Colonial West Humiliating Iran :Blix

Colonial West Humiliating Iran :Blix
IslamOnline.net & News Agencies

"People have their own pride whether you like them or don't," Blix said. WASHINGTON — The West's neo-colonial approach in dealing with Iran is humiliating and unfruitful and Tehran should be given reasonable incentives to halt its nuclear program, international nuclear expert Hans Blix has said.
"One feature, which is now key and peculiarly not very much debated ... is the demand -- first of the Europeans and then of the US and also of the (UN) Security Council -- that first Iran must suspend enrichment," the former UN weapons inspector was quoted as saying by Agence France Presse (AFP).
"This is, in a way, like telling a child, 'now first you behave and thereafter you'll be given your rewards'. And this I think is humiliating," he told a conference on international security in Washington on Monday, February 26.
Blix said Tehran feared for its safety, with US troops waging wars in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan.
He warned that the West's insolence would only lead to more intransigence.
"Why did the Iraqis behave as they did in the 1990s (and) send away the UNSCOM inspectors and close the door to them?" Blix asked, referring to the UN Special Commission mandated to inspect Iraqi weapons after the 1991 Gulf War.
"Yet I can see that the humiliation, the fury, was such that they said, 'To hell with it'," added the head of UNSCOM.
"People have their own pride whether you like them or don't."
Six UN Security Council members have agreed on Monday on further moves to make Iran comply with demands to end its uranium enrichment.
In December, a UN resolution barred the transfer of technology and sensitive nuclear materials to Iran.
The US and its allies accuse Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, but Tehran refutes the charge insisting that its program is for peaceful civilian use.
Double-standards
Blix, currently the head of the Stockholm-based Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, maintained that instead of military threats, Iran should be offered reasonable incentives.
''I don't think military threats are useful," he said.
"They will scare a number of people in Iran, yes. But at the same time, I think they are also very dangerous."
The US has been upping the ante against Tehran recently, restoring to the same aggressive rhetoric that preceded the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
US president George Bush has beefed up the US military presence in the Gulf to its highest level since the Iraq war.
Award-winning American investigative reporter Seymour Hersh has revealed that the Pentagon recently formed a special group to plan an attack against Iran that can be implemented, upon orders from the president, within 24 hours.
He believes the Bush administration is intent on striking Iran and would do that with or without the UN authorization as was the case with Iraq in 2003.
Blix contrasted the situation with the six-party negotiations on North Korea's nuclear program, during which Pyongyang was given a list of incentives.
He noted that in the case of Iran, the West has taken a completely different approach.
"We haven't heard anything about offers concerning guarantees for security in case they will go along with a renunciation of enrichment."
The international nuclear expert noted that the Europeans put a lot of carrots on the table without much American support.
"It's the United States that can deliver assurances about security. It's the US that can deliver recognition or normalization of relations.
"'The first incentive, I think, is to sit down with them in a direct talk rather than saying to them 'you do this, thereafter we will sit down at a table and tell you what you get for it," said Blix.
"That's getting away from a humiliating neo-colonial attitude to a more normal (one)."