> In an article written by Franz Schurmann*, the current political
> situation is compared with that of the Nixon era (when Nixon ordered
> Kissinger to fly to Beijing, which was the beginning of a relationship
> between US and China under chairman Mao Zedong, and the end of Vietnam
> War which resulted in the revival of an ailing American Economy) to get
> the Bush administration to repeat history to help get the leaders moving
>
> on the come-to-terms path by ending the silence on Rafsanjani's offer
> for a referendum in Iran on relations with the United States.
> Unfortunately, the situation is not the same and obviously the result
> will not be the same either. Comparing Chairman Mao Zedong, who had the
>
> support of the majority of Chinese behind him at that time, with a lame
> duck like Rafsanjani who has no support among Iranians, is a big
> mistake. The people of Iran see Rafsanjani as one of the main reason
> for the Iran-Iraq War being dragged on which resulted in more than a
> millions deaths, poverty and lack of basic human rights.
> The Islamic Republic of Iran might be one of the sponsors of terrorism
> in the world, but it is not the only or main one. For a moment, imagine
>
> that the US has the best relations with Iran, will the situation with
> terrorism disappear? Didn't we have the best relations with Saudi
> Arabia? Out of 19 terrorists who committed the September 11th attacks,
> a majority of them were Saudis.
> Yes, if our main concern is to create a situation to help Bush to be
> re-elected by sending Colin Powell to Tehran, it may be possible. But
> if our main concern is to minimize the threat of terrorism around the
> world which is one of the reasons of today's ailing US economy and chaos
>
> in Iraq and Afghanistan, we need to keep sending Powell to Israel and
> Palestine and to stop supporting the corrupted rulers of Middle Eastern
> countries that have some of the world's richest oil fields but some of
> the poorest citizens who lack basic necessities for living.
> The main root of terrorism around the world is caused by this poverty
> and the dismissal of the conflict between the Israeli hard-liners and
> the Palestinian people.
> After September 11, there was hope that the world would focus on these
> issues, but not surprisingly, Israeli lobbyists brilliantly moved the
> Bush administration's attention from these issues to that of Islam.
> For many years the oppressed people of the world looked to communism as
> a weapon in their struggle against poverty and injustice around the
> world. With the collapse of communism and the loss of its charisma,
> these people began turning to Islam instead. The problem with the
> terrorism we are facing now is not the clash between Islam and western
> democracy or that those terrorists who committed the biggest crime of
> the century were "jealous" of western democracy (as what the US
> administration has stated several times). It was because of years of
> humiliation of Arabs and the Middle East by blindly supporting the
> aggression of Israeli rightist and corrupted leaders of the Arab
> countries. There was momentum for change with respect to the
> Irsraeli-Palestinian conflict, but after several visits between Ariel
> Sharon and US officials, the US gave the Israeli government the green
> light to pursue a systematic elimination of "palestinian radicals" while
>
> the US was busy searching between the couch cushions for Osama bin Laden
>
> and now Saddam Houssein. As a result, the humiliation of the Arab
> people has been escalated to an even higher level after the war with
> Iraq.
> Unfortunately instead of learning the lessons of history the right way,
> some of us like Schurmann are attempting to repeat the mistakes that the
>
> US administrations have made for years by supporting the most corrupted
> criminal leaders like Saddam Houssein, and now by negotiating with
> un-elected and unpopular leaders Rafsanjani and Khamenei.
> It is interesting, and at the same time very sad, that it's so easy for
> most of our politicians to forget or ignore the most important element:
> people's right, in their scenarios and calculations.
> The key to Mideast stability depends on how we address the rights of
> Palestinian people.
>
> Shahbaz Taheri
> Pezhvak of Persia
> 5/27/03