![\"michael-danby-300\"](\"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/05\/michael-danby-300.jpg\" "\\"michael-danby-300\\"")
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Iran supports Hezbollah terrorists and Bashar al-Assad dictatorship in Syria and the regime cannot be trusted in nuclear talks with the West, a leading Australian lawmaker has warned.<\/p>\n
Federal member Michael Danby said concessions from the West in negotiations would not be returned in kind by the rulers in Tehran.<\/p>\n
He wrote in The Australia newspaper: “Iran has shown repeatedly that it will pursue its perceived interests regardless of the consequences.<\/p>\n
“Iran\u2019s principal aims are to undermine the Middle East\u2019s US-backed Sunni-led status quo and to replace the US as the regional hegemonic power.<\/p>\n
“Tehran also persists with the apparently unchanged ideology of its Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, to destroy Israel.”<\/p>\n
Mr Danby also said ‘no one should doubt’ Iran\u2019s commitment to its client, Hezbollah, and its support for Assad’s brutal regime in Syria.<\/p>\n
He added: “Iran\u2019s direct regional aggression continues all the while. Iranian-aligned Houthi rebels captured Yemen\u2019s capital. General Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, acts as a Persian viceroy, dominating Iraq\u2019s government and Shi\u2019ite militias.<\/p>\n
“So alarmed is America\u2019s chief Middle East ally, Saudi Arabia, that Prince Turki bin Faisal, the former Saudi intelligence chief, said in February, ‘Whatever the Iranians have, we will have too’.”<\/p>\n
He went on: “Of course, Iran\u2019s nuclear program is the focus of international concern. Tehran is negotiating only because international sanctions were crippling its economy. UN sanctions were placed on Iran only after several secret uranium enrichment sites were uncovered. (not by inspectors but by a dissident group).”<\/p>\n
And he quoted Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as saying recently: “We will never yield to pressure. Iran will not give access to its nuclear scientists. We will not allow the privacy of our nuclear scientists or any other important issue to be violated.”<\/p>\n
Mr Danby added: “The Saudis, Turks, Qataris and Israelis, like the French socialist government and Democrats in the US Congress, sense increased Iranian power in the Middle East. Direct Saudi intervention in the region is a function of a perceived decrease of US influence in the Middle East. The Saudis traditionally have relied on the US to maintain regional stability.<\/p>\n
“But a series of US decisions \u2014 such as the prospective nuclear deal, military co-operation between US and Iranian ground forces in Iraq, allowing Assad in Syria to cross chemical weapons ‘red lines’, and distancing itself from Israel and Egypt \u2014 has convinced Saudi Arabia, Turkey and even Qatar that the US is lessening its involvement in the region.<\/p>\n
“When Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop visited Iran last month, she was the first high-ranking Western minister to visit the Islamic Republic since the initialling of the Lausanne framework. The significance of Bishop\u2019s visit is that it marks Iran\u2019s continuing passage from pariah to accepted member of the international community.<\/p>\n
“Western countries are hustling to be at the front of the queue when sanctions are officially dropped. Western diplomats including Bishop are lauding ‘a change in Iranian attitudes’, despite no evidence of that.<\/p>\n
“They\u2019re also lauding Iran\u2019s acceptance of nuclear understandings despite revelations to the contrary and responsible actions in the region, despite Iran actively undermining regional governments from Beirut to Baghdad and beyond, as well as prolonging Syria\u2019s civil war.<\/p>\n
“This is short termism at its worst and ignores the Khamenei regime\u2019s actual policies and nature.
A nuclear-armed Iran in 10 years, free of sanctions, with $180 billion of reserves now freed up and with unchanged policies of regional hegemony and support for terrorist proxies such as Hezbollah, is not in the interests of world peace, regional stability or even faraway Australia.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iran supports Hezbollah terrorists and Bashar al-Assad dictatorship in Syria and the regime cannot be trusted in nuclear talks with the West, a leading Australian lawmaker has warned. Federal member […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":43075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[175],"class_list":{"0":"post-18360","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iran-a-world","8":"tag-updated"},"yoast_head":"\n