Pakistan must not let its soil be used against Iran, says scholar.

Byline: Peerzada Salman

KARACHI -- Pakistan should stand by its policy of not allowing the US to use Pakistani soil against Iran. This was the point that scholar Prof Dr Talat Wizarat stressed upon in the final part of her lecture on 'The current state of Iran-US relations: implications for Pakistan' at a seminar organised by the Department of International Relations, UniAversity of Karachi on Thursday morning.

Dr Wizarat, who is a former chairperson of the department, said people envy the Middle East since they say it's full of resources. 'I feel sorry for it, because although the region is full of resources, greedy eyes and hands have plundered them, not allowing the people to gain from their own resources.'

Dr Wizarat said the conflict between Iran and the US is an ideological one. Even if you believe that ideology doesn't matter much, it is still important. [Samuel] Huntington gave impetus to this saying religious conflicts are going to consume the world. He sees the main conflict between Islamic and Western civilisations.

The scholar said Iran is also a resource-rich country. In the 1950s, the people of Iran elected Mosaddegh, who was a popular politician. He saw that while Iranians were suffering after WWII, the Western oil companies were taking all the oil away from Iran. He decided to nationalise the oil [industry] of Iran. The West raised hue and cry about it. The CIA toppled his government and brought back the Shah.

Then, soon after the Islamic Revolution, there was the hostage crisis. The West lectured Iran about international law. Finally they launched the move to liberate the hostages which failed. It proved to be a setback to US influence in Iran. After that the US navy downed a civilian Iranian aircraft which was going to Dubai. Hundreds of civilians died in the incident. Pakistan's navel attache to Iran and his family also died in it. The US has not apologised to Iran. 'It was sheer violation of international law.'

Dr Wizarat said one has to look at American goals in the region to which the US sees Iran as a hurdle. The first goal is that it wants regime change in many countries. They were successful in Afghanistan; they did that in Iraq (Saddam Hussein); and killed Qadhafi in Libya. Now they wanted to turn their attention to Syria to change the government of Bashar al-Assad. They started a civil war in Syria. Iran became an obstacle in their way by supporting...