http://www.counterpunch.org/fiyouzat09292007.html

1. The premise that certain non-profit/educational/’independent’ agencies and persons are in the pay of certain governments and interests to perpretrate or further certain points of view.
2. If premise 1 is accepted then there is not only a war which involves guns with real casualties (human lives and tragedy), but there is also a war with rhetoric as the weapon and facts/perceptions as the casualty .
3. The questions that arise from are :
a. What difference is there per se between a plutocracy and theocracy, communism, socialism?
b. If plutocracy represents entitlement due to a monetary high ground and theocracy a high ground from religious perspective which is closer or more obliged to do adhere to the common good - in other words which “system” has the ability to transfer assets of the populace more easily to ANOTHER location thereby escaping accountability, punishment and most importantly repatriation- if theocracy, communism, socialism etc etc. is not yet another disguised form of plutocracy/oligarchy.

However germane the arguments may be against nuclear power - the kernel has not been reached. That kernel is one of self-determination and sovereignty but most improtant the UNIVERSAL application of RULE OF LAW - which is generally purported to be by consensus -so as to diminish extreme expressions of both independence and isolation.

At the individual level there are restrictions - such as substance abuse, suicide etc. At the state level - it may be aggression/invasion,human rights etc. Therefore ‘law’ is set up - international conventions etc and if there is not a fair distribution of enforcement of the ‘rules’ then why should ONE country or many countries be admonished when the ‘laws’ are not enforced ESPECCIALLY be those who wrote them. In short - is the purpose (such as Jim Crow laws) there to safeguard interests of a minority or are the laws there to safeguard the ‘general welfare’.

Specifically with respect to Iran - as other contributors have stated - they ARE following the procriptions of the IAEA and NPT. The ‘respect’ for the rules have been observed and questioning the sanity of the motives or even the practicality of the outcome should be viewed thru the lens of the ‘general welfare’.

IS it in the general welfare of of a country to positon itself to gain scientific knowledge of physics, nuclear power and technology, structural egineering, etc etc ? Should a state be allowed to possess nuclear technology as a laboratory and school for expansion and exploration of knowledge - especially if they agree to be overseen by international agencies who have been accorded expert and guardian status via consensus of the international community?

Do all countries have the right to explore the gunpowder, mathmatics,and the technology of this particluar millenium as did other cultures millenias ago? The myth that the realm of physics, technology , invention being only capable through western civilization has been shattered not only by recent past but also what we would call ancient history!!

The rise of a nation/nations by ‘borrowing’ advanced ideas and ultimately refining and furthering them - has despite worldwide atrocites, wars, etc largely benefitted a large proportion of mankind. I am sure that the Chinese , Indians or Mayans despite their advanced mathematics,astrology, architecture etc never imagined the benefits of vaccinations, wireless technology etc - nor did they imagine that their inventions of the compass (based on magnetism), gunpowder, herbology, mathematics etc would lead to such future developments.

Therefore - why should the civilizations today - seek to restrict the understanding and exploration of science by other nations/cultures today. We obviously DON”T know i f someone will discover the secrets of fusion, even better hybrid technologies or harnessing solar power with incredible efficiency.

In America the two most POWERFUL examples of scientific innovatios occuring outside the mainstream would be Charles Drew - an african american who lay the foundations of immunology via blood transfusions and of course George Washington Carver who founded biofuels - as early as the 1920’s and in addition formulated plastics from soybeans!! Could this astounding leap into the future by decades be the result of a different perpective and can we not as mankind in general ultimately be benefitted from this.

1– Iran is not a “nation-state” at this moment which means that we have to deal with people of Iran and its rulers separately! A theocracy, by definition, cannot have a place for the voice of its people. Mr. Fiyouzat did not say no nuclear technology for Iran; he said no such thing for the theocratic , anti-science, anti-women, anti-labor, anti-peasant, anti-writer, pro-censor, pro-stonning to death unelected rulers of Iran! The distinction is very loud and clear. The 1979 revolution was about social justice and independence of Iran. Theocracy was the anti-left choice of G-7 for Iran (another colonial intervention in Iran!)
RF , in 2004 wrote a very principled open letter to Chomsky raising all the points you have raised and more . Please read it before judging him again. By the way, if the theocrats in Tehran can buy spare parts for US-made F5, F4, F14 military aircrafts to bomb the oppressed Kurds of Iran everyday, definitely they can get the parts for their Boeing civilian fleet. (if they decide to care about innocent lives!) People of Iran are moving fast to repeat the 1979 revolutin and get what the imperialists denied them 27 years ago! All power to the anti-fascism/anti-imperialism people of the world!

See, notably, the author’s account of the 2005 . What Fiyouzat writes is solidly pragmatic, but I don’t detect much in the way of privatisation, freemarketeering jargon, there. Ouf.

My tentative conclusion is that Reza Fiyouzat is sincere and without ulterior motive in his address of an issue that is without a shadow of a doubt urgently in need of international debate.

As U.S. citizens, we are responsible for keeping our sadistic, war-profiteering leaders from acting illegally/unconstitutionally (not that we’ve been all that successful at it, mind you). We are responsible for resisting the use of aggressive, preemptive war against Iran and any other sovereign entity not hostile to our sovereignty (again: not that we’ve had success in that area). As far as nuclear non-proliferation: that is the job of the IAEA and the UN to regulate. Coercively-fostered UN Resolutions and boycotts are superficial threats to the Iranian regime—not true reflections of the regime’s actual defiance of international law and intention to build weapons.

If most Iranians want nuclear energy, then what can reasonably be done to prevent it without acting undemocratically or illegally in the process? U.S. intervention? A big, fat “NO,” says the U.S. Constitution, the UN Charter, and the Algiers Accord. (I’m not assuming you’re suggesting aggressive intervention.)

Ancillary point: “The Left” certainly owns no copyright on opposition to nuclear technology. Are CASMII a bunch of right-wing, nuclear-proliferating, Ahmadinejad-lovers? I don’t think so. (Okay. I’m being extreme in my analogies, but still…) As far as the U.S. “left’s” responsibility in standing up for Iranians opposed to nuclear technology, that argument is moot. Sure, protesting and other activism is great, but it is ultimately none of our business, as U.S. citizens, what the Iranian People decide to unobtrusively do about their own domestic affairs, just as it is not the proper duty of Iranian terrorists and traitors like Alireza Jafarzadeh and Amir Taheri to get on CNN, FOX, and The Wall Street Journal to encourage U.S. citizens with lies in order to help procure the will to overthrow Ahmadinejad and the Imams with illegal intervention.

All that being said, you should keep active on this issue, because there are grave dangers associated with nuclear technologies which should not be taken lightly—and for that reason, your article is a must-read.

Please also consider this: NNPT is an imperialist-designed regime of controling things so that a certain monopoly can maintained in the military sphere, while at the same time this very treaty helps the proliferation of the nuclear industry. And you find it of absolute importance to stick to this treaty?! What happened to critiquing the existing order of things? If you go along with NNPT, what about the NAFTA treaty? What about CAFTA? What about WTO? All these too must be obeyed, no?

And finally, what happened to international solidarity that should be extended to people who are powerless and get irresponsibly exposed to dangers brought on them by uncaring, calculating rulers? Or does international solidarity too goes against some treaties?

The problem in the US is that we are so up to our eyeballs in complicity with a government who has become the number one rogue-nation in the world. With 10,000 war-heads pointed at various “enemies” (past and present) and a continued program of annihilation and support of several client states who have not even signed onto the Non-Proliferation Treaty, it becames very tricky (hypocritical) to be snapping at Iran (a signatory to the NPT, and within the boundaries of that treaty) for developing nuclear energy.

It is maddness, but this is the state we find ourselves over and again. We live in the belly of the beast. It is hear that we must undo the havoc we’ve caused, and continue to cause.

As you know the US government has propaganized the Iranian nuclear energy development. Iran is viewed as a hegemonic threat to US interests in the Middle East region. So, the argument has been woven into a narrative that makes it difficult to unravel without seeming to side with the neconservative mandates to annihilate the “heathens”.

Still, your case is well made and I completely agree with it. They are worth further consideration.

In a somewhat rational world of generally law abiding nation-states, I think you’d hear far more from the “left” and others regarding the horror of all kinds of nuclear purposes. The case against nuclear has been well made by many, but I particularly like this from Rebecca Solnit, Reasons Not to Glow:
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/316