All about trust

The quandary of what to do with Iran, particularly with reference to the nuclear programme, has exercised greater minds than mine. I dare say that we would all be much happier and safer if we could 'disinvent' nuclear bombs. But this is not possible. It is the one reason why I differed from Bruce Kent in the approach to unilateral nuclear disarmament and agreed wholeheartedly with Charles de Gaulle's force de frappe. I did not trust the other side enough to wish my side would disarm completely.

I have always been in favour of the scaling down of existing nuclear arsenals. Their current size is totally unnecessary and dangerous. This decommissioning is something that should have been happening as a result of various international treaties. It has failed to materialise. Many seemed amazed at the dissemination of nuclear military technology via Pakistan. Some of us were less surprised by this.

The fact is that we are engrossed by the impasse with Iran. We seem to have forgotten North Korea, are not aware that Brazil is starting its own nuclear enrichment programme and oblivious of claims that Saudi Arabia has been at it for some time. Israel, of course, is totally out of this particular ken of vision.

I must declare that I would rather no more countries attained this particular expertise. I am not that trusting. In the particular case of Iran, I do not much care for some of what has been happening since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in that ancient nation. Because Iran is an old nation, unlike many of the countries in the region that are nothing but an assemblage by colonial powers.

Iran is the home of Zoroastrianism, a faith that believes there is a constant struggle between right and wrong in our life. It propounds that we will spend an afterlife in heaven or hell, depending on our choices between the two. It propounds that citizens have an inalienable right to enlightened leaders and a duty to rise against them when they lose this enlightenment.

Iran is an oil-rich nation but in the first half of the 20th century, all this oil was controlled by the so-called Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, owned mainly by the British government. This was reputed to be the most profitable British enterprise in the world. At the time, most Iranians lived in abject poverty.

In 1951, Mohammad Mossadegh became prime minister and nationalised both the oil company and the refinery in the Persian Gulf. Britain demanded retribution via the United Nations and the World Court rattled its sabre by sending its fleet to the Persian Gulf and finally imposed a crippling embargo.

When all this failed, subversive efforts began to topple Mossadegh. But the Iranians loved him and in 1952 he closed down the British embassy. Prime Minister Winston Churchill failed to convince US President Harry Truman to condone an invasion but, when Dwight Eisenhower became President, he was led to believe that there was a Communist threat to Iran.

A CIA plot, named Operation Ajax, was concocted to supplant Mossadegh. It is further reported that this linked up to earlier British agents and hefty financial inducements resulted in daily attacks on Mossadegh by bribed news commentators, mullahs and politicians. Mossadegh allowed all this to happen, because he believed in a free press.

In the end, with the participation of the Shah, Mossadegh was overthrown in a coup in August 1953. The despotic regime of the Shah was installed, only to be overthrown by the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The 1953 coup, therefore, replaced a popular prime minister with an Islamic fundamentalist regime. In just the same way, the recent, fraudulent invasion of Iraq resulted in the election of a less experienced and reactionary President in Iran - quite apart from the debacle in Iraq itself.

With this background, it is no surprise that Iranians do not trust the US or Britain. One must also recall the concept of martyrdom and suffered injustice, inherent in the Shi'ite form of Islam preponderant in Iran, a concept rooted in the murders of Caliph Ali (Mohammad's cousin) and his son Caliph Hussein.

A more recent blow, that would only allow the blind and foolhardy to expect Iranians to trust outsiders, is the devastating assault on Iran by Saddam Hussein, at a time when he was a darling of and armed by these selfsame external interests.

The unwise pronouncements by President Ahmadinejad do raise the fear of an assault on Israel, although I consider this most unlikely. The offer of the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to share Iran's nuclear expertise with the likes of Sudan, where, it has been claimed, genocide is being perpetrated against its non-Arab population in Darfur, is disconcerting.

But if all animals are equal, how can we treat Iran so differently from Israel and Brazil? After all, Iran has not attacked any other nation in recent times. Rather it has been attacked. In addition, were it to develop a nuclear bomb, it is likely to use it only as a deterrent; no different from my hero's force de frappe. Some might even go so far as to say that it would help to counterbalance Israel's nuclear might.

It is no surprise that Russia and China are chary of moves by the US and Britain in the UN, when the UN was bypassed in their invasion of Iraq. I cautioned before about our mishandling of Russia. President Vladimir Putin is reported to have said recently: "The stronger our military is, the less temptation there will be to exert such pressure on us." This again raises the spectre of Cold War. He is reported to have gone so far as to liken the US to a voracious wolf and declaring the arms race not over.

Certainly, the only hope for us all is to build trust. If I may be allowed to quote again, as I had done before the invasion of Iraq, from Cicero's (106-43 BC) first Philippic against the bully Marc Anthony: "For glory consists of being regarded with affection... winning praise and respect and love; whereas to be feared and disliked, on the other hand, is unpleasant and hateful and debilitating and precarious."

As my old philosophy professor, Mgr Giuseppe Sapiano, used to say, one learns from mistakes only when one recognises them as and admits to their being such.