TEHRAN - Hossein Mousavian, a former Iranian nuclear negotiator and a Princeton University research scholar, says the Democrats and Republicans are unanimous in advancing their country’s interests but they differ greatly in strategies.
Mousavian says this is also true in Iran, noting there is no difference between principlists and reformists in protecting national interest.
“Many in Washington think that principlists are different from reformists and moderates in Iran. I believe that Democrats and Republicans in American and the two political factions in Iran have common ground in guarding their countries’ national interests but they have great differences in strategy and tactics for realizing the interests of their countries,” Mousavian said in an interview with the Etemad newspaper just a few days before the Americans will decide whether to reelect Donald Trump or his Democratic rival Joe Biden.
Mousavian also believes that Trump remains in the White House, his hawkish associates will try their best to wage a war between the United States and Iran.
On whether Democratic-Republican president will be better for Iran, Mousavian said this question has been raised in Iran every four years since the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution of Iran, and, of course, this time around, the nature of that question has become different.
Trump illegally and unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 nuclear agreement and slapped the harshest sanctions in history against Iran. This happened that fact that the nuclear pact, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was endorsed by the UN Security Council Resolution 2231.
Mousavian, who has been present in Iran’s political arena in the past decades and is familiar with the details of the nuclear dossier, says today the two rival political factions in Iran agree that the United States “have entered a full-fledged political, economic and security war with Iran.”
“The cult of personality that Trump has, coupled with his unpredictability on the one hand, and the power that his son-in-law Jared Kushner has at the White House with regard to adopting Washington’s Middle East policies and anti-Iran positions on the other, are among the major dangers of Trump’s continued presidency. If this situation continues [and Trump remains president], it could lead to a military confrontation. The highlights of the comments by Mousavian, who served as a nuclear negotiator from 2003-2005, are as follows:
During the first tenure of [President] Barack Obama, international sanctions were imposed on Iran by consensus for the first time. Iran refused to implement a resolution of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on the suspension of uranium enrichment, which resulted in Iran’s nuclear case being sent to the UN Security Council, which issued a resolution against Iran.
Again, Iran refused to implement the UN Security Council resolution, and the council issued yet another resolution, and this trend continued until the end of the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
At that time, resolutions were adopted against Iran at the UN Security Council not by the United States alone, but by Russia, China and Europe as well.
Moreover, Barack Obama was not as strict as Donald Trump when it came to the enforcement of sanctions abroad.
The toughest sanctions in Iran-U.S. relations were imposed during the Trump era.
The designation of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps as a terror group and putting sanctions on Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was among the unprecedented vicious moves by Trump in relations between the two countries.
Third, people who come to power in the two political factions of Iran and the U.S. are important and influential. Among U.S. Republicans are individuals such as John Bolton, who seeks to launch a military attack against Iran to make the country collapse. There are also people like Senator Rand Paul, who supports the JCPOA and engagement with Iran. It is important what type of personality and with what team will assume presidency in the U.S.
Of course, the same thing applies to Iran, but it is not as important as the U.S. because president is the number one official in the United States, but in Iran, the head of state is the Leader.
During the first tenure of President Obama, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and the special Middle East coordinator Dennis Ross were on the UN Security Council and they were very close to Zionists. In Tehran, too, then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was very radical during his first tenure. Under those circumstances, chances of reaching an agreement diminished. However, during the second term of Obama’s presidency, John Kerry was the secretary of state, and Robert Malley served at the U.S. National Security Council. They both had a more moderate position on Iran and the issue of Palestine. In Iran, Hassan Rouhani was the president, and Mohammad Javad Zarif was the foreign minister. So, ground was more prepared for reaching a deal.
The cult of personality that Trump has coupled with his unpredictability on the one hand, and the power that his son-in-law Jared Kushner has at the White House with regard to adopting Washington’s Middle East policies and anti-Iran positions on the other, are among the major dangers of Trump’s continued presidency. If this situation continues [and Trump remains president], it could lead to a military confrontation.
Today, both political factions in Iran and the international community accept that the U.S. has got engaged in a full-fledged political, economic, and security war with Iran. The U.S. military attack on the car carrying General Soleimani, Iran’s [retaliatory] military attack on the U.S. base [in Iraq], and Iran’s downing of a U.S. drone are among the practical signs of temporary clashes between the two countries, which have been unprecedented in the forty years of their relations.
Trump favors a deal, not war; however, the lobby comprising U.S. neoconservatives, Zionists, and Takfiri Arabs will keep pressuring Trump to drag him into the trap of war.
Their minimum achievement would be they will both ratchet up maximum pressure and at the same time block the conclusion of a possible deal with Iran.
“This comes as Biden really returns to the JCPOA without any preconditions, it will be a big deal!
Even if Biden becomes president, one should bear in mind that Israel’s interests have been the central plank of the United States’ West Asia policy over the past few decades, “and this policy will remain in place for now, whether Democrats are at the helm or Republicans.”
He added another point that will not change whether Trump or Biden becomes president is that “the U.S. seeks to change the ruling system in Iran while Iran seeks to expel the U.S. from the region.”
“It should be seen whether Trump will change or keep his evangelical-Zionist team. This cult are more catholic than pope and more extremist than Zionists who have taken the lead in the management of the U.S. in the Trump era. Personalities like Mike Pence, the vice president, and Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, follow this ideology.
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