Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Khamenei: Western Conditions for Lifting Sanctions ‘Hurts’ Iran’s National Pride

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said today in Qom that the conditions set by the West at the nuclear talks to lift sanctions hurts Iran’s national pride.

“Enemies want to create problem for Iran,” Khamenei said. “Now if their condition for lifting sanctions hurts your pride, what you do?”

“No official will let Iran’s national pride to get hurt. So we should make the country immune to sanctions,” Khamenei added. (Twitter/Khamenei.ir, 7 January)

Khamenei’s made the comments at a public gathering in Imam Khomeini Hosseiniyeh in Qom.

Khamenei was clearly signaling that the nuclear talks were at an impasse. Iran could not accept Western conditions for lifting sanctions, and needed to be ready, or immunized, for continuation of those sanctions over its nuclear program.

Photo credit: Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at a public gathering in Qom; 7 January 2014 (Khamenei.ir)


25 comments:

Anonymous said...

Typical veto as was expected. "No official" BTW means "no one should dare" to challenge me

Anonymous said...

He is either a very shrewd negotiator or he is just digging deeper and will cause chaos and downfall of his house of cards...time will only tell

Anonymous said...

He should give show a list of the conditions by the West. It would be interest

Anonymous said...

bullshht about "national pride" is what someone without rational arguments offers. stirring up emotion rather than laying out facts is all that this is.

exactly why should it be degrading to allow the inspections that Iran has previously agreed to allow?

Anonymous said...

Because of these clowns,"Iran's National Pride" has been hurt for the past thirty six years.The removal of these clowns from politics,law and our economy will definitely cure 99% of Iran's ills.

Anonymous said...

Agreed,good point

Anonymous said...

And replace it with what exactly?

Anonymous said...

Iaea inspections have absolutely nothing to do with this,indeed iran allowed the iaea to inspect sites that iran was under absolutely no obligation to do so.What the SL is taking about is the wests demands/conditions for lifting sanctions,and from the sounds of it these are unacceptable which is bad luck for rouhani and co who have rather stupidly gambled their political futures on the west being reasonable/open to a deal

Anonymous said...

Yeah iran would be so much better off as just another "arab style dictatorship" vassal state of the west like egypt or saudi that way it wouldnt need to worry about things like national pride because it wouldnt have any to begin with.

Anonymous said...

-Prior to these "clowns" Irans literacy rate was 35%, now its >90%
-prior to these "clowns" the average Iranian died at the age of 50, today life expectancy is 72 years
-Prior to these "clowns" 70% of the population were just a bunch of rural (Dahatis)
-Prior to these "clowns" Iran couldnt make anything for itself and would have to ask foreigners if we wanted a bridge, a highway or any infrastructure.
-Prior to these "clowns" Iran was more backward than all the other middle eastern countries except Yemen and Syria
-Prior to these clowns the Americans French and Germans told us "Hey Iran stop being stupid, your oil will run out one day and you'll need nuclear power just to keep the lights on at night, well build them for you at 3-4 times the cost of you building it for yourself"

-But as soon as these "clowns" came, their tune changed "Iran has oil, it doesnt need Nuclear power" Bush refused any enrichment whatsoever even 5%

Its insulting because its the same argument they made about Oil, Iran can have oil so long as the colonial powers drill, it sell and run the books for Iran. Its not 1917 or 1952 anymore

Anonymous said...

Anons 4:56 and 11:59 AM,which I know to be the same person. Keep on repeating the same questions and answers. You know that "arab style dictatorship" is the one occupying Iran at present,with islamic sharia law as its corner stone and foundation. As for your nonsensical question regarding what could possibly replace this barbaric and vicious regime.Look no further than the replacement of the NAZI tyranny which was replaced with a social democratic system in Germany.Iran deserves far more better than these liars,thieves,rapists and murderers who are in command and control of the country.A country that has been occupied for 36 years by an arab style ideology.

Anonymous said...

Ayatollah Rouhani, experienced politician and a strategist, has to remember what he said, "that we will force them (the West) for an agreement".
He realizes and is not an ignorant that a final say belongs to the SL, and that the Majlis is above him too.

There is not much time for his actions and he has been realizing that an outcome from new elections to Majlis will determine fate of his presidency and to compromise calculations of the West.

A-F

Anonymous said...

Anon 5:49 PM....."Prior to these "clowns" Iran was more backward than all the other middle eastern countries except Yemen and Syria"

Really? On what bases did you come up with that nonesense? Because it is a known fact that Iran at that time was only second after Japan in economic development amongst Asian countries.Let alone the "other middle eastern countries".Save us all the agony and look it up before you write any further diatribes on Uskowi.

Anonymous said...

yes, Rouhani was foolish to try to forget that Iran is a dictatorship and that the office Rouhani holds has no real power.

no matter what nonsense Iranians might claim, Iran's regime is nothing other than a few dozen nasty old priests ruling the masses

Anonymous said...

This is the basis, the Shah's Iran ranked far behind our neighbors. I know the Shah loved bragging about how much he "was modernizing" Iran, on the ground however. of the 60,000 villages only 6,000 had running water or electrictiy.
http://www.photius.com/rankings/human_developement_index_1975-2005.html
Iran was ranked 94th out of 150 countries. Japan was number 8, we were 94th, nowhere even close to Japan or south Korea. Maybe instead of making up statistics you should actually look up facts and figures.

This video from the United Nations Development Project, where the UN's representative in Iran is addressing the Iranian delegation in 2013 on their status
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Buo0DvIuY2o
The first 9 minutes he describes what the HDI is afterwards he talks about Irans position and compares to other countries. At 11:30 he states only one country in the world South Korea, had a faster improvement in Human development than Iran over the last 30 years.

Lets condemn the regime for the bad things it does, but lets also give credit in where credit is due especially in almost tripling the literacy rate and adding 25 years to the life expectancy, and providing plumming and electricty for the 60,000 villages.

Anonymous said...

The Islamic Republic's literacy rate ranking among countries is Number 151:

http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?v=39

Its female literacy rate ranking is Number 152:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_lit_fem-education-literacy-female

The Mollah Regime's Human Development Index (HDI) ranking of Number 76 is lower than Qatar (36), UAE (41), Bahrain (48), Kuwait (54), Saudi Arabia (57), Mexico (61), Libya (64), and Lebanon (72).

Its infant mortality ranking is Number 108:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate

Its life expectancy ranking is somewhere between Number 92 and 132:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

The Islamic Republic's literacy rate ranking among countries is Number 151:

http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?v=39

Its female literacy rate ranking is Number 152:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_lit_fem-education-literacy-female

The Mollah Regime's Human Development Index (HDI) ranking of Number 76 is breathtaking. It means the IRI is ranked lower than Qatar (36), UAE (41), Bahrain (48), Kuwait (54), Saudi Arabia (57), Mexico (61), Libya (64), and Lebanon (72).

Its literacy rate ranking of Number 151:

http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?v=39

Its infant mortality ranking of Number 108:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate

And life expectancy ranking of somewhere between Number 92 and 132 are even more impressive:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

Anonymous said...

Anon 11:02 AM "......Iran ranked far behind our neighbors."

Before you come out with such bold statements look up the facts before hand.
atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/Ll15Ak01.html

Anonymous said...

Rankings in literacy become meaningless above 95% because the difference bewteen rank #1 and #62 is just 2%. and the top 72 countries are all in the "98% literacy" and above category.
So these rankings are just between countries with basically the same literacy rate give or take a couple 1/10ths of a percent.
But you miss the whole point that the liteacy rate jumped from around 35% in 1976 to 97% now, almost trippling in one generation is huge acheivement.
Also your ranking from index Mundi seems to be from 2002 when the literacy was still only 77%, nice try using 13 year old statistics and rankings

And again since you are so obsessed with rankings, Irans HDI ranking of 76 (out of 180 countries) is better than the Shah's ranking of 94 (of 150).
Today we are in the top 40% of HDI in the world, and are now in the "high development" category.
under the Shah we were in the lowest 37% (under developed). I rather be in the top 40% now than in the lowest 40% that we were then.
Your rankings show just how low our starting point was in 1979, that despite such rapid development Iran still has a lot of catching up to do.

Your rankings for life expectancy are similarly decpetive, Iran added roughly 25 years to the average lifespan of the average Iranian. Iranians now live 50% longer than they did under the Shah. So regardless of what ranking Iran has this is one of the highest jumps in life expectancy ever seen in such a short time. Another way of looking at it is the average Iranian under the Shah died 25 years younger than their american counterparts. Today Iranians in Iran live only 4 years less than their American counterparts. So the difference betweeen number 36 the US and Iran number 106 is just 4 years.
So these rankings arent really significant when the difference is really just a couple years

The basic pattern here is Iran makes huge improvements bringing its literacy rate to within a couple percent of the most advanced countries of the world. Iranians live

Did you not watch the UN video, where the UN representative in Iran states that Iran's HDI has had a 67% improvement since the revolution in 1980, making it the 2nd fastest improvement of any nation over the last 32 years. Only to South Korea who had 70% improvement in its HDI and beat Iran by 3%.

Anonymous said...

Nice try! The link you posted shows that the IRI was ranked 94 out of 150 in HDI in 2005, NOT in 1975! Look at the table: only the last column (for 2005) goes in descending order -- it is clearly ranked for that year and NOT 1975, as you CLAIM. You have no basis for making such a claim about Iran's relative rankings in 1975 -- ignoring the fact that high oil prices only came into effect in 1973, whereas the IRI obtained more oil revenues in 2005-2013 alone than Iran did in the entire preceding century, going all the way back to the Qajars!

Anonymous said...

The following report shows the biggest improvements in nonincome HDI from 1970 to 2010 were mostly in Mideast/North Africa countries: Oman, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Algeria, and Tunisia all did better than the IRI.

http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/labs/ecofoot/UN-Human-Development-Report_The-Advance-of-People.pdf

Anonymous said...

The reality speaks for itself in todays Iran,after all we live it.Iran today is a social mess of the first magnitude.Don't believe it? Then look at the six million plus drug addicts that litter the cities throughout Iran.This is the IRI own statistics by the way.Also at least over 25% of the populution is unemployed followed by another 35% plus who are semi employed.The dollar is nearly 40000 rials where once it was 75 rials and so on.Statistics are given by the regimes accounting office or some is just pure guess work.So lets see the reality of what is really going on instead of sitting in the comfort of the west and praising failure that the regime really is,period.

Anonymous said...

The first colum is 1975 Values (look at the first column on left). You can still see that only Syria and Oman were behind Iran. The 2-3 countries that dont have. Its obvious you have never studied statistics in your life.

Oman 0.487
Syria 0.547
Iran 0.571
Turkey 0.594
Saudi 0.611
UAE 0.734
Bahrain 0.747
Kuwait 0.771

We can extrapolate from plotting the curve graph the values for Jordan and Lebanon were also above 0.6 in 1975.

As for Drugs, 90% of the worlds heroin comes from Afghanistan and passes through Iran. Of course Iran is going to have a high drug rate. The USA has 15 million drug addicts "littered through the streets". The shah didnt even outlaw Opium cultivation in Iran until 1955. Irans problem with Heroin cartels coming from Afghanistan is like the USA's problem with cocaine and marijuana Cartels from Mexico.
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/responding-to-drug-use-and-hiv-in-iran.html
Also the UN states 1.2 million, not 6 million.
http://unmultimedia.org/radio/english/2011/07/1-2-million-opium-and-heroin-addicts-in-iran/

Secondly those who go to Iran notices how clean it is and dont report millions of heroin addicts litering the streets. Irans 1.2 million addicts are generally indoors shooting up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzZXEp_lrk4

The UN has praised Irans anti-narcotics practices, yet guys like you who probably havent been to Iran since the 70s or early 80s, are the ones who go around ignoring the context of why Iran has a drug problem (AKA our next door neighbor is the largest producer, and its production has skyrocketed since the US invasion) but instead try to promote the idea that drugs in Iran are because the "regime is trying spreading drugs to sedate a population so it doesnt rise up"
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/drug-trafficking/index.html

Anonymous said...

And again I have to point out you didnt even bother watching this UNDP video in which the united nations states "Iran had the 2nd fastest improvement in HDI over the last 30 years in the world, surpassed only by south Korea" (the UN report below on youtube states this).
why do you not link the UN and go to other sources (like global change) to suit your argument.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Buo0DvIuY2o

-at 11 minutes he states Irans HDI growth is double the world average.
-at 1130 he states the part about south Korea being the only country to do better than Iran (not Oman, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Algeria as you claim)

I take more stock in the UN report that some guy like you with an agenda who is obsessed with trying to prove that every single facet of Iranian life is dismally bad even willing to admit that
This is why when I show stats that the literacy almost rate tripled, you try to play it down with rankings.

The difference between me and you is I condemn the regime for the bad things it does like the economy and Human rights. But I also praise their efforts at literacy, infrastructure, and increasing life expectancy.
You on the other hand see everything in black and white "Its an evil regime and 100% of what is done is evil, without exception".

Anonymous said...

Anon 12:35 PM

If it wasn't an evil regime it wouldn't be hanging innocent people off mobile cranes.It wouldn't be shooting at peaceful demonstrators from rooftops with hunting rifles.It wouldn't be secretly burying executed victims at midnight in unmarked graves.It wouldn't prevent families and friends from attending political victims funerals.It wouldn't lock up journalists for years without trial.It wouldn't lock up torture and execute bloggers and workers rights movement members and pretend they "fell down the stairs" excuse.It wouldn't use hired thugs (basij on motorcycles)throwing acid on women's faces because in their twisted minds she's not wearing hijab correctly.The list can go on for ever regarding this immoral regime's antics.There is no two ways about it,becuase in anybody's book the actions of this deceptive regime is proof alone that it is 100% pure evil. Without exeption,there is nothing to "praise" about a criminal mafia regime with their dictator for life godfather period.

Anonymous said...

Anon 12:12 PM and 12:35 PM

I caught you making false claims, and I provided a link (BELOW) clearly showing the biggest improvements in nonincome HDI from 1970 to 2010 were mostly in Mideast/North Africa countries: Oman, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Algeria, and Tunisia all did better than the IRI. You'll pardon me if I don't wish to continue this exchange.

http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/labs/ecofoot/UN-Human-Development-Report_The-Advance-of-People.pdf