As public opinion is focused on issues such as the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the West, and relations between the Islamic Republic and the United States, we have turned to the former foreign minister of Austria to ask her opinion on the interference of Western countries in the internal affairs of Iran.
The first part of this interview was published on the subject of the nuclear negotiations.
The Interview with Kneissl, who was in charge of the Ministry from 2017 to 2019, comes as follows:
Some consider the soft overthrow and the color revolution to be the brainchild of some officials. Is there such a thing as a color revolution? To what extent are the United States and Europe united in overthrowing the Iranian government?
I think it's always a mix of numerous factors. I don't think that you can impose a regime change on a country where you don't have people who are also working on that. For color revolutions to occur, people must be changed first. When there is a foreign sponsor, and you have embassies, and we saw that in ex-Yugoslavia in the breakdown of Serbia in November 2000.
And, the fact that there are still lots of interested people who think that they can change Iran and maybe even bring back the son of ousted Pahlavi who has been sitting in Washington since 1979.
They (the Westerners) didn't manage with Iraq they did not manage with other countries, but they managed definitely with Yugoslavia. It happened in 2011. You always have to look at the cohesion of the society.
As you said, it's a combination of different things. I think that the sanctions imposed by Western countries on Iran affect the economic situation of the country and also put pressure on the Iranian people to help overthrow them. So, the question is whether they are trying to change the regime in Iran, or is it just a creation of some officials.
Well, it happened to President Mubarak (former Egyptian president). I think what happened to President Mubarak can happen to everybody.
So, this is a real thing that they're trying to overthrow the regime in Iran.
I have no insight. I'm only the observer but I'm not following US politics like I used to do maybe several years ago.
We have seen it in Ukraine, we have seen it in Egypt, we have seen it in Belgrade in the year 2000, and there's a certain factor to US diplomacy, which I came across the first time when I read the memoirs of Thomas Jefferson, the second president of the United States. In his memoirs, he writes in the pre-revolutionary Paris: We have to change the people.
That's what the Americans call transformative diplomacy. In my book on diplomacy, I write it very clearly. Condoleezza Rice, former US Secretary of State, spoke a lot about it.
It has nothing to do with diplomacy because diplomacy is about mutual respect. You are posted as the ambassador of your country or as embassy consulate in another state and you don't interfere in its domestic affairs. For the people, transformative diplomacy instills the concept that a change in the situation makes them happy.
In diplomacy, we have a duty to establish mutual relations in trade and cultural exchange, while transformative diplomacy has nothing to do with diplomacy. I always say that this interventionist mindset is not unique to the United States, and you will find it in the European Union as well.
In the case of Iran, they are pressuring the people so that they can achieve the result they want from the government.
I'm very conservative when it comes to the work of diplomacy. I don't like all these words like preventive diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, public diplomacy. For me, diplomacy is mutual respect. You don't interfere in other people's business.
Transformative diplomacy is being pursued by Iran and even Russia. For example, when Mr. Navalny (Russian lawyer Alexei Anatolyevich Navalny) died, and most probably, he died from that nature for he was not killed, let's put it like that. EU ambassadors came to his funeral and made statements. President Putin was sworn into the new presidency and the ambassadors had received invitations to come, the only ambassador who came was the French.
I think the Hungarians and Slovaks, all the other Europeans sent only their diplomats there. You know, this is a state of diplomacy. In my eyes, diplomats have nothing to do. They are supposed to come to the presidential palace when the president takes over.
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