IN MY recent discussion with Gen (Rtd) Ahmed Fakhr, a distinguished Egyptian military strategist and adviser to the Prime Minister of Egypt, he revealed his thoughts on the conflict in the Middle East.
He is also the head of the National Centre for Middle East Studies and chairman of the International Centre for Future and Strategic Studies in Cairo.
I asked him if the United States would attack Iran? He replied saying there would be no war in Iran due to several factors. The United States will not repeat its mistake after the invasion of Iraq.
The United States knows that Iranians are not Arabs. Iran has a systematic, well equipped and disciplined military unlike the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam�s regime in Iraq.
He said that Iran only had nuclear rector technology for civilian (peaceful) purposes.
However, he asserts that Iran has the resources and capability to produce nuclear weapons. These resources (enriched uranium) are imported from Korea and Russia.
This assertion is important because other countries also have experts and the ‘capability’ to produce nuclear based weapons. Such circumstances are well known and difficult to monitor and block.
It is unacceptable to punish any country just because it has expressed the desire to produce nuclear weapons.
Therefore the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) plays a crucial role in finding the best solutions to end tensions.
The main role of the IAEA is to mediate and provide an acceptable solution, or a compromise, between Iran, the United States and the European Union (EU).
In reality, Iran, United States and the EU will not reach any compromise. The United States and the EU have their own agenda as does Iran.
What the IAEA is able to do is to mediate and facilitate those respective agenda and goals according to a �controlled diplomacy through the empowerment of the international community, and not the United States and its coalitions alone.
Can the IAEA prevent the lead up to conflict between Iran and the Great Powers?
The IAEA had failed to prevent war in Iraq and struggles to end the India-Pakistan and North Korea nuclear tensions. The Bush administration has influenced the IAEA to be biased in favour of the United States and its coalition partners in their plan to invade Iraq.
Former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix was replaced following interference from the White House when he opposed the move to link Iraq with weapon of mass destruction.
The question now is can IAEA director-general Mohamed ElBaradei end the Iran-US nuclear standoff? Or will he face the same fate as his predecessor? Will he succumb to the dictates of the great power by falsifying documents which accuse Iran of possessing and producing nuclear weapons?
Strategically, there is no substantial evidence showing the need for Iran to possess nuclear weapons. The cost of embarking on nuclear weapons technology is enormously expensive for a country like Iran. And the world knows that Israel possesses more than 200 nuclear warheads illegally.
It is impossible for Iran as well as the rest of the Arab world to produce their own nuclear arsenal to counter Israel’s.
Furthermore, the Arab countries which emulate and are indebted to the great powers will not be able to pursue such an unthinkable agenda.
The international coverage on the issue has many drawbacks and misleads the international community with regard to the real situation.
The international community has been misled into believing that Iran and Muslims are barbaric, ignorant terrorists.
The prolonged conflict in Iran is a result of espionage efforts by the Great Powers, asserted Gen Ahmed Fakhr. It is a �sleeping espionage to collect data and weaken an Islamic state like Iran.
London School of Economics professor Mary Kaldor, during a BBC interview, said there are double standards in dealing with the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
According to her, the idea of freedom and democratisation as propagated in the Middle East by the United States contradicts the very basic nature of these principles.
The United States does not permit Iran to possess nuclear weapons but at the same time it possesses the biggest nuclear arsenal in the world and supplies them to Israel.
In the State of the Union address, Bush said Iran should not be permitted to defy the world with its nuclear plans.
Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, those (US) whose arms are stained up to their elbows with the blood of other nations are now accusing us of violating human rights and freedom.
Today, Iran has been referred to the Security Council and possible economic sanctions may be imposed very soon.
Several ambassadors to the IAEA have wrongly associated Iran with Iraq�s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction.
The issue of human rights is rightly presented here as the right to development, self-determination, free-health and so on and these rights are being abused by the great powers.
If the superpowers are sincere in dealing with Iran, why refer it to the Security Council as it will only result in implementation of an “isolation policy” of Iran.
Iran has announced that it will stop any external inspection of its nuclear programme in the future.
The main objective of the issues is not addressed at all, and things become more complicated. Is there any hidden agenda to weaken the current Iranian regime and punish innocent citizens?