I have been blogging for the past couple of days about the relationship between Iran and the US. I am also focusing on the two most important issues that influence this relationship and they are: Iran's Nuclear Program and how the United States should negotiate with Iran, and the issue of the protests against the past Iranian presidential elections. These two issues continue to change the way in which the United States relates discusses with Iran.
The United States and other countries have been meeting with Iran to discuss Iran’s Nuclear Program. There are many points of views regarding how the US should negotiate with Iran about its Nuclear Program. Currently the US plan is to continue talks with Iran and respect its right to nuclear energy, but this right has many responsibilities. Many Americans view Iran as a huge threat to our national security, because Iran may have the potential to create a nuclear weapon. Recently Iran has talked with the US, and other international countries, to work out the next steps in order to let the international community know if Iran is using its nuclear power for peaceful purposes. President Ahmadinajad has showed great optimism towards the upcoming talks with other countries. Recently there has been talk of imposing stricter sanctions on Iran, but many believe that being tough on Iran will not help in the long run. The struggle of this issue is whether or not the past talks will be effective in actually changing how Iran uses its Nuclear Program.
In addition to Iran’s Nuclear Program, Iran’s past presidential elections is a key issue that affects the relationship between Iran and the US. In the summer of this year, Iran held presidential elections and President Ahmadinejad was re-elected as president. Many Iranians believed that the votes were rigged in favor of Ahmadinejad. Even though there was a government ban on protests, many people went on the streets to protest. There were international outcries against the Iranian government for not allowing the protesters to protest. (The UN News centre article). The US also believed that the Iranian government should have not banned the protests, but many in the US thought that President Obama should have shown more criticism towards the Iranian government (reuters website). President Obama was somewhat hesitant because many Iranian leaders were saying that the Western countries were influencing the protests. The main point of this issue is how involved should the US be in Iran's elections?
These two issues impact the relationship that the United States has with Iran. They are constantly changing and influencing the world today.
This website comes from the BBC News. This is site contains a detailed and very useful chart describing how Iran is ruled.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8051750.stm
This website shows a series of questions relating to the US and America during the previous Bush Administration
http://www.globalissues.org/article/696/iran#IransrealpoliciesandactionscomplicateBushsposition
This is an article from the Human Rights Watch website regarding the sentence of a protester in Iran.
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/10/13/iran-another-execution-juvenile-offender
This is an article from the Amnesty International website regarding the human rights offensives that Iran used to handle the demonstrations regarding the Iranian presidential elections.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-releases/iran-violence-against-demonstrators-marks-new-presidential-term-20090614
This comes from the National Security Network, which is a website created by people who have experience with the government and these people discuss the US foreign policy and how it can relate to our National Security. This is National Security Network's opinion about the US talks with Iran. It is more pro-negotiations with Iran. It also discusses how it disagrees with the Conservative opinions on the dealings with Iran.
http://www.nsnetwork.org/node/1418
This website is from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press which is a research organization that creates polls to see people's attitudes towards politics. Article that contains polls regarding people's positions and actions towards Iran.
http://people-press.org/report/550/
This is a CNN timeline of the events prior and after the Iranian presidential elections.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/06/16/iran.elections.timeline/index.html
This website contains a map of the votes in the Iranian presidential election by province.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/jun/15/iran1
This is a Reuters article describing how Republicans feel about Obama's reaction towards the Iranian election.
http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Iran/idUSTRE55K1S520090621?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0
This article is from the Council of Foreign Relations. This is a very useful website about the history of Iran's nuclear program.
http://www.cfr.org/publication/16811/
This is an interview that an Indian newspaper did with Mohamed El Baradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency and how he believes that have a negative and forceful tone will not help on the issue of Iran.
http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Transcripts/2009/hindu031009.html
This article is from Al Jazeera, and it covers the news of Iranian presidential elections and of the protesters.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/06/200961391719990152.html
These are the key nuclear sites in Iran. This is also from BBC News and this is the website where I got the map of the nuclear sites.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4617398.stm
This article is from FOX News and it describes some republican views on Obama's reaction towards the Iranian Presidential elections.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/17/mccain-rips-obama-cautious-response-protests-irans-election/
This website has many pictures of the protesters regarding the election in Iran. (Some of the pictures are quite violent).
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/06/irans_disputed_election.html
This is from the Glenn Greenwald blog that brings another view point about America and Iran on the nuclear issue.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/10/07/iran/index.html
On the Whitehouse Blog, there is a video and quotes that President Obama says regarding the Presidential election in Iran.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/The-President-Meets-with-Prime-Minister-Berlusconi-Comments-on-Iran/
This article is from the Fars News Agency which is an Iranian News Agency. This articles talks about President Ahmadinejad's optimism for further talks about Iran's Nuclear program.
http://english.farsnews.net/newstext.php?nn=8807201290
An article from the UN News Centre describing UN's Secretary-General's concern about the reports of violence used to stop protesters in Iran.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=32567&Cr=iran&Cr1=human+rights
This website has many polls about how many Americans knew about Iran's ban on foreign reporters to report the protests.
http://people-press.org/report/525/strong-public-interest-in-iranian-election-protests
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