[WCUSP] Iran calls for dialogue with US.."production, use of nuclear weapons is immoral"

[KATHARLOW at aol.com]

Iran: Calls for Dialogue with the United States

by David  Culp

Published on Friday, September 22, 2006
by  CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0922-27.htm

"We  believe the production or use of nuclear weapons is
immoral."
- Iranian  President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Hours after he spoke to the United Nations,  the Iranian
president made this clear, unequivocal statement to a
group of  us during a private meeting in New York. The
Mennonite Central Committee  organized an extraordinary,
private session for about 50 people to dialogue  with
President Ahmadinejad about the escalating crisis
between the U.S.  and Iran.

I left the hour-long meeting convinced, as did many, if
not  all, of my colleagues, that the Iranian leader is a
deeply religious person  who approaches the issue of
nuclear weapons from a moral perspective. The  Iranian
leader expressed great interest in establishing a
dialogue with  the religious community in the United
States, and he explained that he views  Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam as three co-equal religions.

Of  course, I suspect that all of the people in this
meeting had many areas where  we probably disagree with
the policies of the Iranian government. For  instance,
FCNL is concerned about political prisoners in Iran,
religious  tolerance, and Iran's position on Israel. We
also were aware that the Iranian  president met with us
as part of his effort to defuse the looming  crisis
between the Iranian government and the international
community over  Iran's nuclear energy program.

But I've been a lobbyist working for the  abolition of
nuclear weapons for more than a decade, and I've talked
about  these issues with a lot of people. Ahmadinejad
impressed me as someone who  had thought about these
issues a lot. He's a former engineer, who is  thinking
through the arguments from a number of  different
perspectives.

For instance, although he starts any  discussion by
saying that nuclear weapons are immoral, Ahmadinejad
also  reminded us that the Soviet Union had thousands of
nuclear weapons, which  didn't prevent their government
from collapsing. He added that, during Iran's  war with
Iraq in the 1980s, Iraq's alliance with a country with
nuclear  weapons (presumably he was referring to the
United States) didn't have any  impact on the war. He
convinced me that Iran is not interested in  developing
nuclear weapons.

Iran is interested in developing nuclear  energy. As a
former engineer, he believes that nuclear fuel is  the
cleanest fuel there is and he explained that this
energy source is  critical for the future development of
his country. And Ahmadinejad bristles  at suggestions
that the United States or anyone else would try to
dictate  how his country pursued its energy needs.

But how do we get beyond the  current impasse, we asked
him? Ahmadinejad suggested that the UN's Committee  on
Disarmament, based in Geneva, might be one forum where
these  discussions should take place. He then offered a
proposal: Iran will open all  of its nuclear facilities
to inspections, if the United States will also open  its
facilities to inspections. Neither Iran nor the U.S.
have implemented  the Additional Protocol to the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty that includes  additional
inspections, although we at FCNL believe both countries
should  do so. He added that the United States should
refrain from building so-called  second or third
generation nuclear weapons.

Now, I'm not endorsing  Iran's proposals or even arguing
this is the only path to peace. And, in our  meeting in
New York on Wednesday, the Iranian president made  other
comments that I found deeply troubling. In particular,
I was struck  by his comments about the Holocaust. He
did not deny the Holocaust, but he  still conveyed a
view that the matter is debatable. In these comments  he
sounded a lot like politicians in the U.S. Congress who
deny that  global warming is a fact, even though there
is a significant body of evidence  that cannot be
denied.

But when he spoke about issues that I cover,  the
nuclear weapons issues, what struck me is that the
Iranian president  was offering a reasonable basis for
real negotiations. Since Ahmadinejad took  office, Iran
has been backing away from permitting full inspections
of its  nuclear program. But I think this is a
bargaining stance to start  negotiations. Iran wants to
have full rights for civilian nuclear energy,  including
nuclear enrichment. Iranian leaders also want some kind
of  assurance that the United States will not bomb their
country.

The day  I left Washington to go to New York for this
meeting, I attended a hearing of  the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee. The contrast was  striking.
Nicholas Burns, the number three official at the  State
Department, spent most of that hearing lobbing what I
can only  describe as rhetorical hand grenades at Iran.
In his first State of the Union  address, President Bush
described Iran as part of the "axis of evil."  That's
still the approach of some in the U.S. government.

But what is  even more striking is the pride U.S.
officials take in insisting they will  not even talk to
Iran. Nicholas Burns, in his testimony this week to  the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, made a point of
saying he has  never met with an Iranian government
official. Now here is a man who has been  part of the
U.S. foreign service for decades, and he made a point
of pride  that he had never met with any Iranian
official. If the U.S. continues to  insist that no
dialogue is possible with Iran, then war is the  likely
alternative.

------------------------------------------
David  Culp is a lobbyist for the Friends Committee on
National Legislation's Quaker  Nuclear Disarmament
Program. He can be reached at 202-547-6000  or
david at fcnl.org. FCNL, the oldest registered religious
lobby in  Washington, is a non-partisan Quaker lobby in
the public interest. FCNL works  with a nationwide
network of tens of thousands of people from every  state
in the U.S. to advocate for social and economic
justice, peace, and  good government. For more
information:  http://www.fcnl.org

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