Monday, March 06, 2006
An Interview With Reza Aslan
Reza Aslan, a research associate at the University of Southern California and author of No God but God on Public Diplomacy, says in response to whether or not Iran has violated any NNPT laws:
"No, this is of course the awkward part of this whole thing, is that despite years of lying and cheating and hiding the scale and scope of their nuclear program they have yet to technically violate, violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty now. I think that is an indication that the treaty needs fixing. But, nonetheless, I think that Iran believes that it has an inalienable right, as a signatory of the NNPT to continue its enrichment for what it claims is peaceful purposes...It's hard to really figure out whether that's the case or not.
And...in particular I think Iran...over the last couple of months, particularly with this nuclear trade deal that the United States is signing with India -which of course is not a signatory of the NNPT and does have nuclear weapons, in violation of international law-
I think that just feeds the perception in Iran, that there is a, a double standard applied to their country. I think it's just going to harden that sentiment in the Islamic Republic."
His final statement,
"I think we have to recognize that there is nothing any country in the world could do to convince Iran to stop enriching Uranium on its own soil"
"No, this is of course the awkward part of this whole thing, is that despite years of lying and cheating and hiding the scale and scope of their nuclear program they have yet to technically violate, violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty now. I think that is an indication that the treaty needs fixing. But, nonetheless, I think that Iran believes that it has an inalienable right, as a signatory of the NNPT to continue its enrichment for what it claims is peaceful purposes...It's hard to really figure out whether that's the case or not.
And...in particular I think Iran...over the last couple of months, particularly with this nuclear trade deal that the United States is signing with India -which of course is not a signatory of the NNPT and does have nuclear weapons, in violation of international law-
I think that just feeds the perception in Iran, that there is a, a double standard applied to their country. I think it's just going to harden that sentiment in the Islamic Republic."
His final statement,
"I think we have to recognize that there is nothing any country in the world could do to convince Iran to stop enriching Uranium on its own soil"
