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Press TV has interviewed Brian Becker, with the A.N.S.W.E.R Coalition in Washington, regarding the negotiations between Iran and six major world powers. 

- Why would world powers, particularly the US, want Iran to halt uranium enrichment when as a signatory to the IAEA, it is within their right, under article 4 of the NPT?

- It is fundamentally political. This whole process has been political. The United States’ broke relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran after 1979 and prior to that between 1953 and 1979, the US had in Tehran its own proxy government, the Shah, and during that time period, the US encouraged the development of nuclear energy program by Iran.

As long as the Iranian government was essentially a puppet or a client of the US government in this geo-strategically important part of the world and of course in a resource rich part of the world, they were perfectly happy with Iran having nuclear energy. The nuclear issue has become an issue of the last years because the United States has continued to do what it has done ever since Iran had an independent government which is to use economic sanctions and attempted economic isolation and military threats and other diplomatic pressure to destabilize the Iranian government because in the long run, what the US really wants is not anything other than what it used to have which is a government in Tehran which functions as a proxy.

In other words, it hopes to carry out a regime change in Iran over the long-term and economic sanctions that are destabilization tool and the nuclear issue was a convenient provocation or convenient pretext in order to do that. That is the long-term project.

Right now, if there is an agreement, there will still be very severe economic sanctions applied against Iran even though Iran is complying with the IAEA and the United States government as a signer of nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the other 4 members of the Security Council, they have an affirmative obligation under the NPA to begin their own nuclear disarmament but you do not really see that starting to happen.

- What is your reaction to Mr. Walsh’s comments there?

- We are working out of what is called conventional wisdom which is Iran is the bad guy; Iran has enriched uranium to 20 percent and thus constitutes a threat, an existential threat to the entire rest of the world while the United States and four or the other five members, in fact including Germany because of the NATO sharing plan, all have large numbers of nuclear weapons that unlike Iran, the United States keeps invading country after country in the Middle East, Iran has no record of initiating any war.

Iran became targeted for regime change and hostility because it has the people’s revolution that overthrew the old existing puppet dictatorship that the US, CIA imposed and what Mr. Walsh refuses to talk about is because he assumes that in this sort of framework of conventional wisdom is that there will be some relief to sanctions if Iran stops producing uranium or enriching uranium at 20 percent.

Well, the fact of the matter is and he knows it that there will still be economic sanctions on Iran even though Iran is complying with the international law. Iran will perhaps be given a little bit more leverage, some relief from sanctions but still economically devastating sanctions. What are the sanctions? They are attempting to use credit, finance, food, medicine as a tool of destabilization by powerful governments against more vulnerable governments.

If we really want to have a nuclear free Middle East, we could also start by saying let’s eliminate Israel’s 200 to 400 nuclear weapons which it developed in cooperation with France but this is never discussed as if those weapons are not an existential threat to the people in the Middle East. The injustice of these negotiations are not being discussed by Mr. Walsh because apparently he agrees with the framework that if Iran has nuclear energy, then it is an existential threat but if American allies have nuclear programs including nuclear weapons or if the US itself or the Security Council plus Germany have nuclear weapons, then it is not a threat to the world community. How does he explain this distinction? Why is Iran such a danger when the others can have these nuclear weapons?

- What do you think of the comments made by Mr. Walsh?

- Let me ask you a question. I am letting you to speak but you are speaking for a long time; let me just ask you. Why would Iran be negotiating if the United States and the other side did not have legitimate claims? That is kind of the implication of your question.

The answer to the question is this: Iran lives in a world where the dominant part of the global economy includes the power centers, the economic power centers of Washington, of the United States, of France, of England, of the other Western countries, it has had imposed sanctions that it is unable to sell oil; it has had its bank assets frozen; other countries cannot do trade with it.

Under these circumstances, under the circumstances of extreme pressure by countries that are fundamentally hostile to Iran and have been since it had a revolution in 1979, Iran has come to a negotiating table. There are carrots and sticks on both sides; there are carrots and sticks on the part of the Western side which is saying to Iran you must do this, this and this in order to have some economic relief from economic sanctions we can impose on you. The powerful countries, including the United States, including England and France, the colonizers of the Middle East, they are so strong that no one can impose sanctions on them, no matter what laws they violate, no matter what countries they illegally invade or occupy, no matter when they use nuclear weapons and of course the United States is the only government to have ever used nuclear weapons, no matter what they do because they are part of the powerful, they do not get punished with economic sanctions.

In other words, sanctions and the sanctions regime is not really about nuclear weapons; it is about the power relationships in the world. The United States knows it; Israel has nuclear weapons; it knows that Pakistan has nuclear weapons. They know all about the nuclear plants; they also know that Iran has not initiated any war with a neighboring country but that is not why they are doing this. They are doing it because they want to undermine Iran long-term through the mechanism of economic destabilization and weakening the country generally.

- Let’s talk about the political side of this which you have stated even though the spokesperson for Catherine Ashton has said that there is political advisors that are actually being consulted on this and I would like to come in on Israel and I would like to get your reaction on both Israel and Saudi Arabia which at this point, a rift has occurred between these two and the United States. How far are they going to go to try to make sure that this deal does not go through?

- The Israeli government led by Netanyahu is freaking out purportedly and it is insisting that any deal is a bad deal. Of course for Israel again I do not believe that they think that the Iranian government poses an existential threat; I think they of course having nuclear weapons of their own hundreds of them realized that that is not quite the issue but I think Israel has a different political problem.

Of course Netanyahu has an internal domestic political problem, so he wants to change the subject and focus on the Iranian bogeyman but more importantly for Iran is that in the long-term, if there is any lessening of tension and this is the Israelis’ big fear, if there is any lessening of tensions between the historic enemies that the United States has identified as an enemy in this case, Iran for instance, if there is any easing of tensions so that there is a possibility of peace in the Middle East, that means Israel’s role is less important to the United States and it in fact can become an abrasive part of the equation.

In other words, Israel gets 4 billion dollars a year; it is the largest recipient of the US in military foreign aid of any country, constantly having war or the danger of war means that it is very convenient for the United States to have a proxy force that has a very big and powerful army that can act as an agent for Western powers and particularly for the United States.

Israel starts to drop out of the equation; that is what the Israeli government fears if there is actually any sort of rapprochement or détente or lessening of tensions and so that is why the Israelis are against this. Back home, Obama’s critiques in Washington are the people who are the permanent military war hawks who always are afraid of any outbreak of peace because they either cannot assert that Obama is weak or because it lessens their connection with the military industrial complex which knows that wars is a good business; military tensions are good business, the sense of constant danger is good business. So any outbreak of peace anywhere or even the sense that there is a lessening of tensions is considered bad politics and bad business for them.

I think Iran is very strong; I think they are very composed; I think they know what they are doing. But what I am trying to point out is the hypocrisy and double standard whereby nuclear powers and those who have invaded and occupied other countries unlike Iran are treating Iran as the rogue nation here when in fact Iran has conformed to international standards and international law when it comes to developing a peaceful nuclear energy program.