Rafsanjani calls for return to knowledge-based leadership
Washington, 22 August (IranVNC)—In today’s Friday Prayer sermon at the University of Tehran, Ayatollah Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani called for a return to sound planning in Iran’s infrastructure to deal with its on-going structural and infrastructural shortcomings, saying that such plans cannot be made on a “day-to-day basis”.
By: IranVNC
Published: Friday, August 22, 2008
13:20GMT—9:20AM/EST
FRIDAY PRAYER – RAFSANJANI – ASSEMBLY OF EXPERTS
Washington, 22 August (IranVNC)—In today’s Friday Prayer sermon at the University of Tehran, Ayatollah Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani called for a return to sound planning in Iran’s infrastructure to deal with its on-going structural and infrastructural shortcomings, saying that such plans cannot be made on a “day-to-day basis”.
Alluding to the time following the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war when he was Iran’s president for eight years [1989-1997], Rafsanjani said that even though at that time the country was “affected with backwardness”, two long-term programs were introduced “in the shade of which the infrastructure was prepared to a degree that even until years later and up to today – almost until today – we did not have structural problems.”
The main rival of Iran’s current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the post of Iran’s presidency during the last elections, Rafsanjani, went on to enumerate the problems with which Iran is faced under the current administration in comparison with his own term in office.
“We did not have electrical outages; water outages; gas outages; if drought would come, - and we did have them in those times – because of sound infrastructure, they would not hurt us as much,” he said.
Rafsanjani, who currently heads the two powerful bodies of the Expediency Council and the Assembly of Experts, was speaking ahead of an upcoming Assembly of Experts meeting.
The Assembly was formed to write the Islamic Republic’s constitution, but periodically meets to make important foundational decisions, and is now set to meet shortly in order to discuss Iran’s nuclear dossier and also the matter of cash subsidies.
“Our country’s most important issue currently, from the international perspective, is the nuclear problem,”
Rafsanjani said about Iran’s nuclear dossier. “We are truly innocent, and they are, based on the rancor they have towards the revolution, looking for excuses.”
Arguing that the world is moving toward replacing fossil fuels, which are causes of global warming, with nuclear energy, Rafsanjani went on to say that the strictness of world powers against Iran, which has managed to reach its current success despite international sanctions, is “an injustice to us and an injustice to humanity”.
He called on the third world countries to unite on this issue to prevent the world powers from “bullying”.
The influential cleric went on to say that he expects that Iran’s future government “would act in a way that in fundamental issues the country does not rely on day-to-day decisions.” Instead, he emphasized that Iran must act according to the goal of “long term and lasting progress.”
In regards to Iran’s military capabilities, Rafsanjani noted that because of the policies implemented in the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq war and based on experiences gained then, Iran had managed to “create many possibilities in our defense technology,” and with that experience and the foundations laid back then, Iran has today become “one of the strongest third-world countries in the field of defense technology.”
Rafsanjani also listed the number of other technological advances Iran has made because of the long-term planning made in the early 1990s, including building an oil refinery in Iran’s important shipping port in the Straits of Hormuz, Bandar Abbas. “If we had continued with same measures, apart from crude oil, today we could sell other products with better prices.”
In light of today’s world in which every day there is another “fracas”, he noted the need for “methodical work done by competent people with expert knowledge, as our most important outlook for the next twenty years, and our next five-year-plan should revolve on the axiom of the understanding of knowledgeable people with experience and know-how.”
Rafsanjani also addressed the Georgian crisis, saying: “In the Caucasus, there is the threat of a confrontation between two nuclear world powers; NATO on one side, and Russia on the other.” He called for tactfulness and expediency in dealing with the crisis, saying: “We hope that rationality will prevail over the current atmosphere.”
Source: IranVNC correspondent; ISNA in Persian
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