This is my fate they are talking about
Nuclear weapons and the Iranian people
June 27, 2004
iranian.com
In his latest report, Seymor Hersh of the New Yorker ["Plan
B"] suggests the strong possibility of either an American
or Israeli attack
on Iran's
nuclear facilities. Both CIA and Israeli intelligence officials,
Hersh writes, have little doubt that Iran is secretly developing
nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, there has only been one voice coming
out of Iran and it only belongs to those who have already decided
to develop
nukes. But the key question that can really affect what the
world would
take into account in respect to its approach to this issue
is missing: What does Iranian public think of achieving nuclear
weaponry?
Depending on how you ask this question, Iranians inside or outside
Iran may answer in different ways. True that the Shah of Iran had
the same ambitious plans and people have been generally supporting
the idea of a strong and technologically advanced military --
it may embody the old spirit of the Great Persian Empire, as Joe
Katzman
once suggested. However, the answer to a yes-or-no question on
having nuclear weapons, can not represent the real attitude of
Iranians towards it.
The right question, which has rarely been asked [Aug
2003 poll],
is that whether Iranian people would like nuclear weapons in the
hands
of hard-line
Revolutionary Guards who have recently shown their great appetite
to control every aspect of the political power in Iran. (Last
month they aggressively shut down the International Airport on
the same
day it was opened, and they captured the British sailors and
paraded them blindfolded in front of their TV station, Al-Alam,
last week.)
Whereas the National Security Council has effectively prevented
Iranian media from any form of debate, Iranian expatriates all
around the world have failed to discuss the issue, themselves.
Thus the world would not be wrong to take this silence as a sign
of the nation's satisfaction with the direction the Iranian regime
is going -- or in fact, rushing.
 The entire world is participating in the debate about the fate
of Iranian nukes and the only voice missing is in fact the most
important one: What Iranian people think about it. This is
where we, as Iranian expatriates, should quickly and aggressively
take
action.
Author
Hossein Derakhshan, aka hoder,
is a blogger [i.Hoder.com], journalist
and multimedia developer who emigrated to Canada in 2000. He lives
in Toronto.
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