The U.S. government claims that Iran is unwilling to negotiate, but in 2003 Iran offered negotiations on all outstanding issues with the U.S., including nuclear policies and Israel-Palestine relations.

Recently, President Bush said Iran’s nuclear threat presents us with a danger of World War III. I agree about the danger of this conflict, but I do not think the main culprit is Iran. Let’s pick apart some of the common themes used by the media here.

The U.S. government claims that the Iranian regime is brutal and oppressive. These claims are true, but does the U.S. government care whether regimes are brutal and oppressive?

The U.S. currently supports Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia with billions of dollars in military aid each year. These countries have awful human rights records, with rampant torture in the interrogation system of each.

Let us look back at Iran’s history for a moment. Iran was a democratic monarchy in the 1940s and early 1950s. Under the freely elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, Iran nationalized the country’s huge oil supply.

Mossadegh was overthrown in 1953 with the help of the CIA. The Shah of Iran then took power and was dictator. The Shah was strongly supported by the U.S. for over two decades, until he was overthrown in 1979 in the Iranian Revolution.

What was the Shah’s human rights record? The Shah instituted an interrogation organization called SAVAK. The methods used by SAVAK included electrocuting genitals, beating the soles of feet, nail extraction, rape and “cooking,” a method where a victim would be strapped to a bed of wire that was then electrified until hot.

Derek Ive of the Associated Press investigated a SAVAK prison before the Iranian Revolution and saw that each cell had “a steel bed with straps and beneath it two domestic cookers. There were lowering devices on the bed frames so that the people strapped to them could be brought down onto the flames.”

In 1976, Martin Ennals, Secretary General of Amnesty International, said that, “No country in the world has a worse record in human rights than Iran.”

The U.S. government claims that Iran poses a threat because of its nuclear programs. These programs were actually launched with U.S. support in the 1950s.

Henry Kissinger, secretary of state under President Ford, was asked why the U.S. had supported Iran’s nuclear programs. He said the reason was that “they were an allied country.”

The assumption here is that U.S. allies have a right to have nuclear weapons. In fact, two key U.S. allies, Israel and Pakistan, most likely have nuclear weapons, and neither country has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The U.S. has approximately 10,000 nuclear weapons and is far in the lead for violating the NPT. Iran has signed the NPT and has fully cooperated with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Mohammad ElBaradei, head of the IAEA, has been unable to find credible evidence that Iran has a weapons program, saying that, “Iran does not constitute a certain and immediate threat for the international community.” He stresses that no evidence has been found for underground production sites or hidden radioactive substances.

The U.S. government also claims Iran is unwilling to negotiate, but in 2003 Iran offered negotiations on all outstanding issues with the United States, including nuclear policies and Israel-Palestine relations. Washington's response was to censure the Swiss diplomat who brought the offer.

The following year, the European Union and Iran reached an agreement that Iran would suspend enriching uranium in return for “firm guarantees on security issues.” Europe did not live up to the agreement so Iran resumed uranium enrichment, which it is allowed to do under Article IV of the NPT.

An objective observer would notice that it is Iran which is surrounded by U.S. military forces and it is the U.S. which is threatening Iran with attack. Threatening to attack a sovereign nation is a violation of the U.N. Charter, something Americans should care about. But even more serious, British military historian Corelli Barnett has stated that “an attack on Iran would effectively launch World War III.”

Keep in mind that Albert Einstein once said, “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

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