I am not surprised that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has called on the United States to offer an apology for its past behavior before opening embassies in each other’s capitals.
Washington seems desperate to gain Tehran’s friendship and is willing to meet its demands. The only price Iran paid was accepting to freeze its nuclear program. Washington deemed this a great achievement tantamount to the rapprochement with China or destroying the Berlin Wall!
What does Rouhani want the United States to apologize for? During the past decades of tense relations, most victims have been Americans. The history of Iranian violence is long, starting with the detention of US embassy personnel in Tehran. This was followed by the killing of 17 Americans in an attack on the US Embassy in Beirut, where 241 Americans were also killed in an attack on the US marines’ barracks.
Iran also planned the explosions in the Saudi city of Alkhobar, killing 19 Americans and wounding 240. This in addition to hijacking a TWA aircraft. There have been dozens of other Iranian operations against American people and interests in the Middle East, Europe and South America.
There have also been attempts to carry out operations inside the United States, where authorities thwarted an assassination plot against the Saudi ambassador. Not to mention the hundreds of American soldiers who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan with support from Iran. Tehran has a lot of blood on its hands, so it owes many countries, including the United States, an apology.
Tehran may be demanding an apology for US support of the shah before the revolution. In that case, Washington must apologize to the Iranian people for abandoning him, forcing him to leave Tehran and refusing him cancer treatment in the US after his exile. Then US President Jimmy Carter’s stance contributed to an extremist religious regime taking over in Tehran.
Washington is often blamed for supporting then Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in the war against Iran. In fact, the United States was happy to see both regimes fight it out. It let Israel trade American weapons with Tehran, and Gulf states supply arms to Baghdad. Washington only guarded its oil interests in the Gulf, and protected sea routes and Kuwaiti oil tankers from Iranian attacks and mines.
Despite all this hostility and bloodshed, Washington never attempted to topple the Iranian regime after the revolution. White House policy has been based on containment and trying to change Tehran’s behavior.
After more than 30 years, when Iran realized the failure of its hostile policies and felt suffocated by the West’s commercial boycott, it decided to negotiate. Washington only sought the freezing of Iran’s nuclear program for 10 years, in exchange for lifting sanctions, unfreezing more than $100 billion of frozen assets, and ending the state of confrontation. Despite this leniency, Tehran thinks this is not enough and wants an American apology!(ABDULRAHMAN AL-RASHED)
Link: http://www.arabnews.com/columns/news/836581
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