“We must understand the seriousness of this situation.”

WASHINGTON, September 11 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Former South African president Nelson Mandela said, in an interview made public Tuesday, September 10, that the United States posed a threat to world peace due to what he sees as a series of foreign policy mistakes made over the past several decades.

Speaking to Newsweek magazine, Mandela said that “the United States has made serious mistakes in the conduct of its foreign affairs, which have had unfortunate repercussions long after the decisions were taken,” Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

“If you look at those matters, you will come to the conclusion that the attitude of the United States of America is a threat to world peace,” he said, citing, as its worst move, U.S. “sabotage” of the U.N. decision over the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan.

According to Mandela, the U.S. decision to arm and finance the mujahedin movement in Afghanistan following the 1979 Soviet invasion of the country has led to the eventual rise of the Taliban regime.

He also said that, in his view, unqualified U.S. support of the Shah of Iran led directly to the Islamic revolution of 1979.

Mandela said that now, by preparing for military action against Iraq, the United States “is saying... that if you are afraid of a veto in the Security Council, you can go outside and take action and violate the sovereignty of other countries.”

“That is the message they are sending to the world,” said the former South African leader. “That must be condemned in the strongest terms.”

Mandela said he believed Vice President Richard Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who advocate taking a hard line toward Iraq, were “misleading” President George W. Bush.

“It is the men who around him who are dinosaurs, who do not want him to belong to the modern age,” said the former president. “The only man, the only person who wants to help Bush move to the modern era is General Colin Powell, the secretary of state.”

When asked by Newsweek if he wants to mediate as he tried to do the same in the middle east a couple of years ago Mandela said that he would seriously consider to do that if asked by credible organizations.

“But a situation of this nature does not need an individual, it needs an organization like the United Nations to mediate. We must understand the seriousness of this situation,” he said.

Mandela said that with regards to the allegations that Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction he said: “Scott Ritter, a former United Nations arms inspector who is in Baghdad, has said that there is no evidence whatsoever of [development of weapons of] mass destruction.

“Neither Bush nor [British Prime Minister] Tony Blair has provided any evidence that such weapons exist. But what we know is that Israel has weapons of mass destruction. Nobody talks about that.

“Why should there be one standard for one country, especially because it is black, and another one for another country, Israel, that is white.”

He further dwelled on the black-white issue and said: “In fact, many people say quietly, but they don’t have the courage to stand up and say publicly, that when there were white secretary generals you didn’t find this question of the United States and Britain going out of the United Nations.

“But now that you’ve had black secretary generals like Boutros Boutros Ghali, like Kofi Annan, they do not respect the United Nations. They have contempt for it. This is not my view, but that is what is being said by many people.”

He said that the U.S. feels that they are the only superpower in the world and that they can do what they like, reported Newsweek.

Mandela, 84, was sentenced to life in prison by South Africa white minority regime in 1964 for advocating armed resistance to apartheid.

The African National Congress leader was set free in 1990 to lead his country in a transition to non-racial elections.

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