Interview by Kourosh Ziabari
With Some Final Comments by Stephen Lendman

TEHRAN (FNA)- American writer and radio host Stephen Lendman believes that the successful arrangement and hosting of the 16th heads-of-state Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Tehran was diplomatically a triumph for the Islamic Republic, which disappointed Israel and the United States and helped Iran improve its political profile on the international scene.

Stephen Lendman believes that despite the US and Israeli propaganda, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Tehran which wrapped up on Friday was a great diplomatic victory for Iran and meant a great defeat and failure for the US and the Zionist regime of Israel.

What follows is the full text of Fars News Agency's interview with Stephen Lendman in which a number of issues pertaining to the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran, the frustration of Western powers at the successful summit in Tehran, the attendance of Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi at the summit, the prospects of the movement under Iran's presidency and the role it can play in fostering global peace and stability were discussed.

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Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

Obama, Ban and the late Leader of Libya, Moammar Ghadafi
in 2009. Obama and Ban apparently did not feel comfortable
in Mr. Ghadafi's presence. (They later had him killed.)

The calls at the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Tehran for reforming the United Nations and democratizing the Security Council were not exactly new. These calls for UN reform were embodied by the conference’s dictum of “lasting peace through joint global governance.” These demands have been made over and over again by various countries and groups throughout the years.

Nor was everyone present at the NAM gala in Tehran a friend of Iran or open to the Iranian proposals for reforming the United Nations. The visibly shaken Jeffry Feltman, who was uncomfortably sitting with Iranian officials in Tehran alongside his new boss Ban Ki-moon, can testify to all this. Feltman is a clear symbol of how contaminated the United Nations has become by the imperialist interests of Washington.

The manipulation of the United Nations for imperialist interests, however, goes back a long way. From its inception, the United Nations was meant to facilitate the global influence of the US after the Second World War. The idea of the United Nations, which gets its name from the military coalition (called the United Nations) of the Allied countries that was formed against Germany and the Axis countries, was based on an agreement drafted by the US and the UK during the Second World War. This agreement, the Atlantic Charter, was written out while the US was officially neutral, but secretly supported the British war effort against Germany and its Axis allies by sending supplies to Britain through Canada. The US would later use the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii as a justification for entering the war and getting the other Allies to accept the Anglo-American Atlantic Charter during the war and then at the San Francisco Conference in 1945.

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Stephen Lendman

When freedom is on the line, mass support must save it. There's still time, but it's running out fast. Learn the facts. Know the stakes. Tell others, and join a struggle too important to lose.

Obama and other Washington extremists support an alphabet soup of federal and international freedom-destroying measures. SOPA, PIPA, CISPA, ACTA, and now TPP are stealth pro-corporate, anti-populist hellish schemes. Two previous articles by this writer called TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) ACTA 2.0 and a trade deal from hell. Another one said ACTA is worse than SOPA and PIPA.

Public Citizen's Lori Wallach heads its Global Trade Watch division. It monitors destructive trade deals like TPP. On June 27, she headlined her Nation magazine article "NAFTA on Steroids," saying:

TPP, like other destructive trade deals, is being secretly negotiated. Most people never heard of it. Media scoundrels ignore it. Whatever corporations want they support. TPP was cleverly misbranded. In 2008, Bush officials initiated discussions. They continue under the radar. By late 2009, Obama picked up where Bush left off. He backs everything he supported and then some. He wants virtual total corporate empowerment. Think of the TPP as a stealthy delivery mechanism for policies that could not survive public scrutiny. It provides Trojan horse cover for grandiose new rights and privileges for corporations and permanent constraints on government regulation. It favors investors at the expense of public health, food safety, clean air and water, sovereign control of resources, land use, energy, and virtually everything else that smells money, power and privileges afforded both. The stakes are extremely high because TPP may well be the last 'trade' agreement Washington negotiates." If enacted, other countries can join. If enough do, it'll be a global NAFTA on steroids.

Member countries will sacrifice national sovereignty. Their laws, regulations and rights will be subordinated to TPP rules. Their use of tax revenues will also be restricted. Buy America and similar national priorities will end. Rule-breakers will face TPP tribunal lawsuits and sanctions. Corporations will be empowered to sue countries outside their domestic courts. Private sector attorneys will become judges and juries.

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