'UN too weak to punish US on Iran'
PRESS TV- Iran's Ambassador to the UN Mohammad Khazaei has said a CIA agent who was earlier arrested by the Islamic Republic was identified after he left a US military base in Afghanistan.
Khazaei also referred to the capture of a US spy drone by the Iranian armed forces, which had taken off from a US military base in Afghanistan.
In an interview with Press TV, Jeff Steinberg, with the Executive Intelligence Review in Washington, shares his thoughts on those remarks. Below is the approximate transcription of the interview.
Press TV: The Iranian person caught entering Iran, wanted for espionage against the country, is now being requested by the US to be extradited back. Your comments please.
Steinberg: Well, it is an admission that he was definitely working for the United States and was on an espionage mission that was disrupted and he was caught. So there is really not much here beyond what you indicated that the US is conducting extensive spying operations into Iran; the drone entering it which was based out of Afghanistan was a reflection of the same exact thing and that some of the so-called intelligence developed by these espionage methods with some of the allegations which showed up in the annex to the IAEA report.
So one of the prime targets of the espionage program is the alleged Iranian nuclear program which they claim has weaponization objective. There is also an ongoing multinational program of sabotage and disruption that is being carried out by the United States and other countries, Britain, Israel [and] France on Iranian territory and it is aimed at disrupting and slowing down the alleged weaponization program and also aimed at sabotaging Iran's development of more procession and more long-range missiles.
Press TV: Mr. Steinberg, Iran's ambassador to the UN Mohammad Khazaei has sent the documents showing the US is using Afghanistan for espionage purposes against Iran. Will the UN do anything regarding this matter?
Steinberg: Not really, because the United States has an absolute veto at the Security Council and it is only the Security Council that can pass resolutions that actually have any enforcement teeth.
There can be a statement from the General Assembly disapproving of these kinds of actions which really are tantamount to low-intensity war. But the United Nation is not going to be a venue where the United States is punished, that is probably the way that the whole original permanent tribe Security Council arrangement was structured.