British newspaper The Guardian published an article by Hossein Mousavian headlined 'Iran wants a nuclear deal, not war'. "To stop Iran achieving "critical capability" to produce nuclear weapons in the coming months, President Obama must impose "maximal" sanctions – that is the message of a new report issued in Washington by five senior non-proliferation specialists," the article begins.
"They call on Obama to implement a de facto international embargo on all investments in, and trade with, Iran, declaring: "A successful outcome in any negotiations with Iran depends on the immediate implementation of these sanctions, along with simultaneously reinforcing the credibility of President Obama's threat to use military force, if necessary, to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons."
"There is no conclusive evidence that Iran has made any effort to build the bomb since 2003, and Iran's leadership has not yet made a political decision to do so. In contrast, Israel is not a signatory to the NPT, has not permitted the IAEA even a single inspection and possesses hundreds of nuclear weapons. The reasons that international efforts to realise a "nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East" have made no progress since Iran proposed the idea almost 40 years ago must therefore be clear," Mousavian writes."In order to develop a more realistic approach, we need to assess the status quo in nuclear negotiations between Iran, the P5+1 group (US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany) and the IAEA, the UN watchdog," the author believes. "The art of negotiation is to frame such a package with a specific timetable, and implemented by a step-by-step plan with appropriate reciprocations at each stage. It would be prudent for President Obama and the world powers to advance such a fair deal in upcoming talks and ignore attempts by warmongers to target advocates of a diplomatic solution.""Promoters of further sanctions, isolation and other punitive measures aim to make war with Iran inevitable. But such a war would make the US war in Iraq look like a walk in a park. Instead we should take the opportunity for diplomacy to prevail and devote the necessary political will to make it succeed," the author of the article concludes.
