A conversation with Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif
February 20, 2019
The Western mainstream press hasn’t done much to enlighten their audiences to the plain fact that there is more than one side to a conflict between at least two.
The Transnational is happy to make available some other views, particularly since Iran is the David and the West the Goliath and since omission is more effective in propaganda terms than fake.
Iran’s views, its history, its reasons to do what it does and see the world as it does is woefully under-represented in the said press.
So is leading media’s criticism of US policies vis-a-vis Iran. They systematically take the side of the strong, the bully and the war-threatening side of the conflict.
If the Munich Security Conference has no other merits, it does offer an opportunity to hear many voices and here them from their own representatives and not through Western news agencies and journalists.
And, so, the voice of Iran through Javad Zarif, its brilliant foreign minister, is worth listening to for its intellectual quality, references to history, its outspoken criticism of the US and other West from a man who knows the West much better by being educated there and having lived there for decades – something no Western high-level politician has in Iran.
In a long analysis with many quotes, the Politico magazine characterises his speech and conversation thus – “It was a striking performance, conducted in fluent and colloquial English, that quickly became the most talked-about presentation at the annual Munich Security Conference — for its bluntness, its audacity, and its timeliness.”
Here you’ll experience diplomacy and facts with clear passion, here is history and alternative ways of seeing the world, here is an emphasis on serious contradictions and psycho-political projections in Western policies, and here is elegance with humour and a recognition that everything is not as it should or could be in Iran.
And there are no threatening of others but a marked – defensive – pride and emphasis on Iran’s own strength.
In short, here is a few minutes which every Western international affairs intellectual and foreign policy-maker should see and listen to. I’m afraid they don’t – and if the do, they will be sure to never utter the obvious – namely that this man has a point.
And indeed not only one.
Photo on top © Oberg PhotoGraphics