Most likely the above question has crossed the minds of Iran watchers, and “Iran experts” – which of course needs to be asked, but rarely is, whose “Iran experts”; the warmongers, or the realists “Iran experts”?
Ever since 9-11 my days have ranged from one hour to seventeen hours of watching Iran, primarily via the Internet. A few minutes after watching the second tower come down on the TV at the Oaks Club in Emeryville, California, I drove to my office and used the broadband connection I’d recently installed to surf the Internet for eighteen hours a day for ten days straight, after which my estimate was that based on what was being said by those in power in America that there existed a fifty-fifty chance that America would attack Iran. It took me two weeks to liquidate whatever I owned, primarily a 42 foot sailing boat, and head back to Iran. I knew it would have been impossible to live in America and watch it attack Iran. Sometime later, after Iraq had been invaded, it was unbelievable that it was necessary to argue with Iranian-Americans via the comments section of Iranian.com who were in FAVOR of Iran being attacked! How brainwashed and ignorant were these Pahlavi sycophants who wallowed in their “Shah’s of Sunset” plastic lifestyles? Maybe they were Zionist-Iranian-American-
Will President Obama and the Iranian negotiators have the good sense to quickly reach an agreement, even though the GOP controlled Congress will now go all out to squeeze Iran to such a point that it will be forced to walk away from the negotiating table?
But never said, but needs to be said, and loudly, is that after Fukushima and Chernobyl, nuclear energy is a huge mistake and needs to be totally abandoned — globally. Just do a search for images for “Chernobyl children” and then come back and tell me that Iran’s recent announcement that it plans to build nine or ten more nuclear power stations is based on wisdom and not some special interest that has developed around it’s money hemorrhaging nuclear energy construction activity?
There is a famous image that can be found on www.desertec.org where it shows the amount of Sahara desert that is required to generate all the electrical energy that Europe would need to power it’s economy using solar collectors and high-tech transmission power lines. It is remarkably a small area of land that is needed.
The obvious question is, if the numbers add up for Europe, then the numbers must also apply for a similar area of Iran generating enough power via solar collectors to power the economy of all of the economies bordering Iran.
And my guess is that the cost to build such a solar collection and transmission system would be less than building nine nuclear power plants. Of course this is a taboo subject in Iran with ninety percent of the population being in favor of Iran’s right to nuclear technology. Iranians have already displayed their attraction for all things American, even if it means obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and birth defects. I am referring to the dismaying escalation of Coca Cola and Pepsi consumption along with fast food being considered chic, modern, and a “right”. So why not pollute our environment with nuclear radiation, and while we are at it, why not insist that sanctions be removed so that companies like Monsanto can poison our land and bodies? After all where are we going to draw the line? Corporations who own congressmen and senators will want to place conditions for the removal of sanctions, most importantly the establishment of a “friendly business environment”, and that means Iranians having to bend over backwards even if it means becoming a part of the planet that capitalism wants to destroy next. Why? Because we have this ignorant idea that radiating our environment — for boiling water, essentially — so that our grandchildren can have twelve fingers is our “right”.0
During the upcoming meeting in Oman would it not be great if a proposal was made for the total abandonment of Iran’s nuclear energy activity in return for the immediate and total removal of all sanctions? Simple. Easy to do. And the best outcome for everybody – even the warmonger…on second thoughts….
Once that is taken care of just watch Iran’s economy boom, and hopefully then see it become the first country to become 100% solar powered, including its transportation sector, before 2030.
Daryan Rezazad is the Managing Director of www.meroiran.com
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Copied from Counterpunch (Weekend Edition November 7-9, 2014):
