Tuesday, November 18th 2014

A Nuclear Iran Must Be Prevented!

STOP THE BOMB warns against a bad nuclear deal

The European coalition STOP THE BOMB, exiled Iranian activists and Israeli scientists warn against a rotten compromise regarding the Iranian nuclear program. As the negotiations continue in Vienna today, STOP THE BOMB spokesperson Stefan Schaden declares in a statement: "It is a dangerous game to negotiate with the Iranian regime on the one hand, but ignore the regime’s ongoing Holocaust denial and repeated annihilation threats against Israel on the other. Harsh sanctions should be applied against the rulers in Tehran to keep up the pressure."

Emily Landau, head of the Arms Control and Regional Security Program at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, warns: "In light of the concessions that have already been offered by the P5+1 to Iran, further significant P5+1 concessions would result in a 'bad deal'. This outcome is dangerous not only because it means that Iran will not be far from the ability to produce nuclear weapons at a time of its choosing, but that this very dangerous situation will be granted legitimacy by the international community, by virtue of their signing on to the deal. Which they will of course present not as a 'bad deal', but rather as 'the best we could get'. Regarding the extension option, the danger here is that it increases commitment to reaching a final deal, which will still necessitate further problematic P5+1 concessions, and on the most problematic issues. This spells significant loss of P5+1 leverage in the bargaining process with Iran, in the final critical stretch. After securing partial agreement, they will more than ever not want this chance of getting almost any deal to slip away."

Journalist Saba Farzan points out to the more than dire human rights record: "It is understandable that the world focuses on the immense brutality of ISIS, but it shouldn't be forgotten that in Khamenei's Iran systematic and brutal human rights violations - like torture and a massive number of executions - are committed as well. A massacre in slow motion is happening in front of our eyes while Rouhani and Zarif tweet nicely." Hiwa Bahrami, who represents the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan in Austria and Germany, puts it bluntly: "You cannot negotiate with the ayatollahs, you have to sanction them. Any attempts to include them in constructive solutions in the Middle East are naive and dangerous."