Travelling Across Iran - the Crossroads of Civilization
In 2009, former NZ diplomat and academic Terence O’Brien, patron in spirit of Diplosphere, visited Iran with founders Dan O’Brien and Maty Nikkhou-O’Brien. They travelled over four weeks through this beautiful, cultured, civilisational, vast country - home to thousands of years of history - through Tehran, Shiraz, Persepolis, Isfrahan, Natanz, and Qom. Persian language, poetry, culture, tradition has spread far and wide.
With the illegal US and Israeli war on Iran, Diplosphere thought it worth the while mining the archive of Terence’s writings on the Middle East and New Zealand foreign policy and how it may be relevant to today.
NZ should think twice about how deeply we support future order inside the Middle East that, for example, denies respect for diversity, that continues absolute privilege for outside interests and rests upon an unprincipled double standard whereby some tyrants are approved from the outside and others impugned, and some governments are favoured by outside powers to own nuclear weapons whilst others are menaced with dire retribution if they even contemplate ownership.
Terence O’Brien, University of Third Age, Palmerston North, 27 August 2011
On Interference
Interference from outside powers in the region is of course not new. Clearly, it is for the people of Iran, the some 92 millions within this vast country thrice the size of France, to decide their future. Decisions cannot be made for them from the outside, and by force.
Since the early 19th century beginning with Napoleon Bonaparte there has been a persistent record of external intrusion into the Middle East which has striven to tie the fate and the resources of the region to a succession of outside powers – France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Russia Spain, Turkey and the US. It is fair to suggest that no other region on this planet has endured such sustained trespass and manipulation.
Terence O’Brien, University of Third Age, Palmerston North, 27 August 2011
Misunderstood Iran
As with parts of the world, Iran is much misunderstood by Western mainstream media commentators. It is not a monolithic entity. Though its government is brutal and repressive, it is also popular in some quarters of society. There are elections, not like our own, but representation measures favourably against many of its Middle Eastern neighbours. The revolution of 1979 was republican as well as Islamic. Since then, matters have of course changed. It is for civil society within Iran to build resilient institutions. To think these can be imposed from the outside is fanciful, if history is a guide.
There is of course no excuse at all for not strenuously pursuing eradication of the causes of terrorism, and the restoration of peace and stability in the Middle East.
Two related actions would assist in that task. First a genuine effort be made to finally end the Israel-Palestine conflict on the part of the US, in particular by employing leverage over Israel which America undeniably possesses especially in respect to the illegitimate expansion of settlements to seize territory. It is gently ironic that American unwillingness here to use the power and influence of the patron over its client, mirrors similar reluctance on the part of the Chinese over its client, North Korea. American willingness to do so in Middle East would strengthen Washington’s ability to persuade the Palestinians to accept a reasonable outcome.
Second, to build upon the foundations for a better relationship with Iran which were fashioned under President Obama with the agreement (in company with others) to halt and verify Iranian nuclear weapon development. President Trump rejects that agreement. Iran is the largest non Arab country in the region and with a degree of democracy that contrasts forcibly with authoritarian rulers in most of the Arab world who enjoy American support and lavish access to US armaments – whilst some are funders of terrorism. The mounting US demonisation of Iran actually denies geo-political reality inside the Middle East. It serves to compound as well those mistakes that today litter the regional and global geopolitical landscape.
Terence O’Brien, NZ Debt Capital Markets Summit, Kanga, Auckland, 2 August 2017
New Zealand’s Independent Foreign Policy: Anybody Home?
An overall lesson is clear: North Korea is left alone; Iran, which has sought to cooperate on nuclear matters, is attacked. Nuclear weapons provide guarantees. The incentive is greater than ever for rivals of the US to acquire their own deterrents.
NZ should think twice about how deeply we support future order inside the Middle East that, for example, denies respect for diversity, that continues absolute privilege for outside interests and rests upon an unprincipled double standard whereby some tyrants are approved from the outside and others impugned, and some governments are favoured by outside powers to own nuclear weapons whilst others are menaced with dire retribution if they even contemplate ownership.
[…]
Over that same period Washington has pursued a total political and economic boycott of Teheran. This appears counterproductive in two respects. First it denies regional geopolitics in the sense that Iran as a large and successful Islamic state must inevitably be associated with any eventual Middle Eastern settlement if that is to be durable.
Terence O’Brien, University of Third Age, Palmerston North, 27 August 2011
The importance of independent judgement is absolutely key. Terence often spoke of this subject.
A keen sense of independent judgement will remain vital. We can never of course ignore realities of power but NZ should think twice about how deeply we support future order inside the Middle East that, for example, denies respect for diversity, that continues absolute privilege for outside interests and rests upon an unprincipled double standard.
University of Third Age, Palmerston North, 27 August 2011
All photographs in this post are © Diplosphere and may not be reproduced, distributed, or used without prior written permission.
Love this - and so timely. Thanks for keeping Terences’s thoughts and wisdom alive and relevant…
really appreciate there is a voice out there that appreciates Iran's history. What has been happening to Iran over the last 100 odd years since oil was discovered there in 1908 is not unlike China's 100 years of humiliation, both ancient proud civilisations, once connected by the legendary silk road. The country most likely to arise our of the ashes of this latest brutal assault is Iran, certainly not Israel, or those gulf states, police states all.