Iran's real 'nuclear' revolution

[unhappycamper]

http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-01-180214.html



Iran's real 'nuclear' revolution
By Pepe Escobar
Feb 18, '14

The nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) are back this Tuesday in Vienna. The stakes couldn't be higher. It will be a long and winding road. Hidden agendas on both sides badly want the talks to fail - and will spare no effort towards that goal.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei could be interpreted as a stony realist, when he said that the talks will go nowhere. It's as if the Supreme Leader had read Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare, a crucial book by Martha Gellhorn Prize winner Gareth Porter which is being launched today in New York. In the book, Porter thoroughly debunks the whole narrative of the Iran nuclear dossier as sold to the world by the George W Bush administration, assorted neo-cons and the Israeli Likud.

And it gets much worse, in terms of prospects for a final deal to be reached this year. According to Porter, "the Obama administration has introduced the subject of 'possible military dimensions' into the nuclear negotiations. That means that the United States will be demanding an explanation for 'evidence' that the book shows was fabricated. That is a decision that could threaten the conclusion of a final agreement with Iran."

~snip~

For all its economic mismanagement, Iran's illiteracy rate has been reduced to near zero. Women are active, participative voters (try even raising the issue in the House of Saud's paradise). There has been remarkable scientific progress, even under harsh sanctions. Pursuing a civilian nuclear program is a matter of national consensus.