Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi addresses the UN General Assembly: what you should know
This morning I was prompted by a WhatsApp message from Press TV (Iran) to do what best practices would have otherwise told me to do if I wish to be au courant on the most important international developments of the day. Press TV invited me to discuss on air Ebrahim Raisi’s address to the United Nations General Assembly yesterday, in particular his remarks on how the world no longer accepts Western hegemony, nor does it accept the Cold War mentality that fans the flames of conflict to undermine the wellbeing of other nations. Watching that speech immediately became a necessity.
You can find my 10 minute interview here: https://www.urmedium.net/c/presstv/126282
As you will see from this interview, I went beyond the immediate question of Iran’s position on American global hegemony and put the Iranian President’s speech in the context of a series of diplomatic achievements that began with the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia this past spring. Then came the conclusion of long-delayed agreements with Russia on investments in a re-launched North South Corridor connecting Central Asia and Russia by train and intermodal logistics through Iran to Indian ports. Last month we witnessed the invitation extended to Iran to become a full member of the BRICS group on 1 January 2024. And now in the days just preceding the arrival of delegates to the UN General Assembly gathering, an agreement was reached with the United States on prisoner exchanges and the release of 6 billion dollars of Iranian assets frozen for several years in South Korea. Moreover, on the sidelines of his visit to New York Raisi is expected to have talks with the head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency over access of inspectors to the Iranian nuclear facilities. And in this same time frame, Iran’s Minister of Defense is hosting his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu in Teheran for talks on expanding the two countries’ cooperation over defense materiel and security issues in the region. Clearly, Iran is on a roll.
President Raisi’s speech was carried by several major internet portals. Here is the link to the speech on America’s Public Broadcasting channel which I used:
In what follows, I will summarize some of the elements of this remarkable speech which most impressed me. I urge readers to follow the PBS link and draw their own conclusions.
President Raisi opened his speech with remarks that were philosophical in nature, setting out the common roots of the world’s major religions going back to Abraham, through Jesus to Mohammed. Islam sees men and women as complementary while having equal value before Allah, he said. Islam places great emphasis on the family as the core unit of society, and children as the gift of the Almighty. His point was to establish the positive values of his religion and culture which come up against Islamophobia in the West, as seen in the desecration of the Koran, in the bans on wearing the jihab in schools and in the Apartheid treatment of Muslim immigrants in Europe. These aberrations result from the West having lost its way, from its suffering an identity crisis.
These were the first notes of a leitmotiv of confrontation between East and West that ran through the whole speech.
The Iranian president insisted that a new geopolitical order is coming in notwithstanding the efforts of the capitalist West to maintain its hegemony. The attempts by the United States to impose its ideals on the world have failed. It speaks of democracy but this is a sham. Non-Western powers are emerging and they reject the West’s arrogance.
The West stages coups d’état, proxy wars. It seeks to divide the world into blocs, but a new East-West divide should not be allowed to develop. The emerging powers are establishing regional cooperation. The regions interact with the global community on the basis of justice.
Iran stands for a policy of good neighborliness. Stable neighbors make for stable regions. Foreign powers should not intervene in the region from the Caucasus down to the Persian Gulf. They are not part of the solution, but rather are the essence of the problem itself.
President Raisi’s thoughts on the Ukraine war caught my attention: “We do not support a war anywhere, whether in Europe or elsewhere.” Neutral sounding, n’est-ce pas? But he goes on to say that the United States has been fanning the war to weaken Europe. Iran, he said, supported all peace initiatives.
Finally, I noted his condemnation of the United States for its ‘egregious crimes’ of withdrawing from the multiparty nuclear deal known as the JCPOA and imposing draconian sanctions on Iran.
I could mention many other separate issues touched upon in this speech, including the role of Western intelligence operatives in stoking the anti-government demonstrations in Iran last year over the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, or the way Western countries have provided safe haven for terrorists that were operating in the Middle East. However, I leave it to readers to discover the additional pearls in the speech.
If I may make an overarching generalization about the speech, it made clear that Iran upholds the geopolitical views of BRICS and that any thoughts in the United States that Teheran can be drawn back into the fold of vassal nations by lifting sanctions or other concessions are delusional.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023