ON Tuesday, June 8, I wrote the Reflection "On the threshold of tragedy" around midday; later I watched Randy Alonso’s "Roundtable" television program, broadcast at 6:30 p.m. as usual.

That day, the outstanding and eminent Cuban intellectuals taking part in the Roundtable replied to the program director’s acute questions with eloquent words which greatly respected my opinions, only that they did not believe that there would be any reason for Iran to reject the possible decision – now known – adopted by the Security Council in the morning of June 9 in New York – doubtless one agreed among the leaders of the five powers with a right to the veto: United States, Britain and France, with those of Russia and China.

At that moment, I expressed to the close people who usually accompany me: "How much I regret not having ended my Reflection by stating that nobody desired more than me that I should be mistaken!" but was already late, I couldn’t delay sending it to the CubaDebate website and to Granma daily.

The next day, at 10:00 a.m., knowing that that was the time of the meeting, it occurred to me to tune into CNN in Spanish, which would surely transmit information on the debate in the Security Council. Thus I was able to hear the words with which the president of the Council presented the draft resolution promoted a few days earlier by the United States, backed by France, the United Kingdom and Germany.

Various representatives of the principal members involved in the draft resolution also spoke. The United States representative explained why her country had approved it, with the usual pretext of sanctioning Iran for having violated the principles of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In his turn, the representative of Turkey, one of whose ships was the victim of the brutal attack by Israel’s elite forces which, in the early hours of the morning and transported in helicopters, assaulted the flotilla that was taking foodstuffs for the one and a half million Palestinians blockaded in a fragment of their own homeland, stated his government’s intention to oppose new sanctions against Iran.

In its news slot, CNN presented various pieces of footage of hands raised while members stated their positions with visible gestures, among them the representative of Lebanon, the country which abstained in the vote.

The serene presence of the members of the Security Council who voted against the resolution was expressed by the firm right of the hand of a woman, the Brazilian representative, who had previously expressed in a steady tone the reasons why her homeland was opposed to the agreement.

A world of news on the issue was still lacking; I tuned into Telesur, which, for hours, satisfied the immeasurable need for information.

Speaking in Natal, in the northeast of Brazil, President Lula da Silva expressed two immortal phrases: that the sanctions were imposed by "those who believe in force and not in dialogue," and that the meeting of the Security Council "could have served to discuss the disarmament of those [countries] that have atomic weapons."

It would not be at all strange that both Israel and the United States and its close allies with a right to the veto in the Security Council: France and Britain, would want to take advantage of the enormous interest aroused by the football World Cup to calm international opinion, indignant at the criminal conduct of the Israeli elite troops facing the Gaza Strip.

It is thus highly probable that the blow will be delayed for a few weeks, and even be forgotten by most people in the hottest days of the northern summer. One will have to observe the cynicism with which Israeli leaders respond to press interviews in the next few days, when they will be bombarded with questions. Opportunely, they will set about raising the severity of their demands before squeezing the trigger. They are anxious to repeat the history of Mossadegh in 1953, or to take Iran back to the Stone Age, a threat that pleases the powerful empire in its dealings with Pakistan.

The state of Israel’s hatred of the Palestinians is such that they would not hesitate to send one and a half million men, women and children from that country to the gas chambers in which millions of Jews of all ages were exterminated by the Nazis.

The Führer’s swastika would seem to be Israel’s banner today. This opinion is not born of hatred, but of the sentiment of a country that gave solidarity and shelter to the Jews when, in the harsh days of World War II, the pro-yanki government of Batista tried to send back from Cuba a boatload of Jewish refugees escaping from France, Belgium and Holland on account of Nazi persecution.

I knew many members of the numerous Jewish community resident in Cuba at the triumph of the Revolution; I visited them and talked with them on a number occasions. We never expelled them from our country. The differences with many of them arose on account of the revolutionary laws which affected economic interests and, on the other hand, the consumer society attracted many people, as opposed to the sacrifices implied by the Revolution. Others remained in our homeland and lent valuable services to Cuba.

A new and sinister stage is opening up for the world.

Yesterday, at 12:44 p.m. Obama spoke on the Security Council agreement.

I have some notes of what the president stated here, taken from CNN in Spanish.

"Today, the UN Security Council voted overwhelmingly to sanction Iran for its continued failure…"

"This resolution will put in place the toughest sanctions ever faced by the Iranian government, and it sends an unmistakable message about the international community’s commitment to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons."

"For years, the Iranian government has failed to live up to its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty." 

"While Iran’s leaders hide behind outlandish rhetoric, their actions have been deeply troubling." 

"Indeed, when I took office just over 16 months ago, Iranian intransigence was well-established." 
"…we offered the Iranian government the prospect of a better future if lives up to its international obligations."

"So there is no double standard at play here." 
"Iran further violated its own obligations under U.N. Security Council resolutions to suspend uranium enrichment."

"That’s why… these serious consequences."

"These are the most comprehensive sanctions that the Iranian government has faced." 

"This shows the united view of the international community that a nuclear arms race in the Middle East is in nobody’s interest."

These sentences that I have selected from his brief speech are more than sufficient to demonstrate how feeble, weak and unjustifiable are the politics of the powerful empire.

Obama himself admitted in his speech at the Islamic University of Al-Azhar in Cairo that, "In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government," although he did not say when or for what intentions. It is possible that not even he will remember how it was effected against Mossadegh in 1953, in order to install in government the dynasty of Reza Pahlevi, the Shah of Iran, whom it armed to the teeth as its principal gendarme in that region of the Middle East, where the satrap amassed an immense fortune derived from that country’s oil wealth.

At that time the state of Israel did not possess a single nuclear weapon. The empire had an enormous and unanswerable nuclear strength. It was then that the adventurous idea occurred to the United States of creating in Israel a gendarme in the Middle East, a country that is now threatening a considerable part of the world population and is capable of acting with the independence and fanaticism that characterize it.