientists.
This means that Iran's
position at the IAEA has been somewhat
strengthened by an act of terrorism that follows
the sinister aim of depleting Iran of its
scientific nuclear know-how.
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