 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. We have with us today Professor Ijaz Ahmad and we will discuss the situation that is emerging between Iran and the United States on the nuclear issue and on the states of horrors. Ijaz, good to have you with us. Thank you very much. Good to be back. Iran and United States seem to be now locked in the coalition course. What the United States is asking is really that Iran gives up its nuclear capability which is actually allowed to it under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. And Iran obviously cannot do that. Do you think there is any solution to what is emerging except a long-term standoff and possibly descending into a shooting war? My sense probably is that there is really no solution because what the Americans really want is a regime change. Underlying that is the... That is the real objective. They don't know how to break Iran. They have put such draconian sanctions in place that they hope to break the economy of Iran through those sanctions. And my sense actually is that sanctions of this kind never hurt a regime. In fact, the population then coalesces behind the regime on patriotic grounds and so on. It hurts the population as such. My sense is actually that if we were living in a lawful world, sanctions of this kind which are essentially genocidal in character, which have not been mandated by the United Nations Security Council or any such authority, would probably constitute an international crime. This would be in some sense an act of war. It is an act of war and genocidal intent. That's why I'm saying that it's probably a war crime if we were living in a lawful world which unfortunately we are not. So of course there is no solution. The question is, what are the possibilities right now? My sense is that President Obama, to simplify matters, President Obama wants to play two cards. On the one hand, the peace president who has ended the war in Iraq, who is winding up the war in Afghanistan, and a war president who is throttling this grand enemy, the great Satan of Iran. So that's how he is positioning himself in the forthcoming elections. And in the United States, unfortunately, although the elections are due in November, all the hype about the elections has already started some months ago and within a month or so it will be very much almost at this point of hysteria. So that's one sort of thing that is going on. The other thing is that we now know from the highest authorities and the retired chief of Mossad for instance, two retired chiefs of Mossad by now who have told us the facts that in 2010, the three chiefs of the three major intelligence services in Israel backed by the head of the Israeli Armed Forces prevented Netanyahu and Barak from attacking Iran. So the intent to attack Iran is very great on the part of the political establishment in Israel. If anyone inside Israel is preventing them, if the intelligence agencies and perhaps elements in the Armed Forces, it's perfectly possible. And I think that is where the real danger comes. It's perfectly possible that in this election year, Israel might in fact carry out the kind of strikes that it says it has been preparing for and force the hands of the U.S. The problem in the U.S., my sense is actual problem aside from this electioneering is that there seems to be a deep dissension. The military seems to be very serious military analysts, American military analysts, Robert Sayles and others have said that they know that the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States actually went and complained to Obama that he was not leaning on Netanyahu strong enough that he should understand that the U.S. military is dead set against it. That is why the defense secretary, Panetta, has gone and record saying that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon. What we do know also from these same people, the military analysts, is that there has actually been going on the exercises just in case the Israel attacks, how is the United States going to support Israel in that case? And how is it going to defend itself? Because the retaliation will come against the U.S. installations in the Gulf Council countries. So they are doing that. And by the way, it is also reported very reliably that the two most senior generals have briefed Obama saying that in case of an Israeli attack, the U.S. will need 45 to 90 days to scramble up all its forces to be able to retaliate against Iranian actions. So the army on the one hand really just does not want to do it. On the other hand, it is being ordered to make all kinds of preparations. I won't go into further details, but there is an enormous body of information showing how serious weaponry has been prepositioned by the United States in the region. It is said that, just to give you one example, that Diego Garcia now has about 300 of the most advanced bunker buster weapons that the United States has in its arsenal to go in Iran everywhere. You know, just when I look at this whole scenario, one part of it is militarily what can happen. That's really if it goes into a shooting war. The other part of it is if they don't go into war, there must be a mechanism by which they can not fight. Now what I see currently is the United States has absolutely no avenue except to lock Iran down as they are doing to sanctions and other things, till Iran retaliates in some form or the other which will then break out into open war. Now this is really what the United States is doing. So even if the intent is not to get into a shooting war, I do not see there is any other way that it can be resolved and therefore over a period of time it can only result in finally some small act here or there or Israel as you said doing something, forcing the hands which it gets into war. You see Americans have actually trapped themselves into their own rhetoric. These sanctions, for example. And it is interesting that the United States didn't want it initially. Well, the United States didn't want it initially. In fact, the Obama administration briefed the Reuters on 9th November that under no circumstances will the United States target the Iranian central bank because that will upset the oil prices and so on and so forth. November that is and the next thing you know a unanimous resolution in the U.S. Senate asking precisely or mandating precisely those that targeting and then the House of Representatives and so on. So again you have the U.S. administration divided over some basic things of that kind. Now you see the thing is that Russia, China, Japan, we are told India, I don't know, but certainly major countries, certainly all of Latin America and so on are not going to abide by these sanctions. You see the point is even if they don't abide by the sanctions, the threat of sanctions against them and this is what happened to India will mean that the getting Iranian oil is okay but you can't pay for it because the state bank of India had problems and now we have gone to Turkish bank and I was going to come to that. Now we are approaching a Russian bank, now this is the risk that they carry. Now the thing is that between Japan and Russia I think a mechanism will be found. What are you going to do? You are going to put sanctions on Japanese banks whom you owe enormous amounts of money and then probate the very things that the Americans are doing has already pushed up petroleum prices. If petroleum prices go up, further keep going up. Even if Iran is selling less and less, all revenues are going to rise. But you know that brings up the next issue really that if Iran has to cut back due to sanctions on the amount of oil it can sell, that gap in oil production today cannot be met by others. Saudi Arabia has already grabbed up its production and you are going to see therefore a demand driven oil price rise. You don't even have to deal with real quantities. This is speculation, speculative market. If there is such military and political uncertainty, prices will keep going up just on that. In a year which is really supposedly the key year for economic recovery, either we go into a double-dip recession or the global economy recovers, we already have an economic crisis of the sovereign debt crisis in Europe. On top of that, isn't this really playing with the entire globe's future? Absolutely. Yes, of course. But again, the asymmetrical behavior, Americans are now making a huge big thing about this. Iran wanted to enrich uranium up to 19.50 percent. Which is for the research, medical research? For medical research, from its 78,000 Iranian patients of cancer benefit. But they can't do it. This is what I mean by genocidal intent behind these sanctions and so forth. Now, Iranis have said quite openly that all you have to do is to give us this much and we won't. If you want us not to do it. Just give us this. You know, there is an association of nuclear scientists or something in the United States. The head of it has actually written a letter to Obama saying that if you could give them 50 kilograms of it as a humanitarian gesture, it will go very well with the Iranian population and de-escalate all of this nonsense and they will stop doing it. You know? So, the idea that you could provoke Iran to do something irrational and then that you could use that, that is not going to happen. Another assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist has come about. Since January 2010, there have been about six such assassinations of imminent ones. There have been explosions all over. So, there's actually a war going on, a various kinds of cyber war, assassinations, explosions. Yes, violations of Iranian airspace. So, acts of war are going on, extremely provocative, extremely provocative. You keep assassinating some of their key scientists. Do they have the right to retaliate by assassinating anybody? They have threatened that if you really impose such draconian sanctions, we will block the states of hormones. I don't think so. I think they will have to be an actual act of war for them to do it because that's the sort of thing that the Americans are really looking for as an excuse to go in. One of the reasons we are locked down into this kind of a crisis or really not being able to get out of this is that we sent this whole damn thing from IAEA to the United Nations Security Council, where now even the United States cannot get it out. Now, that would not have happened if India had not voted in IAEA they didn't. Subsequently though, country which is going to be heard the most is probably likely to be India because 70% of oil comes from the states of Hormuz. 11% of India's oil comes from Iran today. So in case of war, the country which is going to be most affected is actually India. Don't you think that India should now, given the fact that this played a role of this kind in the past, at least now come back to the path of sanity and assert like Brazil and Turkey did earlier. That we need to settle this peacefully. We have the maximum at stake. It should actually refuse to abide by the sanctions and defy the United States and say, all right, you put sanctions against our banks and we'll see what we can do. And also rally independent international opinion now on this issue. Because unless India does it, the European Union is not going to do it. No, no, not European Union. The French Foreign Ministry has just issued a statement saying that the very existence of missile technology in Iran is a threat to peace. The very existence of missile technology. Iran is not supposed to have any technology. All the rest of the world can have it. Iran is simply not a sovereign country. This is France. Unless you, India goes back into constructing or strengthening or whatever, a coalition of forces across the three continents, Asia, Africa and Latin America, to take initiatives of the kind that you were referring to, that Brazil and Turkey did in the past, we could, in fact, initiate an initiative with South Africa, Brazil, Russia and China, whatever. Initiated one saying you can't do this sort of thing, this kind of sanctions, which hurt the global economy, the national economy of all our countries, as well as global economy at this point. You just can't do this kind of sanctions. Or that these sanctions can only have validity. We will observe by them only the Security Council, in fact, imposes them. You know, we have come to a peculiar situation in the world today. Nothing can happen on climate change, United States domestic policy. Nothing can happen in Iran, United States domestic policies. We seem to be still held hostage on every major international issue today, hostage to the domestic politics of the United States. And if I may say so, the lunatic right, the outright fringe of the Republican Party. Absolutely, which is what is driving American domestic policy. And I actually do not see what the Kuwait pro-core has been. It's not as if, you know, by taking this position on Iran, you got such and such. It is only the Americans saying if you don't do it, we'll punish you. You unilaterally withdraw from that pipeline, what did you get out of it? A promise that someday you might get some pipeline through Pakistan, through Pakistan and Turkmenistan or something. In Afghanistan, they're changing their scenarios. Where are we in this? So there's no Kuwait pro-core to this subservience. Yeah, I think there we have been held hostage. The Indian political situation has been held hostage to Manmohan Singh's desire for a nuclear deal. And for that, he's willing to forego everything including the vital oil needs of the country. Okay, all right, okay, if that is the case, you got that nuclear deal. Now, your economy is going to get throttled if this war-like situation in the states of home develops. Are you now going to take an initiative on any of that? That thing is gone, okay. Good question to ask the Prime Minister. Two years later, can we do something about to save our economy? Thank you, Ajaz. I think Iran is going to be on the horizon the way it's going for quite some time. And we'll return to this again in issue, gain and news click. Thank you.