WATCHING IRAN AND DRAWING CONCLUSIONS

Issue 7, Summer 2011

Human Rights in Iran: Nuclear Threat, Incitement to Genocide, State-Sanctioned Terrorism and Violations of Rights of Iranian Citizens [February 2011]

Irwin Cotler

Reprinted with Permission

Editor's Note: The following statement and discussion is reproduced from the Canadian House of Commons.

VOLUME 145

3rd SESSION

40th PARLIAMENT

OFFICIAL REPORT (HANSARD)

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

[Government Orders]

Human Rights Situation in Iran

Hon. Irwin Cotler (Mount Royal, Lib.):

Madam Chair, Ahmadinejad's Iran, and I use that term to distinguish it from the Iranian people who are themselves the targets of massive domestic repression, has emerged as a clear and present danger to international peace and security, to regional and Middle East stability and increasingly and alarmingly to its own people.

We are witnessing in Ahmadinejad's Iran the toxic convergence of four distinct yet interrelated threats: the nuclear threat; the genocidal incitement threat; the threat of state-sponsored terrorism; and the systematic and widespread violations of the rights of the Iranian people.

Please click here for the full text of Irwin Cotler's statement and the discussion in the Canadian Parliament.

Source: Cotler, Irwin (February 16, 2011). House of Commons Debates. Official Report (Hansard). Human Rights Situation in Iran. Volume 145, Number 132, 3rd Session, 40th Parliament.

Iran's Neighbors are Scared and Want Action [December 2010]

Iran's Arab neighbors are almost unanimous in their insistence on sanctions. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, the foreign minister of the Emirates, demanded that the United States and its allies "have to decide how to stop Iran." Even the otherwise reserved Saudis are convinced that Iran plans to develop a nuclear weapon and was not about to be dissuaded.

In the end, the question that remains is: How great is the actual threat Iran poses for the rest of the world? The statements in the embassy documents show that all key players -- the United States, the Europeans, Israel, the Arabs and later Russia -- are convinced that Iran is expediting its nuclear program to use the technology militarily. However, there is no consensus on the question of whether Iran is capable of building the bomb, or whether it even intends to build it.

A New York Times report in November 2010 recalls that during a meeting in December 2008, with the commander of the United States Central Command, Gen. John P. Abizaid, military leaders from the United Arab Emirates 'all agreed with Abizaid that Iran’s new President Ahmadinejad seemed unbalanced, crazy even,' one cable reports. A few months later, the Emirates’ defense chief, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of Abu Dhabi, told General Abizaid that the United States needed to take action against Iran “this year or next.”

Sources:
Spiegel Staff (December 1, 2010). The secret alliance: Cables show Arab leaders fear a nuclear Iran. Part 3: The End of Patience. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,731877-3,00.html

Sanger, David E., Glanz, James and Becker, Jo (November 28, 2010). Around the world, distress over Iran. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/middleeast/29iran.html?pagewanted=1

Distress Over Iran Around the World, and Rip-Roaring Discussions Whether to Attack or Not, and Who [November 2010]

A New York Times story reviewing WikiLeaks dispatches about Iran noted that Israeli officials have been setting deadlines that Israel might attack Iran's nuclear facilities and extending them for years. "But six months later it was an Arab leader, the king of Bahrain, who provided the base for the American Fifth Fleet... telling the Americans that the Iranian nuclear program 'must be stopped... the danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it,' he said.

His plea was shared by many of America’s Arab allies, including the powerful King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who according to another cable repeatedly implored Washington to “cut off the head of the snake” while there was still time."

Cables obtained by WikiLeaks show a belief among many leaders that unless the current government in Tehran falls, Iran will have a bomb sooner or later. One of the cables, on February 12, 2010 tells of a lunch meeting in Paris between Herve' Morin, then the French defense minister, and then U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert M. Gates. The French Minister raised the topic of whether Israel could strike Iran without American support. Mr. Gates responded “that he didn’t know if they would be successful, but that Israel could carry out the operation.”

Crown Prince bin Zayed of Abu Dhabi put it in one cable: 'Any culture that is patient and focused enough to spend years working on a single carpet is capable of waiting years and even decades to achieve even greater goals.' His greatest worry, he said, 'is not how much we know about Iran, but how much we don’t.'"

Source: Sanger, David E., Glanz, James and Becker, Jo (November 28, 2010). Around the world, distress over Iran. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/middleeast/29iran.html?pagewanted=1

Tags: Human rights | Incitement to genocide | Iran | Nuclear weapons, destruction, and genocide

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WATCHING IRAN AND DRAWING CONCLUSIONS

Wednesday, February 16, 2011 [Government Orders]

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

[Government Orders]