World owes Iran debt of gratitude for sacrifices in fight against terror: Scottish writer and journalist John Wight

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani

Scottish writer and journalist John Wight says it is time for the world, including the United States, to acknowledge a debt of gratitude to Iran for the sacrifices it has made in the struggle against terrorism.

Wight made the remarks in an article, titled Trump is Wrong - Saudi Arabia, Not Iran is the World's 'Number One Terrorist State’, published by Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity and Russia Today (RT). 

“Donald Trump is proving himself a President prone to unleashing inconvenient truths side by side with blatant falsehoods. One of the most scurrilous of those falsehoods is his recent claim that Iran is the ‘number one terrorist state,’” Wight wrote. 

“Throughout his campaign for the White House in 2016, and since assuming office in January, Trump has made Iran the focus of his ire,” he added.  

“The Trump administration’s consistent and ongoing demonization of Iran flies in the face of reality in which Iran has stood, alongside Syria, Russia, the Kurds, and the Iranian-backed Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah, as a pillar against the very same Salafi-jihadist terrorism that poses a threat to the American people. It is a struggle in which the Iranians have expended both resources and blood in recent years, and as such justice demands that the world, including the United States, acknowledges that it owes Tehran a debt of gratitude,” the journalist noted. 

Wight went on to say that most people are aware that the real number one terrorist state in the world today is “Saudi Arabia, America’s friend, and ally.”  

John Podesta, the chairman of the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign (photo by AFP)

Wight wrote that even the US administration knows this fact and quoted a leaked email from John Podesta, the former chairman of the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. Podesta previously served as chief of staff to former president Bill Clinton and counselor to ex-president Barack Obama.

Podesta wrote in the September 2014 email, “While this military/para-military operation is moving forward, we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region.”

Donald Trump had adopted a hostile policy towards Iran since the inception of his presidential campaign in early 2015, but increased his anti-Iran rhetoric after he was sworn in as the 45th US president on January 20. 

US President Donald Trump 

He has repeatedly vowed to cancel the nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries, including the US, and his administration has imposed new sanctions on multiple Iranian individuals and entities.

Senior Trump administration officials told Reuters that sanctions imposed against Iran were only the "initial steps in response to Iranian provocative behavior."

The new sanctions were imposed on February 3, a day after President Trump said "nothing is off the table" in terms of a response to Iran's ballistic missile tests, which are part of Iran’s missile defense program.