British Prime Minister Brown and Pres. Bush
Concerned about Tehran's withholding information about its possible nuclear weapons aspirations, the European Union has agreed to increase sanctions on Iran.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown also announced at a news conference with Pres. Bush that United Kingdom is also freezing the assets of Iran's largest bank.
This is a good step toward forcing the regime to come clean on its nuclear development program. And is more prudent than the sabre rattling the Bush administration has been engaged in towards Iran.
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We are revisiting the 1953 joint British-USA attack on Iranian economical institutions. Things have not changed much since. We hurt the Iranian people then; we are going to hurt once more. British were fighting for their exploitation of cheap Iranian resources enriching their lavish life style. We Americans were duped to follow the British lead. President Eisenhower resisted but President Truman followed the British lead.
Time magazine, Monday September 08, 1941, wrote: Britain worried about possible Russian encroachments on India, and there was much talk about the Bear that Walks Like a Man. To lubricate diplomatic friction, in 1907 an agreement was solemnly signed which defined each country's sphere of influence in Persia. Britain was to influence in the southeast; Russia in the north. As for the poor Persians, their attitude was aptly summed up in a Punch cartoon of the period. It showed a Persian cat apprehensively sitting between a lion and a bear. "I will pat its head," says the bear, "and you shall stroke its tail." Pleads the cat: "But I have not been consulted!"
The players have not changed, the same colonial powers, a bit different stories.
We Americans are still paying for our foolish mistake of 1953. Are we going to do it once more?
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