Abdollah Nouri Proposes Referendum on Uranium Enrichment Program

Abdollah Nouri, the minister of the interior during Mohammad Khatami’s reformist administration, spoke with a group of visiting university students and said among other comments, that the nuclear issue should be decided by the public.

 

Nouri is a prominent Iranian cleric who has been out-favored by the current administration and at one time was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment until he was pardoned by ayatollah Khamenei and released. He had remained silent for years and only after the house-detention of the leaders of the Green Movement, Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi, has come out into the public to make comments on current issues facing the country.

 

Strategy for Reformers

The gist of Nouri’s message was that the reform movement had to come up with practical plans and a strategy to move beyond its current preoccupations with the release of political prisoners and the lifting of the house arrest of the leaders of the Green Movement, Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi and also with its disheartenment by the actions of the extremists and hardliners.

 

Specifically Nouri proposed, among other suggestions, the creation of a think tank by reformers so they would find ways to “exit the current state of hopelessness,” and create “plans, reconstruction and solidarity to move on logically and in view of the current conditions” as he put it. He said that because he had announced the need for such a center, some had interpreted this to mean that he was planning to head the center or that he was planning or running in the upcoming presidential elections, which he said was not the case.

 

National Issues vs. Reformists Issues

In another part of his talk Nouri said, “The general issues of the country are not limited to issues related to political prisoners but are those that impact the life of 75 million people. Not just the issues of a political group. Reformist political activists cannot therefore be inattentive to the general public issues in all fields and the development of the country, and thus create a gap between themselves and the people. They must be considerate of the problems of all Iranians, particularly the deprived,”

 

Nouri added that what may be of utmost importance to reformists may not enjoy the same priority for many people. He used the independence of the media as an example and said while this issue was very important to reformers, this was not necessarily the case with many ordinary Iranians who had much more serious issues at stake.

 

He questioned how sensitive reformers had been in their sympathy with and assistance to the most deprived sections of society. “The reform movement must tell the public what its daily priorities are so that people can be assured that the priorities of the reformers are the same as those of the ordinary majority,” he said.

 

The Nuclear Issue

Speaking about the nuclear issue, Nouri said that Iran had to be practical about this issue and in support of the national interest, without being emotional or idealistic. “Experts and specialists should be used to resolve this issue,” he said. “What value did criticizing the discriminatory policies of the major powers have in solving our problems? Countries pursued their own national interests and governments did not resort to morals and ethics to attain their interests,” he told his audience. Nouri used the example the Star Wars project devised during Ronald Reagan’s administration as a way to bankrupt the Soviet Union and said Iran should not make the mistake of being driven into a trap by the West through the sanctions it had already imposed on Iran. “Have we thought that perhaps the policy devised by the West regarding the nuclear issue is a trap to hurt Iran?” he asked. “If this is the case, our decision-making and policy should be to protect the country and not sacrifice everything for the nuclear program.” Nouri then critically pointed to reports that said Iran’s oil revenues had declined and would decline even further with the current state of affairs and listed the problem this would create for the public, industry, education, security and other aspects of life.

 

Nouri also spoke of timing pointing out that if issues were not addressed at the right time solutions that came late would not produce the desired results. In this regard he used the example of Iran losing its oil purchasers and said that once they switched over to other producers it would not necessarily be easy to bring them back into our market to purchase our oil in future when and if conditions changed.

 

His most important proposal perhaps was on the uranium enrichment program. He said specialists in the country, including political prisoners, a probable reference to Mousavi and Karoubi, should be consulted on a way out of this impasse. “The constitution too provides for referendum as a solution to important issues. Specialists should first explain the merits and weaknesses of continuing the confrontation with the West over the nuclear issue to the public, without being political or factional, and then people should determine and announce the final position on this,” he said. In this regard he also spoke of pragmatism and practicalities, rather than being self-deceptive and illusionary.

 

Separation of Reformers from the Green Movement

In his talk Nouri once again stressed on the unity between reformers and the Green Movement and said their separation would be a mistake. “Separation of reformers from the Green Movement is advanced by those who view the Movement as an extremist group. In view of the wide range of participants in the movement, one cannot completely negate extremist actions of some but one cannot accuse the whole movement of being extreme or calling for regime change. The second point is that some believe that all reformers want is to return to power and therefore accuse them of compromising their principles just to get into the centers of power. This is not true because the principal feature of the reformers is their commitment to non-violence and extremism in bringing about political change,” Nouri said. He pointed to Mousavi and Karoubi as being moderates, having reasonable demands and calling for the implementation of the whole constitution throughout their activism. Mousavi, according to Nouri, did not include many critics of Ahmadinejad’s administration into his campaign activities while at the same time he included some hardline principlists. He defended Mousavi as being revolutionary, religious, and committed, as was Karoubi.

 

Devising a Reform Program

In his concluding remarks, Nouri said that reformers needed to come up with a comprehensive program aimed at attracting the most and rejecting the least. In a reference to decisions and positions of the group, Nouri reiterated that no idea should be viewed as final without being first discussed publicly. “Even when the government acts unjustly, we should not do the same. Insults should not be responded with insults. Extremism does not bring a person closer to reality, but gradually makes it less likely that reality will be understood. We must keep our distance from those who advocate regime-change and those who look to foreign forces and governments for change.