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Contrary to popular perception in the West, Iran is not
radical, as it seems. The 1979 Islamic revolution did
occupy the US Embassy taking the US diplomatic
personnel hostage but it has to be seen in the context
of developments preceding the revolution. The US
supported Iranian King Phallavi who used his SAVAK as
means of to oppress his population. US President Jimmy
Carter’s visit to Iran and his statements supporting
Phallavi only angered the population that saw American
support for the despot regime while itself claiming to
be pro-freedom as hypocrisy.
Compared to Iran, Saudi Arabia claims to be an American ally
but many oil-rich Saudi sheikhs, members of the royal
family, actively fund terrorist groups masked as
religious endowments in Pakistan, Sudan, Libya, and
Syria. In the guise of propagating the stringent and
medieval Whhabbi Sunni model including a narrow
interpretation of Islam has spread terror not only to
the West, India, and Israel but also to Iran.
Therefore, through this prism, Iran is actually a
victim of terrorism as much as the US and India.
Iran holds the key to the resolution of conflict in Iraq.
It is in the interest of the US to start dialogue with
Iran to obtain their help and at the same time
understand Iranian worries about
nuclear fuel supply. |
