Western Intervention will not produce Reforms-Ahmadinejad

Via PressTV

 

The President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad believes that Western intervention are driven by self-interests and not on humanitarian needs. 

“I do not know of any power among the major Western powers that has intervened in a country for the sake of humanity; whatever they do is for self interest,” President Ahmadinejad said Thursday evening in an address to participants of the Tehran International Consultative Summit on Syria. 

Noting that ‘the colonialist powers’ nowadays attempt to impose their will on nations under the pretext of making reforms, the president argued that such a trend will eventually lead to war and added that reforms can never be implemented by inciting conflicts and hostilities. 

The Iranian president later referred to the invasion of Afghanistan by US-led NATO forces and said, “The first documents they carried away [from the country] were maps of Afghan mines... They acted similarly in Iraq and although they collaborated with [former Iraqi dictator] Saddam [Hussein] in all of his crimes, they staged a war against him to dominate and rule over Iraq.”

“Of course, the Iraqi government and nation did not accept this, but the [invasion] process inflicted huge damages on Iraq that would require 20 years to overcome,” he added. 

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/08/10/255474/intervention-can-never-bring-reforms/ 

Kenya-Iran Oil Deal

Kenya’s move to buy Iran Oil is welcomed.

The move by the Kenyan government through the Ministry of Energy to buy Iranian oil is a welcome move. Under President Mwai Kibaki, Kenya has approached new alternative foreign policy goals with a more pragmatic economic agenda. Kenya’s foreign policy has focused more on economic diplomacy under Kibaki. This move to buy oil from Iran, a country suffering from illegal and callous sanctions from the West is testament to these new alternative policy approaches.

Iran has been under a series of economic sanctions which have targeted their oil exports. The European sanctions have among other things, placed a ban on imports of Iran oil by European Union States. This has made it difficult for other countries to trade with Iran. The US, which has been the architect of the sanctions, is now finalizing a new package of sanctions aimed at further reducing oil and other revenues used by Iran to further its nuclear program. International politics is intertwined with economics and all these factors don’t operate in a vacuum. This been said, the relations between Iran and the West should entirely influence the relations between Iran and other states and vice versa. National security and national interests are the principal categories in which strategic goals are conceived. Kenya’s strategic interests of securing long term fuel supply from Iran should be seen as sound policy goal.  Under the proposed Kenya-Iranian contract, Tehran could give an extended credit facility of 90 days, saving the country millions of shillings currently used to import expensive crude oil through overdraft facilities. This will be a long term strategic interest for Kenya and further a reorientation of her policy from the traditional West to emerging East.

Nicodemus M. Minde