U.S., Britain plot ‘regime change’ in Iran

Iran’s Foreign Ministry announced on Oct. 12 that the government was “ready to resume unconditional negotiations with all member states of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), including the three European countries, to strengthen cooperation and assure Iran’s right to nuclear development.”

The IAEA’s chief, Mohammed ElBaradei, has been urging the U.S. and Europe not to seek confrontation with Iran. His appeal is most likely based on the recognition that Iran has not in fact violated the words or the spirit of the articles stipulated in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and therefore does not deserve to be referred to the UN Security Council for economic sanctions.

Also, should Iran’s national interest or stability be jeopardized, no doubt the government of the Islamic Republic would follow the path taken by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and withdraw from the IAEA altogether. Such an outcome would certainly prevent the IAEA from carrying out any inspections or even monitoring of future research, development and operations of Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Negotiations that began almost a year ago between Iran and the three major European imperialist powers—Britain, Germany and France—were based on the understanding that Iran voluntarily, and solely for the sake of confidence-building, would temporarily suspend its process of nuclear enrichment and that, in return, the trio would come up with a workable plan to enable Iran to self-reliantly operate its own nuclear power reactors.

Iran has stated clearly throughout the negotiations that, according to Article 4 of the NPT, it has the right to produce its own nuclear fuel and no country or international agency should force it to be dependent on foreign sources. Should Iran give up its right to the full cycle of nuclear fuel production, it could be blackmailed and forced into a condition of dependency and submission by those powers that have a monopoly on the nuclear enrichment process.

Iran charges Britain
is behind bombings

On Oct. 15, two bombs concealed in garbage bins in a shopping center in the southern city of Ahwaz exploded, killing four and wounding 75, according to Iran ian television. The bombing took place at 5 p.m., when people were busy shopping for food to end their fasting during the holy month of Ramadan. This was the second set of bombings this year. The apparent objective of these insidious acts was to terrorize the people by inflicting a high rate of casualties and set in motion dissatisfaction with the government in Tehran.

On Sept. 27, the Fars News Agency quoted an Iraqi security official from southern Iraq, Abu Mostafa, as saying that British forces have been directly training terrorists against Iran in order to create havoc, using advanced spying equipment. The news report added that intelligence agents from Israel and the U.S., plus operatives of the Mojahedin Khalq Organi zation (MKO), had joined the British intelligence teams.

Many believe that these shadowy groups have played an active and direct role in bombings in Basra, Iraq, that resulted in a military confrontation with the Shia militia known as the Mahdi Army led by Moqtada al-Sadr.

For more than two and a half years, occupying U.S. and British troops have been savagely devastating Iraq and ruthlessly slaughtering its people, but it is still not a safe place for them. The British troops are concentrated in Basra, Iraq, just across the border from the Iranian province of Khuzestan, whose capital city is Ahwaz.

Recently the Iraqi freedom fighters have intensified their determined struggle against the British colonial forces. Incapable of asserting their domination over the region, the invading/occupying armies exaggerate the roles of “foreign” fighters—of course, they don’t include themselves in this category—and blame the governments of neighboring countries, mainly Iran and Syria, for allegedly arming and giving technical assistance to the Iraqi resistance.

Such accusations serve a dual purpose. First, they are a fig leaf on the grim reality that the occupation is encountering an ever-increasing and powerful resistance by Iraqi nationalist forces. Second, they pave the way for the U.S. and Britain to train and arm groups of mercenaries on the Iraq-Iran border, with the purpose of sending them into Iran to carry out acts of terrorism against the civilian—and partly Arab—population in the city of Ahwaz.

This is not the first time that a U.S.-British coalition of forces has tried to use and exploit certain separatist elements within the Arab minority population in Ahwaz as a spearhead for generating disturbances, instability and chaos in Iran’s Khuzestan province. In June, right before Iran’s presidential election, a series of explosions went off in Ahwaz and Tehran, destroying buildings and killing people. In Ahwaz, eight were killed and more than 70 wounded, mostly women and children.

In reaction to the string of explosions in Ahwaz and Tehran, the Iranian authorities have charged the British forces in Basra, Iraq, with instigating, arming and deploying mercenaries of all stripes to carry out terrorist acts inside Iran.

Next: Britain’s history of divide
and conquer.