Blaming Others for Our Misconduct

Center for Strategic Research, a sub-branch of Islamic Republic of Iran’s Expediency Council, which is headed by former chief nuclear negotiator of Iran Hasan Rowhani has released a statement in response to criticisms leveled by officials and supporters of Ahmadinejad’s government against the course of negotiations during Rowhani’s direction of nuke talks. The statement says: "In Sa’dabad negotiations, when three European countries intended to pose a long-term, binding halt [of uranium enrichment] according to IAEA’s resolution, Dr. Rowhani rejected this strongly and the Sa’adabad communiqué refered to limited, voluntary halt explicitly ".

Dr. Mahmoud Va’ezi, Deputy President on Foreign Diplomacy of the Center provides an analysis of such criticisms:

When an administration fails to fulfill its promises after four years, naturally it tries to blame it on the others. It will try to foreground some irrelevant issues and attract public attention towards them. The ninth administration is facing strong challenges, especially in the field of economy and the majority of its plans have not been realized after four years. That is why it has turned to issues in the field of foreign relations to cover up its weakness and relate its failures to these problems.

This administration is particularly interested in running a diatribe on its opponents. It is a common issue in many countries that a new government tends to refer to the record of the previous administration in the first two or three months of its term. But pointing to the measures of the last government after four years and criticizing it is not at all acceptable.

The most defendable measure of Khatami’s two-term presidency with regard to the nuclear issue was that it carried out the nuclear program cannily, without paying a heavy price such as facing sanction resolutions by United Nations Security Council. But the unthoughtful policies followed by Ahmadinejad and his team resulted in release of four resolutions against Iran, something that had never happened before.

The next Iranian president should know that he has to pursue our nuclear programs earnestly, and no compromise is going to be made on the Iranian nation’s inalienable rights. However, Iran should utilize all logical means to defuse tensions, avoid face-offs and lessen the price of becoming nuclear.