Can we look at Iran in a neutral way?

Written by Nasser Kandil,

In the remembrance of the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, there is a call to be liberated in approaching the events from the supported and opposed feelings toward the Iranian policies, a call to learn, to read and to try to benefit by acquiring the lessons and the significances, away from the distortions which some immoderate in their hostility want. So in order to discredit, they do not mind to accuse falsely, although they know that they are sheer lies, as Iran is a secret agent of the US interests, or Iran has secret relationships with Israel. Those who talk are surely seeking to get the satisfaction and the reverence of the governments that declare publicly of their subordination to America and the normalization of their relations with Israel. So just being compatible with their logic by accepting their accusations despite their invalidity is an announcement of the superiority of Iran in a way that we do not accept and do not want, however we have dealt with it to confute any successive debate regarding the following speech and conclusions.

Iran which freed from the subordination to America, and which is against Israel is a stable fact that is known publicly ad secretly by the US and the Israeli entities. It has succeeded during thirty-seven years to be at the rank of the major countries in politics and strategies-making. It has become a member in the club of the important players that is feared and reckoned well. This is not a matter of debate for the important players if it was difficult for the non-important to recognize, but the irony is that this has not been formed at the expense of the two constants which others have scarified with to get a closer rank of its political and military rank; the economic, constructional, social, scientific and service development on one hand, and the democratic process which based on the elections and the political and media pluralism on the other hand, to the extent that Iran may be among the first countries in the world in recording electoral surprises and the smooth alternation of the power, even few weeks ago of the death of the President Hashemi Rafsanjani there were four former Presidents in it. The one who follows the political and the media life in Iran knows the programmatic competition on the economic and the social policies and on the internal and external political affairs within constants that achieve consensus that is respected by everyone and is related to the national status of Iran, its dignity, pride and the elements of its power. Even the Iranian press that expresses active courage political pluralism is witnessing daily its disputes, variations, and confrontations.

During this short period relatively of building the countries, Iran has been developed in construction, so regarding the services of electricity, telephone, transport, medical care, education, housing, environment and the scientific research it has become at the ranks of the countries that range between the fifth and the fifteenth in the world. After measuring the impact of the war waged by Iraq on it and which exhausted it for eight years and similar of them for ending the effects of war, the age of the construction of the state in Iran is half of the passed time since the date of the victory of its revolution, and by measuring the sanctions and the blockade its achievements become verifiable, may be within half of the remaining period; which means within eight or nine years if it was not under this suffocative blockade.

Every Arab person compares the situation of his country with Iran away from the acceptance or the refusal of its ideological example or the acceptance or the refusal of its policies or loving its leaders or refusing them. The issue is that a neighboring country under harsh conditions and within economic potentials along with resources that are less than ours as Arabs and comparing with our superiority in the area, geography, and population we fail while Iran wins. It is enough to compare the date of the war in which Iraq and the Gulf participated against Iran to see how Iran was and how it became, and how Iraq and the Gulf were and how they became, or to compare from the date of the revolution which coincides with the entry of Egypt in the era of Camp David which its governments have been changed, but it still rules Egypt, to wonder where Egypt was and where Iran was and how they became?

Concerning the resources, size, and the status, it is possible to compare Iran with Turkey which begs its entry to the European Union but fails; it is subject to the rules of the subordination to the West through its membership in NATO, knowing that it has a full century of stability in economic and military construction. Simply we can ask about the status of Turkey, its confusion, and discomfiture today and the stability of Iran, its status, and the rise of its capacities. Turkey does not have the feature of being the indispensable need under the Russian support or the American or the west one, it does not have the feature of the reliable ally or the feared opponent so how if it is Israeli support, while the Arabs are still considering Israel as an enemy and Palestine an issue.

Iran has the right to say that the source of its power from which it was inspired and got is success is its modern example which is open to Islam away from the subordinated concept of the others in their openness to Islam, but this is not the matter, the matter is that near us there is a vivid example for what can the independent will do, as advanced superior construction in its comprehensive concept, achievements in medicine, physics, and science, preserving the national dignity of the people. The problem is not in what the others and the Arabs in particular say that they have a different expression of the independent country which they aspire, most importantly it is their ability to prove the eligibility accompanied with dignity for being among the rising countries to the level of the powerful countries  and that the hostility of some of them toward Iran must not be similar to their conspiracy against the resistance, because they are two big scandals for the subservience and the weakness of some people, Iran said what the resistance has already said . So yes we can.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,