Hong Cong analyst:

Iran Has Legitimacy over his Efforts in ME

By: Hamdollah Emadi Heidari

Spokesman for universal humanism in Hong Kong told Siasat Rooz that Iran has legitimacy and lawfulness in its efforts to claim a strong role in the affairs of the ME as it’s physical situation impels it to look to these local affairs.

Tony Henderson, Spokesperson for the Asia-Pacific Region - Universal Humanism, in an exclusive interview with Siasat Rooz daily, described the real reasons behind US interventions in ME and Central Asia. “Oil and gas is the reason why the US is interested in the Middle East. The entire industrial west is dependant on access to and the price of oil and gas,” he said.

Referring to Iraq, he added: baghdad is sitting on immense volumes of oil and Afghanistan is a strategically situated stronghold of independent minded people unaffiliated with the USA or the West thus posing a threat if alliances are made by Afghanistan with competing nations such as Russia or India or China.

“Iraq is more complex but still oil is at the base of the military action. The universally condemned Saddam was in charge of an oil rich nation and that left an open door target for sufficiently sanctioned military operations that would leave the US-plus British and the West in general - or the developed industrialized nations altogether - in position allowing strategic leverage over events in the Middle East,” he said.

This analyst called the situation in Iraq a chance for Israel and said: Control over Iraq is a trump card, which also plays-in armed-to-the-teeth Israel, granting political space to that occupying power - put in place by the same forces - to expand and consolidate its territory at the expense of the divided forces of Palestine.

He described Afghanistan as a gate for Central Asia and said: “While there is no oil in Afghanistan, that country’s territory forms a direct route to take the oil and gas from deposits in Central Asia to the Indian Ocean for transshipment. That would sidestep dependence on oil from the so far irresolvable problems of the ME.
American oil companies have acquired rights to a large percent of the output of the new fields in Central Asia, and the US and western governments see the area around the Caspian and in Central Asia as an alternative to dependence on oil from the Persian Gulf region. US troops followed the signing of these contracts. US Special Forces began joint operations with Kazakhstan in 1997 and with Uzbekistan a year later, training for intervention especially in the mountainous southern region that includes Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and northern Afghanistan.”

Referring to Iran geopolitical importance for US, Henderson said: How to get the oil and gas from that landlocked region to the world market, that’s the question: not wanting to rely on either the Russian pipeline system or - the easiest available land route - to unconditionally befriend Iran and have access to the Persian Gulf. Oil companies have explored alternative pipeline routes - westward through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey to the Mediterranean; eastward through Kazakhstan and China to the Pacific; and, southwards from Turkmenistan across western Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indian Ocean.

Explaining reasons behind the Obama administration willingness for talks with Iran, he said: Obama’s willingness to talk is a hopeful sign but governments and countries are not monolithic or static - recent events in Iran show this and the US election. The military industrial complex and the financial powers are still deeply entrenched, even though recent events have damaged their image a lot, So the outcome will depend on the balance of progressive-conservative forces in each country. Iran poses a problem to those assuming rightful dominance in that the country is striking a highly independent stance that radically opposes US and western hegemony in the ME. Iran has legitimacy and lawfulness in its efforts to claim a strong role in the affairs of the ME as it’s physical situation impels it to look to these local affairs.

Spokesperson for the Asia-Pacific Region - Universal Humanism said: Iran has a cultural depth. This brings its peoples through its government to demand the same rights any nations would expect. It could not be walked over with impunity, unlike its famed carpets.

After explaining Iran right for having a regional function, he referred to outside power interference and said: the US, the British and the French, are acting far from home and anyone would wonder just why they have such pretensions far from the fold, veiled by democratic and humanitarian posturing. It is oil, its accessibility and its transport, and securing an uninterrupted supply that provides the reason providing reason for the militaries of the more powerful nations to by camp in the homes and on the doorsteps of Afghanistan and Iraq. However, that oil is bypassing equally deserving though disadvantaged not-yet-economically developed nations, and that is a situation that needs mentioning.