When US journalists talk about what “the world” thinks of Iran’s nuclear program, it’s important to remember that they’re not usually talking about “the world”– just one very powerful part of it.
Here’s how Ray Suarez of the PBS NewsHour put it (10/16/13) during an interview with New York Times reporter Michael Gordon:
From the very beginning of this confrontation, Iran has insisted it is not seeking the means to make a nuclear weapon, that it is enriching radioactive materials in order to have electric power plants and medical uses.
The rest of the world has been saying, “If you need those things, we will get them for you and don’t want you to enrich.” Has Iran explained why it must retain the ability to enrich to the levels that you have been talking about?
If by “the rest of the world,” one means the US, Israel and the countries on the UN Security Council, then this could be correct.
But if by “the world” one means, well, most of the world, then the answer is a little different. As Noam Chomsky (FAIR Blog, 2/18/10) commented back in 2008 about a New York Times article that made the same false assertion:
To take another illustration of the depth of the imperial mentality, New York Times correspondent Elaine Sciolino writes that “Iran’s intransigence [about nuclear enrichment] appears to be defeating attempts by the rest of the world to curtail Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.” The rest of the world happens to exclude the large majority of the world: the Non-Aligned Movement, which forcefully endorses Iran’s right to enrich uranium, in accord with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). But they are not part of the world, since they do not reflexively accept US orders.
The Non-Aligned Movement–an organization representing 120 countries and more than half the world’s population–has consistently backed Iran’s right to enrich uranium for a civilian nuclear program (Antiwar.com, 8/31/12). And as Alice Slater (Commondreams, 8/28/12) wrote, it also backs the abolition of nuclear weapons–something elite media tend not to report on much. Maybe because they don’t count the Non-Aligned Movement as being part of “the world”–not an important part, anyway.
Black/White.
We are good, we can have them. They are bad, they can not have them.
How do we know this? We say so.
I never liked Ray Suarez and Gwen Ifill. They are both sell-outs of the nth degree. They lend their dark faces in the service of empire much like our Constitutional Liar President Obama.
The term “The rest of the world” is as valid as the term “Coalition of the Willing” which included such outstanding players in the international political arena such as: Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau who were on US government’s welfare program therefore cannot refuse!!
The Pravda ( sorry I meant the ruling elite press) bends the truth ever so grotesquely in order to fit the official narrative. But as long as the US people are in a drunken stupor (addictions galore) they would rather watch Dancing with the Stars than to educate themselves about what kind of atrocities their government is committing against the so-called Third World and now domestically.
And as with all empires in their sunset years, the chickens have come home to roost. Now the rape and plunder has turned inward: Stasi state, shredded Constitution, corporate bailout every decade, income regression, and soon to come the social safety net.
Our country is acting like a bully, plain and simple. We are an empire, no better than the past empires, protecting our right to ‘project’ our power to the rest of the world.
Iran is trying to build a bomb.If you are ok with that you really are not in this conversation.They have not fooled us or Israel or many other countries.If there is a country they have fooled that is not our problem.People who have an axe to grind with the US can bleat all they want.Throwing up smoke screens and screaming foul at the top of their lungs.It is of little consequence.We will not be deterred.We will not turn away -missing Irans slight of hand.So yell your lungs out.We are watching
Is there some way to ban bigots like Rehmat who use terms like “Jewish-controlled media”?
@michael e – Yes, I am okay with that, as are most others here, and we have expressed as much on several occasions.
@Michael Lubin – Rehmat is not a bigot. S/he speaks the truth. Take off your Zionist blinders, and you will see.
Simple question then.If they are not trying to build a bomb ,why are they retaining so much of the material thats only use- is in building a bomb?I say it again…Its ONLY USE!!!!Forget the thousands of bits of intel available to our security forces that point to this.In the end without this fissionable material -it is all theoretical.Iran will not give it up.
A man buys a book on how to build pipe bombs.Starts saving gun powder by the metric ton in his basement.Tells you not to worry that all is well.Your Ok with that too?The material Iran has ,has only one use.Only one.I will say it till it sinks in.Only one use…….A nuclear bomb.If you continue to be so gullible I have some land I would like to sell you.
I love people who say thing like Zionist….. or jewish controlled media.Almost like we slipped into a time machine and came out the other side in Germany 1937 with all those dopes.I just hope the day comes that people will stop using the Jews as a Scape goat, and move instead to the Hari krishna.God they bug me with those tambourines.
CIA report says they have not made the “final decision” to build a bomb.I would agree with that.So too do the Israelis.What they are doing is all the work needed to build on.At that point to bring the 2% fissionable material to the needed 98% would take about two weeks.Placement and construction of 5 or six thermonuclear weapons with that fissionable material is fairly quick.You are talking a couple of months at the out set.I would compare it to a broken down rifle sitting on the table.Deciding if they want to get some ammo and put this together.Without ammo the gun is a club.Iran should allow the removal of all fissionable material beyond the very limited needs of a country like Iran.Once that is done ,and once their reactors are monitored by the inspectors of the NIC to help keep track of ,and disposal of this material we will all sleep a bit better.
From the beginning, the Ayatollah regime has broken every international rule and flouted every norm. It has seized embassies, targeted diplomats and sent its own children through mine fields. It hangs gays and stones women. It has violated every Security Council resolution calling them to stop enrichment. It supports Assad’s brutal slaughter of the Syrian people. Iran is the world’s foremost sponsor of terror. It sponsors Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and terrorists throughout the Middle East, Africa, and South America. Iran’s proxies have dispatched hundreds of suicide bombers, planted thousands of roadside bombs, and fired over twenty thousand missiles at civilians. Iranian terror tried to kill or actually killed innocent civilians in Buenos Aires, Beirut, Berlin, France, Switzerland, Thailand, Georgia, India, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Nepal, Azerbaijan, Kenya, Nigeria, Greece, Turkey, South Africa, Canada and many others (at least 24 countries in five continents in the last three years alone). Through terror from the skies and terror on the ground, Iran is responsible for the murder of hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans. In 1983, Iran’s proxy Hezbollah blew up the Marine barracks in Lebanon, killing 240 American servicemen. In the last decade, it’s been responsible for murdering and maiming American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. Iran accuses the American government of orchestrating 9/11, and it denies the Holocaust. Iran brazenly calls for Israel’s destruction, and they work for its destruction – each day, every day. They have ambitions for regional and global domination in order to expand the Islamic revolution, as their own constitution proclaims. This is how Iran behaves today, without nuclear weapons. Think of how they will behave tomorrow, with nuclear weapons. Iran will be even more reckless and far more dangerous. Responsible leaders should not bet the security of their countries on the belief that the world’s most dangerous regime won’t use the world’s most dangerous weapons. This theocratic dictatorial regime must not have nuclear weapons.
Free spirit the national security estimate is they will have nuke capable materials in 2013.Um thats now.And your joke that we should get rid of our nukes before we ask a mad man to give up his- is idiocy.Classic twist to those who hate this country.We have them as a counterbalance to other massive arsanals.It has kept the peace since 1945.But proliferation to countries like north Korea and iran who often threaten their neighbors is not something to be flippant about.Iy is something to be avoided at all cost.Nukes in the hands of mad men.In this case religious fanatics who want to bring on the return of the twelfth imam with the destruction of the world.Yeah good call genius.
Irans new defense minister was responsible for the marine barracks bombing.He formed hezbollah .This should give us pause and re-afiem exactly who it is we are dealing with
@michael e – When I said “I am okay with that,” I was referring to Iran building a nuclear bomb. There’s no reason they shouldn’t have one, when WE have so many; when Israel has so many; when several other nations have them.
What you fail to grasp (because you’ve been irrationally, yet successfully, fear-mongered by the MSM) is Iran would only use nuclear weapons as a deterrent to an attack by Western powers. Having the capability to fight back, to retaliate against an attack, is a good thing, as it keeps the imperialistic powers (yes, us) at bay.
Peter Hart questions the statement,
>The rest of the world has been saying, “If you need those things, we will get them for you and don’t want you to enrich.” <
He says, "If by "the world" one means, well, most of the world, then the answer is a little different."
Hart is dead wrong. The Non Proliferation Treaty's central premise is, that in exchange for access to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, members limit their right to enrich and acquire fissile material and accept IAEA discipline on this matter.
Moreover, most of the world, 188 nations have agreed to this and have joined the NPT. Only four UN members have never joined the NPT, and of those, only Pakistan and South Sudan are not opposed to Iran's nuclear quest.
In short, it is not a matter of Israel and the US opposing Iran's claim to the unrestricted right to enrich. Most of the world (including Russia and China who have joined 7 UN resolutions sanctioning Iran) do too. Peter Hard could not be more unfair, and the NewsHour's could not have been more accurate.