In front of me are several hundred items of news, analysis and feature reports on Iran, at the beginning of the presidential term of Hasan Rohani. However, I will begin with an item that would appear to be unimportant, on the surface, but it has huge implications. Iran's national football team, whose Portuguese coach, Carlos Queiroz, succeeded in getting to next year's World Cup, cancelled an important training trip to Portugal because he did not have enough money. In any other country in the region, a wealthy person would be able to send the team and all of its staff there on a private plane, put them up in a hotel, and bring them back. However, Iran does not have any money left, although it is one of the most important exporters of oil. The Iranian Rial has lost 50 percent of its value since last year. Inflation reached 36 percent in June while unemployment among young people has reached 28.3 percent. Iran has seen two straight years of negative economic growth. In other words, and I cite the august The Financial Times' description, the Iranian economy is "a disaster" after years of sanctions and blockade. President Rohani is aware of this, and has stated that the economy is his priority. In his first speech as president, he called on the outside world to engage in dialogue and deal with Iran with respect if he is to achieve results. However, I was not optimistic. It seems like the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is pessimistic about the response by the west; he said the other side was speaking with the wrong language. Rohani is definitely a moderate and the United States administration welcomed his election victory. The White House said that the Iranian people made the entire world listen, and urged the Iranian government to move quickly to end the international community's anxiety about its nuclear program. This is patently false. The international community is not anxious about Iran's nuclear program. Even if it were a military program, it cannot threaten the United States or any nuclear country, in the east or the west. The White House was talking about Israel's anxiety, without saying so; Israel is certainly not "the international community," but an international rogue state. It has a huge nuclear arsenal that threatens those near and far, and wants to prevent anyone in the region except for itself from having nuclear weapons, so that it can continue to blackmail everyone. Congress was "very positive" in imposing additional sanctions on Iran as Rohani took office. For the one thousandth time, I call on Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and perhaps Morocco and Algeria, to declare their determination to begin military nuclear programs, so that they do not face the hammer of Israel and the anvil of Iran. They should do this in order to force the outside world to try and make the entire Middle East a WMD-free zone. There is also the overlooking, possibly deliberately, of the stance by the US and many western countries on Rohani's election. They believe that a victory by a moderate president, after the hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, means a solution to the crisis over Iran's nuclear program. I do not believe that western countries believe themselves, as they base their expectations on the future of relations with Iran. The entire nuclear program is under Khamenei, who has the last word on everything, including foreign policy. This means that Minister Mohammad Jawad Zarif might be a reformist and an expert on US policy, since he served there as ambassador to the United Nations in 2003-2007. However, in the end, he will be unable to leave behind the directives of the Supreme Leader, who approves the appointment of every minister. Israel knows this, and it has begun its campaign of incitement against Iran. I do not think it unlikely that it will try to drag the US into a military confrontation. Rohani declared his support for Syria, and in response to a reporter's question on Quds Day, that there is an unhealed wound in the body of the Islamic world, caused by the occupation of holy lands in Palestine and Jerusalem. Israel falsely said that the new president showed his true colors and that he wanted to destroy Israel, whose name was not mentioned by Rohani; Israel has returned to incitement. The Israeli government was lying to itself if it believed that there are those in any Arab or Muslim country who want to deal with it. It is hated around the world, and especially in our countries, because of its occupation and crimes, which actually exist. Iran's military nuclear program, on the other hand, is merely hypothetical, and it is justified by Israel's nuclear arsenal. The Arabs need to wake up, to see the kind of danger that truly awaits them. [email protected]
