'US, Israel backed Iran scientist killing'

An Iranian scholar and political analyst condemns the terrorist attack that killed Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, saying the attack was undoubtedly a US-Israeli coordinated assassination.

On Wednesday morning, an unknown motorcyclist attached a sticky bomb to Ahmadi Roshan's car near a college building of Allameh Tabatabaei University in northern Tehran.

Ahmadi Roshan was immediately killed as the result of the explosion, and his driver, who had sustained injures, passed away a few hours later in hospital.

Ahmadi Roshan was a chemical engineering graduate of Sharif University of Technology and served as the deputy director of marketing at Iran's Natanz nuclear facility.

Press TV has interviewed Mohammad Marandi, a professor at the University of Tehran, to discuss the terror attack. What follows is a transcription of the interview.

Press TV: The pattern of previous assassinations are very similar to this one, first the West condemning Iran for its nuclear program, then the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] report almost doing the same.

Military dimension is what they [have] said, and then you have the sanctions that occurred and then the assassinations. And most interestingly the IAEA inspectors recently had a meeting with Mr. Mostafa Ahmadi, and he is now been assassinated. What is your observation on this?

Marandi: Well, first I would like to express my condolences to the families of the two people who were murdered today.

The Western media dehumanizes Iran and Iranians so much that there is no more sense of outrage in the Western media and outrage is subdued among the Western population, because of the biased information being produced by American, British and European news outlets.

It is obvious that Western intelligence agencies are carrying these attacks out, or if the Israelis are carrying them out, it is with the knowledge of the Europeans and Americans. Because these agencies are very closely aligned to one another, they cooperate extensively, they exchange information.

So it is really impossible to accept the argument that the Americans or the Europeans do not know what is going on. What is basically happening is that, the IAEA is being discredited at all levels.

Because after all -as you pointed out- IAEA officials had met him earlier on, we have had -in the past-a lot of Iranian intelligence and information have been given to intelligence sources as well as terrorist organizations by this organization in body.

So it is very difficult for the Iranians to even cooperate with the IAEA when it is putting its own people at risk, and then again you also have the organization which is dominated by Western countries at all levels bureaucrats and the board itself.

And the head of the organization which, according to the WikiLeaks documents owes his job to Americans, is completely biased, it's reporting is biased.

So, basically what this does is it angers ordinary Iranians, if the West thinks that Iranians have any sympathy for their position when they try to strangle the Iranian economy, assassinate Iranian scientists, then they are deeply mistaken. And it also makes cooperation with Western regimes and the IAEA more difficult.

Press TV: Well, Let me talk about the IAEA, lets expand a little bit more about this report which Iran had lots of problems with, in particular listing scientists in its report.

And then you have this incident to occur. Basically, publishing the hit list of Iran's personnel related to Iran's civilian nuclear program. Tell us a little bit about that, whether Iran did have a legitimate concern, especially now that we see this incident to have occurred?

Marandi: Absolutely, the Iranians who have been hit, all of them have had their names given by the IAEA to third parties, but there is no- as I said- there is no outrage at all in the West about what is going on.

Just a couple of hours ago I was on the news program in a Western News Channel and they were telling me that the Fordo plant [uranium enrichment plant near Qom], that has just been made operational, is a bunker- the word bunker implies something military.

The only reason, it is clear that this is for producing nuclear weapons, and I said in response the only reason why it was made under a mountain is because the United States constantly threatens to bomb Iranian installations, so it is extraordinary how the victim is blamed.

Ordinary scientists are assassinated and murdered by intelligence organizations, Western intelligence organizations or the intelligence services aligned to the West. Yet they expect Iran to be more open in cooperating with the IAEA.

They expect the Iranians not to create nuclear installations underground, yet at the same time, they constantly threaten Iran with death and destruction and bombardment. It is extraordinary how Western countries and how the Western media treats Iran.

Press TV: Well, what about this accusation that has been leveled against the United States and Israel by Iran? I mean isn't it safe to say that the accusation of this covert war-it's not really a 'covert' war? Is it, professor Marandi?

I mean after all this public knowledge- you mentioned yourself- the US government is funding Central Intelligence Agency [CIA], along with the Joint Special Operations Command [JSOC], in operations against Iran. And we know from the Bush era, that was around 500 million dollars?

Marandi: It would even be more than that. These are the figures that we know of. It is again the Americans use the most sophisticated drones to fly over Iran- illegally.

The Afghani president -because it's done from Afghanistan- the Afghani president says that he wants Afghanistan to have nothing to do with this and the Americans right in response to the Afghani president, say that they will continue with these operations and in other words they have no regard for Afghani sovereignty or Iranian sovereignty.

So they carry out illegal acts, they carry out espionage, people are murdered in Tehran, who are involved in a nuclear program for which there is no evidence whatsoever that is has ever had any military aspect to it.

This recently the Russian deputy foreign minister, said on Russian Television that, we have analyzed all the material out there, there is no sign that Iran's nuclear program has ever been anything but peaceful.

And in fact just a few days ago I met a well-known American journalist Mr. Seymour Hersh and he was saying that American senior officials know without a doubt that Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons and the issue is Iranian sovereignty.

The issue is Iran's independence. So it's quite clear that the policies of the United States and its European partners are not really directed at Iran's nuclear program. It's directed at Iranian independence and sovereignty.

Press TV: Well, it's pretty curious as to why this would happen at this stage though Professor Marandi, when you get to that point you just made at the end. But first UN just announced days back that it had reached an agreement with the 5 permanent members of the Security Council and Germany to resume nuclear talks in Turkey. So why would this assassination take place at this point in time? What message is it sending?

Marandi: It's not just this. It's the embargo that is trying to be implemented against Iranian oil and the sanctions on the Iranian Central Bank by the Americans and the Europeans. This is- all of this is directed specifically at the Iranian public. In other words they want ordinary Iranians to suffer.

Initially in the past when the Americans and the Europeans imposed sanctions they were claiming that it was to hurt the Iranian government and not directed at ordinary people, although the WikiLeaks documents clearly show that this is not the case but now it's become quite evident that the objective is to make ordinary people suffer.

In fact the same is true in Syria. Recently there was a poll carried out by the Qataris that showed the majority of Syrians actually support Assad and this is a Qatari poll.

But the Americans and the Europeans imposed sanctions on Syria because they want ordinary people in Syria to suffer in order to dissuade them from supporting the government.

The same is true in Gaza, when Hamas was elected they elected the wrong people. So the Europeans and the Americans, the Israelis and the [ousted Egyptian dictator Hosni] Mubarak regime impose an embargo on Gaza to force the people of Gaza to move against their elected government.

This is basically a very Eurocentric, arrogant state of affairs and I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that the United States feels very much threatened by the fact that many of its allies in the region have either been overthrown or the regimes are unstable.

And they feel that they're losing the Middle East and this is a power grab by the United States by attacking all those countries that are in any way or form against American and European policies in the region.

Press TV: Of course we need to expand a little bit more about the US's efforts along with other Western countries in terms of actions against Iran.

I mean overall coordinated US and you mentioned Israel and their campaign of Cyber-terrorism along with US commercial sabotage, targeted assassinations such as this recent one in proxy wars against the Iranian government- but all have failed.

Do you think that these approaches in some form or another are going to backfire on the United States, on Israel and their allies?

Marandi: Definitely, when you assassinate ordinary Iranians on the streets of Tehran how do you expect- how do they expect people in Tehran and in Iran to respond.

There is a strong sense of outrage when the imposed sanctions on the Iranian central bank or oil industry- again this is directed at ordinary people. They are only antagonizing Iranians and people outside of the Western world recognize what is going on.

They recognize that this is the Western empire that is beginning to show signs of major weakness and decline, attempting to punish its critics and opponents in any way or form possible, because at the end of the day the sanctions they are trying to impose are supposed to be punitive sanctions.

They're supposed to make ordinary people suffer and if you look at the Western media there is no talk about the fact that these sanctions are barbaric, whether it's Iran or Syria or Palestine and Gaza- whether they're effective or not, there is no question about how ordinary people will suffer.

Or for example in the past when Iranian civilian airlines or airplanes would fall because of the sanctions on spare parts, there is no talk about how the Americans have blood on their hands.

Just like during the Iran-Iraq war when Iraq was given chemical weapons by these same countries. They are all involved in mass murder and crimes against humanity- the United States- the British, the French and the Germans.

These very same countries, they gave [executed Iraqi dictator] Saddam Hussein the technology to produce and use weapons of mass destruction and prevented the UN Security Council from even recognizing Saddam Hussein as guilty.

These very same countries now accuse Iran of attempting to produce weapons of mass destruction- the irony is not lost upon people.

Press TV: Professor Marandi, let's look at the IAEA, of course the United States and Israel, I mean, they're considered as accomplishes in these assassinations .

There has been a targeted- Iranian nuclear scientists have been targets, isn't it time for them to be held accountable for their actions?

Marandi: Well, there is no accountability, because the Western media is not going to hold them accountable, the Western media is very much a part of the same establishment.

If you want to find information- unbiased information on Iran's nuclear program or Iran's foreign policy, you'd have to look into obscure websites and so on, maybe websites like raceforiran.com, Complex Forum and others.

You will not find this sort of information in the mainstream press. The UN Security Council has fired prominent members. They will never condemn themselves; they will never condemn their allies.

The major international bodies such as the IAEA are dominated by western countries. There is no accountability there.

There is no democracy and their allies in the region are the most despotic regimes around where women cannot even drive as they cannot have independent bank accounts. Yet these are America's closest allies.

Accountability, if one wants to wait for the, you know, the so called international community to do something about it nothing will happen.

Countries have to stand up for their rights and be firm in the face of western aggression and arrogance, otherwise western countries basically consider themselves to be the international community.

When you hear the term international community in the western media, it basically means white Europeans. They don't recognize the rest of the world as the International community.

Otherwise the nonaligned movement which constitutes 120 countries, they have consistently supported Iran's nuclear program from the very start in all this. But they're not the ones who are in control of the international bodies.

X Share

Google Reader Stumble Upon Delicious Cloob

Facebook Twitter Digg

Tags: Ahmadi Roshan ، Scientist killing ، Mohammad Marandi ، Israel ، Iranian nuclear scientist

Comments

non-publishable: 0

Published: 3

nbayat

20:40 - 1390/11/05

Francis A. Boyle, Professor, University of Illinois, College of Law.
Boyle is a harsh critic of Israel, Zionism, and American foreign policy towards Israel. Zionist regime on charges of genocide of Palestinians", involvement in the Sabra and Shatila massacre on behalf of several relatives of victims. Boyle also proposed that and set up the "International Criminal Tribunal for Israel", and supported by several dozen Arab and Muslim countries.Boyle has campaigned for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions on Israel since first calling for the establishment of the movement in 2000.Boyle has referred to Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip as "genocide", and the Gaza War as a "massacre", claiming that Israel's actions raise the element in the Genocide Convention "of murder, torture, and things of that nature", and urged the Obama Administration to force Israel to lift its blockade.In January 2009, and then nothing happened later .
THE FUTURE DEPENDS ON WHAT WE DO IN THE PRESENT
noway at all ! why ? spy?
Mr ehud barak obama

roshan

18:45 - 1390/11/21

i love u IRAN

Anjali

05:03 - 1391/04/08

She sure did. And she gave it to the moderator once or twice, too. I doubt the left will let up on her, even now, but they'll have to come up with some new aimnuitmon because, frankly, all they've used so far has ricocheted back to them.Some leftist analysts are saying that despite her win in the debate, most Dems will stay with their party--uh, uh. Since last night, there have indeed been Dems who've decided they're voting Republican.So you keep lying oh mainstream, leftist, socialist, incompetent, biased, tactless, pathetic excuses for legitimate newscasters. And, as we Americans say, Have a Nice Day.

Your Comment