P2/6: Nuclear Confrontation (14/18: Iran & The West - S3/3)

http://www.alisanaei.com
In part three of this landmark series from Norma Percy and the team that made the multi-award winning documentaries The Death of Yugoslavia and Elusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs, contributors including Iran's President Khatami tell the inside story of the West's continuing nuclear confrontation with Iran. The film also shows a rare moment when they worked together.

US State Department insiders tell how, after 9/11, Iran played a key role in helping America to topple the Taliban in Afghanistan - only for President Bush to put Iran into his 'axis of evil' immediately afterwards. Jack Straw, then foreign secretary, and President Khatami describe how Iran offered to help the US and its allies in their war against Saddam Hussein - help that, given Iran's powerful contacts in Iraq and the West's subsequent difficulties there, might have made a crucial difference.

Jack Straw, his successor Margaret Beckett, and Joschka Fischer of Germany describe how they struggled to find a compromise between Iran and President Bush's hardliners over Iran's nuclear programme. John Sawers, currently our man at the UN, reveals an extraordinary secret deal that Iran proposed a few years later.

Broadcast on: BBC Two, 9:00pm Saturday 21st February 2009

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

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[aneesulmehdi]

THere is a difference  between "Death to America" and "Death to Americans"

[Reqrezentin]

Without Iran, the US wouldn't have gone into Afghanistan.

[originaltamil]

I still dont understand WHY Iran allowed America to NOT give back their money for weapons purchased but not delivered and help them defeat Saddam when THEY WERE BACKING HIM AGAINST IRAN...wtf is going on??????

[iridespinners]

@bhasinuscuscable bahahaha yes it is.. i blame the israeli/zionist lobby -_-

[carmonaPBC562]

bush was a mistake for the world

[TheZindarod]

@LazarusRemains Finally someone who is at least willing to think before passing judgment. We muslims do not blame the western people for the terror in the east, but the western governments. And the western people should not blame the muslim nation for the terror in the west but the muslim governments.

[LazarusRemains]

So, it is improper to regard the west as evil.

The west is no more evil than the east.

The real problem is this global rich elite who have no morality, and are exploiting the material desires of the masses to create destructive profits.

Religion is one alternative to consumerism, because religion teaches that material things do not lead to freedom.

Please remember, there are millions of others across the world who don't support consumerism; Christians, Buddhists, Hindus and atheists.

[LazarusRemains]

The world today is controlled by a business elite.

They did not seek this power, but the capitalist system naturally creates an elite.

They hold more power than the state, except in those countries where the state maintains control of the economy, such as Iran (and also the communist countries of the past).

State power is broken when the business elite bribes the state to repeal anti-capitalist laws.

Everyone in the world, irrespective of ethnicity or religion, faces this same problem.

[LazarusRemains]

@aneesulmehdi Americans hold their founding fathers in great esteem.

George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson hold similar respect in America as Ayatollah Khomeni does in Iran.

So how do you think an American will react to chants of death to his beloved revolutionary state?

Same as how Iranians feel when some ignorant Americans talk about Iran being an axis of evil.

The moral of the story is not that the west is evil, but that ignorance is the enemy of human freedom.

[Mandinko23]

the iranians are stupid why the hell work with the devil that betrayed you twice. George Bush betrayed them when they decided to show goodwill by releasing the hostages and america was supposed to unfroze their money on the bank, but didn't and now they gonna help those same bastards kill, murder, and destroy their MUSLIM brothers, no wonder God is punishing them.

[PrUnEJuIcEtHeThIrD]

@esiosan Dude, Iran didn't even HAVE to try and exploit anything. The US was ALREADY doing the dirty work for them on its own will, partly due to bad luck and partly due to dumb will (Bush). The US was going to invade Iraq and Afghanistan whether Iran supported it or not, and those were both two of Iran's greatest enemies in the region.

Basically, US foreign policy in the last decade was retarded. The US might've as well accepted any "gifts" coming their way from Iran.

[jessica5666]

Khatami's the most intelligent decent man than came out of this illegitimate regime.