Iran entitled to defend itself against enemies: Pundit

Press TV has interviewed Anthony James Hall, professor at University of Lethbridge, about the United States and some of its European allies reportedly calling for a meeting at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Iran’s recent missile tests, which they claim were carried out in defiance of a UN resolution.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: This has been largely a very unpopular campaign by the US and its allies, as there has been nothing. Is your evidence connecting nuclear warheads with Iran’s missile program? So why is the US campaigning so intensely to get this resolution passed?

Hall: Well the US is engaged in a constant propaganda initiative. Let’s face it. Iran is in a very dangerous neighborhood. There is a necessity to have a defense in place, a strong defense. US has a defense department but actually it is an offense department. This is part of a scenario here which is seen an enormous arms race, stocks sky-high for armaments companies in United States.

Iran has a right to defend itself and a responsibility to its own people to defend from real enemies like the monopoly power that Israel has over nuclear weapons in the region, the reality that German made submarines run by the Israeli defense department, so-called defense department, have nuclear weapons part right off the shore of Iran, we need a much larger discussion not this very selective targeting of Iran’s rightful and necessary self-defense posture.  

Press TV: And Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that this is a moot point and it is absurd because through the JCPOA deal that was reached, Iran has already exercising shown that it is not interested at all in obtaining a nuclear weapon?

Hall: Yes, and there have been numerous fatwas against nuclear weapons. What country has submitted itself to the extent that Iran has to this type of international inspection? We need the big nuclear powers; we need to question for instance the Israeli nuclear program and why it insists on holding monopoly over that method of intimidation, coercion and terror in the world.

Press TV: And if Iran was to try to appease the UN and scrap its missile program, I mean wouldn’t that leave the country vulnerable like you said in the region with all the hostility that exists in the Middle East region today?

Hall: As I say Iran has a necessary and credible defense posture. The United States calls its ministry a defense department but it is an offense department. What about the world’s great nuclear armed superpower and its militarism and aggression and illegal warfare around the world – the United States? How about the tension at the United Nations on the United States?

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