khalijefars News, Blogs, Art and Community
Tonight we will look at the issue of Iran holding several dual nationals in its prisons on charges of spying for foreign powers, as one of them, British-Iranian Nazanin Zagheri-Ratcliffe has now been transferred to a psychiatric ward due to her severe conditions.
Shipping officials say they are unsure whether an oil tanker towed into Iranian waters was seized by Iran or rescued after facing mechanical faults as Tehran claims, creating a mystery at sea at a time of high tension in the Persian Gulf.
We will once again look at the rising tension between Iran and US and ask if Washington has achieved any of its goals by implementing sanctions on Iran.
Also, we will look at the consequences of the open letter by the 14 civil rights activists as more of its signatories have been arrested and jailed.
Our gust tonight to discuss these issues is journalist and political commentator Mr Amir Taheri.
Mr Amir Taheri:
If we look closely, we can see that the process of decision-making in the Iranian regime is no matter at what level of political structure they are, all officials have to make a decision on the basis of giving the “export of the revolution” their priority.
As such the only people who matter to the Iranian rulers and receive their constant support are those in the south of Lebanon, in Iraq and in Syria.
The regime in Tehran has spent hundred of millions of Iranian people’s money to rebuild Iraq and Syria after the wars in these countries, but has so far refused to rebuild our own Khoramshahr port or reconstruct the earthquake or flood hit areas of Iran.
The pre-revolution government in Iran used to act the reverse and focus all itspolicies on socio-economic reconstruction of the country and never spent anything on importing its ideology by spending millions of dollars on it, as the present regime has been doing from its day one.
A certain group of people have however benefitted financially from this regime as we see in the case of the exclusive district of Lavasanat in the outskirts of Tehran where ultra rich people live.
Also, the private sector has built many major Western style shopping malls in Iran with the investment of state banks, where the money could have been spent on building houses where more than 25 million Iranians live in sub-standard and squalid houses according to the government’s own figures.
So, we have a country that has all the financial means of looking after its citizens and providing them with high standards of services that they deserve, but sadly the government’s priorities lie somewhere else.
