By CLAUDE SALHANI, UPI International Editor
ِExcerpts
UPI – Iran: Things can only go downhill from here following the United Nation’s Security Council Resolution 1737 imposing sanctions on Iran. As with the sanctions imposed on Saddam’s Iraq, these too, will end up hurting the people while sparing the ruling class. Result? More anger against America.
However, that is not the opinion of some Iranians. "This is a major victory for the Iranian people and the Iranian opposition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran that was responsible for revealing Iran’s nuclear sites and triggered IAEA inspections," Alireza Jafarzadeh, a Washington-based consultant who sometimes speaks for the Iranian resistance, told United Press International.
"It is crucial that we now have a resolution under Chapter 7 of the Security Council. This is the first step in a series of actions to impose international pressure on the Iranian regime to end its nuclear weapons program. However, we should be mindful that the Iranian regime has no intentions to comply with the resolution and would seek to continue proceeding with its nuclear weapons program," said Jafarzadeh, who was the first person to reveal Iran’s clandestine nuclear sites in Natanz and ArAk in August 2002.
"No time should be wasted to take up additional measures once the Iranian regime misses its deadline to comply," added the Iranian opposition advocate, stressing that the regime "is vulnerable to such resolution, because it is weak."
According to Jafarzadeh, the author of the forthcoming book "The Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear Crisis," there were some 4,000 anti-government demonstrations in Iran in the past year. "Now is the time to step up pressure on the Iranian regime. The international community should not be intimidated by the Iranian regime’s hollow threats," he said.
