Human Events runs a long and implausibly candid interview with Reza Pahlavi, son of the Shah of Iran, who seems to be campaigning for U.S. backing for a ‘peaceful’ overthrow of the mullahs. Highlights include:
I’m against developing any weapons of mass destruction. I work to see the world develop a process of disarmament because otherwise it will be madness. If we build it, tomorrow the Turks will build it, then the Saudis want to build it, then the Egyptians want to build it. Believe me, in that part of the world, there’s some track record how stable the world will feel having a whole bunch of nuclear warheads in the hands of all these people. Forget it. I’d be the first one proposing a plan to reverse the cycle of proliferation.
Since when has Israel been a threat to anyone? Israel just wants to be left alone and live in peace side by side with its neighbors. As far as I’m concerned, Israel never had any ambition to territorially go and invade, I don’t know, Spain or Morocco or anywhere else. And let me tell something else about Iran: Unlike the rest of the Islamic or Arab world, the relationship between Persia and the Jews goes back to the days of Cyrus the Great. We take pride as Iranians of having a history where Cyrus was the most quoted figure in the Torah, as a liberator of Jewish slaves, who went to Babylon and gave them true freedom for them to worship and in fact helped them build a temple. We have a biblical relation with Jews, and we have no problem with modern day Israel. As far as regional politics, I believe, I think many Iranians believe so, that as much as Israel has a right to exist, so should the Palestinians. They have to work the problem between each other. And we have no business interfering, and we need to help get as much stability in the region.
The reason the regime was using Khatami as the smiling face talking about a dialogue of civilizations was just to buy time. The same way that in the nuclear race they played the game of buying time by saying we’re going to negotiate with Russians or we’re not going to talk to themâ€â€buying time. Three years of endless negotiations has produced nothing. Why? The regime gained an extra three years. All I’m saying is that now, when you look at the future, we have a delicate time frame within which we can bring about change.
Q: In your Iran, Mahmoud Abdullah, the Afghan who converted to Christianity, would have every right to do that and the state would protect him from retaliation by radical clerics?
A: God, I hope so. I hope so. Because if we are basing our constitution on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that’s one of the most fundamental rights that any human being should have. I’m sick and tired of hypocrisy and all this dubious attitude that is so typical of our region. If you believe in something you say it, you don’t fool around. I mean, that’s where I’m coming from. I haven’t lived 45 years of my life to fool around with these things. If I’m willing to lose my life for it, hell I’m going to fight for these rights, otherwise it’s not worth it. Frankly it’s not worth it! I might as well forget about Iran and become a citizen and live my life in this country. No. I want to have the same rights you have over here over there. That’s what I’m fighting for! Otherwise why bother?
This ties into a link that VM reader Faiz K. sent over this weekend, about a Canada-based Iranian blogger’s experiences visiting Israel for the first time (and blogging about it):
Israel never existed except when Friday prayers would finish their “death to” chants with Israel. Everywhere else, even on maps, Tel Aviv was the capital of the “Zionist Regime” or “Occupied Palestine”.
I believed that Israelis saw no distinction between Mr Ahmadinejad and the former reformist president Mohammad Khatami of Iran, in the same way that Iranians could not differentiate Shimon Peres from Binyamin Netanyahu.
My biggest surprise was when I found myself with two other Iranians, completely randomly, on the same minibus from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. I had no idea that Israel had the world’s largest proportion of Iranians in its population, outside Iran itself.
It was only then I could digest the fact that Israel’s President Moshe Katsav and Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz, despite their hardline stances against the Iranian government, were originally from Iran.
I’m working on a longish post about Dubai, city-states and Jane Jacobs, but I’m not sure how that’ll turn out. I’ll let you know.