‘US warships in Persian Gulf are sitting ducks for Iran’

The European Union has embarked on a new round of sanctions on Iran’s crude oil exports in a bid to build more pressure on the nation to give up its right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes.

Iran has reiterated its inalienable right to maintain its domestically-developed cycle of uranium enrichment under the international law and pledged to strongly respond to any possible foreign adventurism in the Persian Gulf region.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Dr. Mohammad Marandi, a professor at Tehran University to further discuss the issue. The program offers the opinions of two additional guests: Jim Brann with the Stop the War Coalition from London, and also Stephen Lendman, writer and radio host.

What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Mr. Marandi, Iran, as you know, has called the US and the European sanctions, illegal and unilateral. What are the grounds on which Iran is dismissing the sanctions as illegal.

Marandi: Well, first of all, most importantly, the embargo that has been imposed by the United States on the Iranians is directed at third parties. Iranians really have no problems at all; having no deals with the United States.

The Iranians did not have any significant economic relationship with the United States since the [1979 Islamic] revolution itself.

But what the Americans have been doing, is that they have been bullying independent countries to prevent them from purchasing Iranian crude oil, as well as from investing in the Iranian oil and trade sector, and they have also imposed, along with the Europeans, forms of embargo as well as severe limitations on the Iranian Central Bank [CBI].

So the objective basically, while many of these acts are very much illegal in accordance to international law, including the rules of the World Trade Organization [WTO], but also in the eyes of many they constitute an act of war, as the US presidential candidate, Ron Paul has said and so have many other analysts, ‘the objective is not the Iranian nuclear program’, even in the past before the more severe sanctions were imposed, when one looks at the WikiLeaks documents, it was quite clear that from the very start the objective was to hurt ordinary Iranians, and in the eyes of people in Iran, these actions are themselves quite despicable because hurting people and trying to prevent them from obtaining medicine and other necessary goods because of the restrictions on the Central Bank is a major violation of human rights, but again I think the Western countries are doing themselves a major disservice because people across the region and beyond, see the Western regimes for what they really are.

Just as in the past they have supported Saddam Hussein and helped him obtain weapons of mass destruction and aided him in his war against Iran, they continued to do so in a more silent method by embargoes and sanctions.

Press TV: Let us now just look at what Iran is doing, in terms of its responding to these sanctions that started on Sunday.

Mr. Marandi, as you know the oil embargo, right now we have of course the three-day military drills that are taking place in Iran and I have a quote here by a senior Iranian Military official, Major General Shirazi. He described these drills as Iran’s response, he said, to countries that stand against it.

So basically this is clearly a message to the sanctions, as well as the bill that has been discussed in parliament, you may already know, about shutting down the Strait of Hormuz.

Now how serious do you think that response is going to be and what will ensue if actually Iran does take that step?

Marandi: Well, since the Iranians view the United States and the Europeans as moving well beyond international norms and breaking international law at many levels and since these countries are very much trying to hurt ordinary Iranians, the Iranian government and the state and the armed forces feel the need to show the Western powers that escalating the situation could definitely have consequences.

At the moment Iranians are not planning to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, but I think that the Iranians are pointing out that they do have that capability and beyond that, even if there is any form of military conflict in the Persian Gulf region, it is definitely not just the Strait of Hormuz that will see a major Iranian military presence. Throughout the Persian Gulf Region, the Iranian Armed Forces, and the Indian ocean, they have a very strong presence and so if there is conflict between Iran and another party, obviously the oil installations, gas installations, tankers, all of these will be destroyed and nothing will be left to, actually, travel through the Strait of Hormuz, whether it is open or not.

So I think the Iranians are trying to send a message to the Western regimes that they should be concerned about escalating the situation further.

And also the Iranians have additional options in the sense that they are allowed within the framework of international law, to carry out stop and searches in the Strait [of Hormuz] and near the Strait of Hormuz, because it is Iranian territorial waters and they could…, through using international law that could severely restrict the pace at which tankers and other ships pass through the Strait and that would decrease, again, the pace of exports of oil to international markets.

So the Iranians have many legal options that they can use in response to what they see as illegal actions, taken by the Western governments.

Press TV: Mr. Marandi when, of course, the West is accusing Iran over its nuclear program especially during the last round of talks between Iran and the P5+1 [Russia, China, France, UK, US and Germany] group, the issue of the uranium enrichment was brought up, now, a lot of reports are saying that what the west wants from Iran, is to halt the uranium enrichment and Iran’s refusal to do so is what is causing the problem.

Basically would you say that, that is a correct analysis of the situation in talks and why, basically, is Iran saying that it is not going to stop the uranium enrichments?

Marandi: Well, first of all I think that many people will now agree, many analysts would agree, that the issue really is not the Iranian nuclear program, as our previous guest [Stephen Lendman] mentioned.

The Unites States and the western powers within the P5+1 group, not China and Russia, which have now very different views from the Western governments in the talks, the Western countries are basically saying that the Iranians have to give up everything.

In other words, they must capitulate and even if Iran does capitulate, they are saying that Iran is really not getting anything significant in return. In other words the sanctions, the current sanctions, will stay in place. And this of course, shows that the Western countries really are not serious at all in resolving the situation.

In the past when the Iranians and other countries, such as the Brazilians and the Turks, signed the Tehran Declaration, which itself according to a letter from Obama to the Brazilian President [Lula Da Silva] and the Turkish prime minister [Recep Tayyip Erdogan], in that letter he said a series of conditions in which he would accept an agreement and the Tehran declaration was signed within that part of framework and immediately, the US president [Obama] despite signing the letter he rejected it.

So the Iranians see the United States as both dishonest, it has a president that does not abide by his own word and on the other hand the United States and the West are demanding capitulation and nothing in return. The Iranians on the other hand are saying that ‘we are working within the framework of international law and under no circumstances will we appease the West and give up our own sovereignty.’

I think the Iranians also believe that Western countries are not in a position to initiate conflict. If they do, they would face very severe consequences. Western economies are rapidly declining and their rivals in Asia and elsewhere are gaining the upper hand and the United States knows that its ships in the Persian Gulf are sitting ducks when it comes to Iranian missiles, the Persian Gulf is not very large, if missiles are fired at the American naval ships, they will hit their targets very quickly.

So there really is not time for them to defend themselves. Despite the fact that the western media repeatedly try to downplay Iran’s military strength, I think the US military knows quite well where Iran stands and the American government knows how weak its economy is.