Tony Blair Quotes
Ultimately all the options are ugly… These decisions are very, very difficult
The enriched nuclear fuel could be used to operationalize a nuclear bomb. Iran had a history of using illegal poison gas in the Iraq-Iran War (Both sides used chemical weapons.) Iran had a history of aiding terrorist organizations. And Iran is the only nation belonging to the UN and sighing its charter in modern history that has threatened to destroy another nation via their President whose threats had not been retracted. Iran also is a Shiite Muslim nation and is at odds with the Sunni Muslim countries of the Middle East and if the Iraqis developed a nuclear bomb, there would be a Middle Eastern nuclear arms race. If Iraq would not cease its development program under pressure from other nations, a military attack was the other option. All were indeed ugly.
Tony Blair, British Prime Minister (Labor), Describing the policy options regarding Iran’s effort to enrich nuclear fuel, Interview, CNN, July 26, 2012
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
There was no problem with Iran having nuclear power. However, they wanted to utilize a process with which fuel for nuclear bombs could be made. Russia had offered to provide them with nuclear fuel for any power plant that they might want to create, but Iran refused insisting that they had a right to enrich their own uranium. Then they lied to the inspectors for the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission. They had threatened to “wipe Israel off the map” and the major Arab nations in the area secretly asked the United States to prevent Iran getting nuclear weapons even if force had to be used. Economic sanctions were tried first.
This quotation demonstrates that even in the Islamic Fundamentalist Theocracy, not all the religious leaders are extremists and anti-human rights. However, Saanei is no longer in the top level of the Iranian government and more extreme fundamentalists have control of the government. But Iran is by no means monolithic.
The inconsistency of the policy logic of attacking Iraq but not the other two countries of the "axis of evil" caused problems for our British allies who preferred justifying the attack on Iraq on its own merit without any linkage to Iran and North Korea. What made the Iraq invasion even more puzzling was that both Iran and North Korea were greater dangers to the United States and expressed a deep animus.
The Iranian religious theocrat of Iran sees the issue as one where the United States is trying to keep nuclear technology from Iran and other Islamic countries. He seems to discount his own often uttered calls for “death to America” and the statements of intended war with the United States by the leading military officer of Iran. See {624408}.
The only reason this quotation became known is that in 2010, Wikileaks got hold of tens of thousands of secret U. S. State Department diplomatic cables and released it on the Internet. The major Muslim leaders of the Middle East, privately urged the United States to attack Iran to prevent them from developing a nuclear bomb. At the same time, they publicly expressed their love and respect for their fellow Muslims. In actuality the Persians are ethnically very different from the Arabs and have always seen Persia as the natural leader of the Middle East if not more of the world. The Persians have always looked down on the Arabs and the Arabs have resented it. Further, most Iranian Muslims are Shiites and most Arabs Sunni. Fundamentally, they each believe that the other is a true heretic to Islam.
This declaration, drafted by Russell and Einstein two days before Einstein’s death was signed by a number of other prominent scientists.
This rhetoric turned out to be just that. When Israel developed a nuclear capability, the Egyptians became more rational and sobered. It was Anwar Sedate however who was the Egyptian leader wise enough and strong enough to make peace with Israel.
The quotation is notable as it illustrates the great difficulty that modern democracies have with extreme Islamic fundamentalists. Their very perception and world view is so different that often we think of the extremists as insane and they often feel the same way about us.
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. On his resignation he was appointed Special Envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East, a diplomatic post which he held until 2015. He currently serves as the executive chairman of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, established in 2016. As prime minister, many of his policies reflected a centrist "Third Way" political philosophy. He is the only living former Labour leader to have led the party to a general election victory and the only one in history to form three majority governments.
