When silence replaces the truth, silence becomes a lie

the continent has suffered in international politics. Without the veto power, Africa lags behind in making crucial decisions that are binding upon all states in the international arena. Africa has always taken a back seat when it comes to problems affecting the international system.
The Iranian case has been met with deafening silence from Cape to Cairo. Don’t we have a voice as a continent, no matter how powerless it might be, to at least tell the Western world what we feel about the whole doctored and misleading Iranian report?
Willie Chideya, Naboth Ndlovu and other progressive Africans have actually requested for clarity on why the Americans and Israelis are so incensed by Iran’s nuclear programme.
The basis of Iran’s nuclear programme was started during the Cold War, after the signing of bilateral agreements between the United States and Iran in the late 1950s.
With the establishment of Iran’s Atomic Agency and the nuclear non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) in operation, plans were made between the US and Shah Muhammad Pahlavi to construct up to 23 nuclear power stations across Iran by the year 2000.
After the 1979 Iranian Revolution that brought the Ayatollah Khomeini to power, Iran informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of its plans to restart a nuclear programme using local nuclear fuel.
In 1983, the IAEA planned to provide assistance to Iran under its Technical Assistance Programme to produce enriched uranium. However, the IAEA was forced to terminate the programme under United States pressure.
In the 1970s when Henry Kissinger was the US Secretary of State he held that the introduction of nuclear power would both provide the growing needs of Iran’s economy and also free remaining oil reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals.
Half a decade later in the twenty-first century, the American government now claims that there is no economic gain for a state that is rich in oil and gas such as Iran to costly build nuclear fuel cycle facilities.
The United States therefore accuses Iran of pursuing a secret weapons program since it has no need for nuclear energy due to its huge oil resources. In the 1970s, Iran under the Shah’s government could be trusted to pursue a nuclear programme under the NPT’s peaceful applications provisions.
The government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which is more radical than that of Shah Reza Pahlavi, is no longer trusted to pursue the same peaceful nuclear programme as agreed in the 1970s.
The IAEA has been investigating Iran since 2003 to the present 2011 (and quite surprisingly it now accuses Iran of having ambitions to make a bomb). The United Nations (UN) supervisory body has over the years been saying it was not in a position to judge the true nature of the country’s nuclear programme.
IAEA inspectors all these past years have not discovered any concrete proof that Iran’s nuclear programme is of a military nature, yet the Americans have always been pushing for harsh sanctions against it.
The former director of the IAEA, Muhammad EI Baradai always stressed that negotiation between Iran and the UN Security Council remained the best option to settle the Iranian crisis, but the United States warned the international community that it was seeking harsh action including the use of force against Iran.
All the years the IAEA was under the leadership of El Baradai it did not find any evidence contrary to Iran’s peaceful nuclear programme. Iran has every right under Article IV of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium. It can therefore be argued that, the critical issue from the US’ perspective is the threat posed to their vital national interests by Iran and other Islamist groups if they gain access to nuclear weapons.
Iran’s relations with the United States are presently strained due to America’s revulsion of the Islamist Republic.
The dispute between America and Iran can be traced back to 1979 when both countries severed diplomatic relations after Iranian students stormed the US embassy in Teheran and held American diplomatic staff hostage for one year and two months to protest against America’s refusal to hand over the toppled Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.
The American government can only restore diplomatic relations with Iran if it agrees to end its opposition to the peace process in the Middle East, close financial and other support to organisations involved in terrorist attacks against Israel, and to keep its promise to relinquish development of nuclear weapons.
However, Iran has remained resolute by refusing to recognise the state of Israel. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, called for it to be “wiped off the map” or to be relocated as far away as Alaska. Iran has never ceased to support Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Palestine’s Hamas which it regards as freedom fighters.
This led the former American President George W Bush to label it a “rogue state”. The Obama Administration is also more of a carbon copy of the former Republican government in their relations with Iran. The Iranians have refused to give in to American demands of suspending their uranium enrichment program.
From secondary research carried out, it can be noted that the IAEA is actually being used as an instrument to further America’s foreign policy objectives against Iran. The NPT explicitly states that all states have a right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes and America is manipulating the whole situation to trap Iran.
America is the only country that has ever used atomic bombs in wartime in Japan and has increasingly threatened non-nuclear weapon states (NNWS) with its nuclear weapons. However, it cannot also be ruled out that Iran like North Korea might also be seeking to expand its arsenal, as a defensive tool against possible American aggression.
The Bush administration developed plans for preventive strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and the new American Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has also not ruled out the possibility of using hard power on Iran if all options are exhausted.
Pre-emptive defences in principle can be used to justify the destruction of any state, especially if there is a possibility that that state might in the future be able to challenge the United States.
The calls for preventive or pre-emptive strikes on Iran by the United States’ ally Israel are mainly based on its fear of the threat of a strong Iran challenging both America and Israel’s interests in the Middle East region as well as in the international system.
Fears of Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme within the American administration have been necessitated by the following assumptions and beliefs: A key belief or shared image by both the former Bush and the present Obama administration is that proliferation is too difficult to prevent and that once a nation decides to build the bomb, it cannot be persuaded to stop.
With such an assumption the American administration strongly believes that Iran’s nuclear programme has hidden intentions including the possible production of nuclear weapons.
A second shared image is that Iran is a “rogue state”, the last Muslim theocracy, motivated to build nuclear weapons due to hostility to the Western world. Iran’s own behaviour reinforces and consolidates its image as a “rogue state” considering its 1979 revolution that led to the over throw of the Shah, the 1979 American hostage taking, its Islamist beliefs and harsh diatribes against the United States labelling it the “Great Satan” and its support for Islamist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas.
Growing evidence that Iran is working on ways to deliver warheads using long range missiles and its firing of three new types of land-to-sea and sea-to-sea missiles during military exercises in the Gulf waters and calls by Iran’s President Ahmadinejad for Israel to be “wiped off the map” or to be relocated as far as Alaska have heightened alarm among the American administration.
The American state Department believes the principal threat in the twenty-first century is the use of long-range missiles by “rogue states” for purposes of terror, coercion and aggression.
The American administration sees an Iranian nuclear bomb as a threat to their interests in the Middle East region. Iran is becoming a very important regional power in the Middle East. It is aligned to Syria, the Hezbollah group in Lebanon, Hamas political movement in Palestine and Shi’a in Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan.
The strategic relationship between Iran and its allies could work against the US and its ally Israel especially if Iran is to acquire nuclear weapons. This would entail a Balance of Terror between Israel and Iran which would lead to mutual deterrence.
Nuclear weapons would make the alliance that would include Iran, Syria; Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas is Palestine and the Shi’a in Iraq and Afghanistan very strong thus jeopardising US interests and security as well as those of its ally Israel in the whole Middle East region.
Lastly, Iran gives financial assistance and other support to Islamist organisations involved in some attacks against Israel. The American Administration sees Iran as the breeding and training ground of Islamists.
The United States believes that if Iran is to have nuclear weapons it could decide secretly to provide the bomb to Islamists to use it against them. The Americans therefore consider that the best thing to do is either to confront Iran or to try by any means possible to block its nuclear ambitions. The Iranian case has been blown out of proportion by Western countries which simply want to protect and safeguard their foreign interests in the Middle East region.
This is the time for Africa to raise its voice in unison against these fabricated lies against Iran. When truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie. Africa should tell the whole truth with one loud voice. (For a more detailed analysis of Iran’s nuclear programme one can log our article on Dimpool website)

l Bowden Mbanje and Darlington Mahuku are lecturers in International Relations, and Peace and Governance with Bindura University of Science Education.