Fishing for a Pretext to Squeeze Iran
Posted on Mar 13, 2006
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| Karen Spector |
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By Juan Cole
Editor’s Note: Truthdig’s Middle Eastern affairs expert argues that the Iranian nuclear issue “has not reached the point of crisis, and therefore other motivations must be sought for the Bush administration’s breathless rhetoric.”
UPDATE: On March 13, President Bush told an audience at George Washington University: “Coalition forces have seized IEDs and components that were clearly produced in Iran.... Such actions--along with Iran’s support for terrorism and its pursuit of nuclear weapons--are increasingly isolating Iran, and America will continue to rally the world to confront these threats.”
Bush’s allegations about the Iranians providing improvised explosive devices to the Iraqi guerrilla insurgency are bizarre. The British military looked into charges of improvised explosive devices coming from Iran, and this past January actually apologized to Tehran when no evidence pointed to Iranian government involvement. The guerrillas in Iraq are militant Sunnis who hate Shiites, and it is wholly implausible that the Iranian regime would supply bombs to the enemies of its Iraqi allies.
Although Bush charges Iran with “support for terrorism,” he seems unable to name any international terrorist incident of the past six years that can unambiguously be attributed to Iran.
His baldfaced accusation that Iran is in “pursuit of nuclear weapons” is, as we will see below, not proved either.
Bush’s vendetta against Iran is all the more invidious in light of the sweetheart deal he recently offered India, which never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. A recent United Nations report says that India has been less than forthright about its enrichment programs, and that its procedures are inadequate to deter further proliferation. India dismisses the report. The Bush administration nevertheless has proposed changing U.S. law to permit the sale of nuclear technology to India.
Start of Original Essay:
Iran threatened last week to use the oil weapon if the United Nations Security Council imposes sanctions on the country because of its nuclear research program, promising “harm and pain” to the United States. In addition to consumer anxieties about oil prices, rumors of a planned U.S. or Israeli airstrike on Iran keep flying, and neighboring Iraqi Shiites have threatened reprisals if that is done to their brethren. What is driving the crisis between the Bush administration and Iran and ratcheting up the rhetoric?
Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi said on Friday, “If sanctions are imposed, we will definitely use the oil tool and other tools and we will stop at nothing.” The regime is clearly fearful of an international economic boycott, but feels it has its own advantages in the struggle. With increasing demand from India and China and instability in Nigeria and Iraq, Iran’s crude oil exports are important in maintaining an affordable price, especially in the winters. In some ways, by invading Iraq and destabilizing it, as well as fostering the rise of Shiite religious parties in Baghdad, the Bush administration has inadvertently strengthened Shiite Iran’s hand.
Although the doubling of petroleum prices in the past two years has so far been absorbed by the world economy, many analysts are convinced that if the price went up to $75 a barrel and stayed there for two years, it would add significantly to the underlying rate of inflation and begin subtracting 2.5% a year from world growth. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad chimed in with regard to the American threats: “They know that they are not capable of causing the least harm to Iranian people. They will suffer more.”
From cbc.ca
Related Links
“Bush Ties Iran to Roadside Bombs in Iraq” (March 13, 2006)
The president asserts that many of the improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which have proved so deadly to U.S. forces in Iraq, originate in Iran.
“U.S. Campaign Is Aimed at Iran’s Leaders” (March 13, 2006)
Washington Post article about Bush’s attempt to build opposition to theocracy in Iran.
“New ‘Cold War’ Looms with Iran” (March 13, 2006)
BBC article on how the U.S. relationship with Tehran is starting to resemble its pre-1989 relationship with the U.S.S.R.
“Britain Wants to Leave the Door Open to Negotiate With Iran” (March 13, 2006)
Britain’s foreign secretary, Jack Straw, says that any U.N. pressure on Iran should be “incremental” and “reversible.”
“Russia Accuses Iran of Blocking Nuclear Diplomacy” (March 13, 2006)
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, says “Iran is absolutely no help to those who want to find peaceful ways to solve this problem.”
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Iran is a mid-size country of some 70 million, with a per capita income of only about $2,000 a year. It has no weapons of mass destruction, and its conventional military forms no threat to the United States. From an Iranian point of view, the Americans are simply being unreasonably aggressive.
Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei has given a fatwa or formal religious ruling against nuclear weapons, and President Ahmadinejad at his inauguration denounced such arms and committed Iran to remaining a nonnuclear weapons state.
In fact, the Iranian regime has gone further, calling for the Middle East to be a nuclear-weapons-free zone. On Feb. 26, Ahmadinejad said: “We too demand that the Middle East be free of nuclear weapons; not only the Middle East, but the whole world should be free of nuclear weapons.” Only Israel among the states of the Middle East has the bomb, and its stockpile provoked the arms race with Iraq that in some ways led to the U.S. invasion of 2003. The U.S. has also moved nukes into the Middle East at some points, either on bases in Turkey or on submarines.
Iran is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has allowed the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect and monitor its nuclear energy research program, as required by the treaty. It raised profound suspicions, however, with its one infraction against the treaty--which was to conduct some secret civilian research that it should have reported and did not, and which was discovered by inspectors. Tehran denies having military labs aiming for a bomb, and in November of 2003 the IAEA formally announced that it could find no proof of such a weapons program. The U.S. reaction was a blustery incredulity, which is not actually an argument or proof in its own right, however good U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton is at bunching his eyebrows and glaring.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty allows Iran to develop civilian nuclear energy, and the United States itself urged Iran to build reactors in the 1970s. Iran does not have a heavy-water breeder reactor, which is the easy way to get a bomb. It does have light-water reactors for energy production, but these cannot be used to get enough fissionable material to make a bomb. Although Vice President Dick Cheney has made light of an oil state seeking nuclear energy, it would be a rational economic policy to use nuclear energy for domestic needs and sell petroleum on the world market. Certainly, the NPT permits such a policy.
The difficulty for those concerned with proliferation is that for Iran to independently run its light-water reactors, it needs to complete the fuel cycle of uranium enrichment. The ability to produce nuclear fuel is only one step away from the ability to refine uranium further, to weapons-grade quality. Still, it is a step away and could not easily be done in secret with inspectors making visits. Iran is experimenting with refrigerator-size centrifuges as a means of enriching uranium, but would need 16,000, hooked up in a special way, to produce a bomb. It has 164, and one of its proposals to defuse the crisis with the U.S. is to limit itself to no more than 3,000. Otherwise, it says it ideally would have 50,000 centrifuges.
No signatory of the NPT that allows regular IAEA inspections has ever moved to the stage of bomb production. Inspections have been extremely effective tools. United Nations weapons inspectors discovered and dismantled Saddam Hussein’s weapons program after the Gulf War in the early 1990s. The IAEA was even able to detect trace plutonium on Iranian equipment that came from Pakistan, which manufactures bombs. Those who remain suspicious of Iran’s ultimate intentions are not completely without a case. But there is good reason to believe that Iran’s nuclear program could have been monitored successfully.
The Bush administration has arbitrarily taken the position that Iran may not have a nuclear research program at all, even a civilian one. This stance actually contradicts the guarantees of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Washington officials continually intimate to the press that Tehran has an active weapons program, which is speculation. And, of course, the United States itself is egregiously in violation of several articles of the NPT, keeping enough nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert to destroy the world several times over and actively pursuing new and deadly weapons, even dreaming of “tactical” nukes. Its ally in the region, Israel, never signed the NPT and was helped by the British to get a bomb in the 1960s.
The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate released in summer 2005 estimates that if Iran did have an active nuclear weapons program, and if the international atmosphere were favorable to it being able to get hold of the requisite equipment, it would still be a good 10 years away from a bomb. But the international atmosphere is actively hostile to such a development, and anyway it has not been proved that there is such a weapons program.
If the Supreme Jurisprudent of theocratic Iran has given a fatwa against nukes, if the president of the country has renounced them and called for others to do so, if the International Atomic Energy Agency has found no evidence of a military nuclear weapons program, and if Iran is at least 10 years from having a bomb even if it is trying to get one, then why is there a diplomatic crisis around this issue between the United States and Iran in 2006?
The answer is that the Iranian nuclear issue is dj vu all over again. As it did with regard to the Baath regime in Iraq, the militarily aggressive Bush administration wants to overthrow the government in Tehran. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, now in a coma, urged the U.S. to hit Iran as soon as it had taken care of Saddam Hussein. The Israelis have a grudge against it because it helped end their military occupation and land grab in southern Lebanon by giving aid to the Shiite Hezbollah organization, the only Arab force ever to succeed in regaining occupied land from Israel by military means. But Iran does not form a conventional military threat to Israel.
Overthrowing the theocratic regime in Iran, Washington hopes, would reduce Hezbollah pressure on Israel over its continued occupation of the Shebaa Farms area (and, implicitly, the Golan Heights). It would make Syria more complaisant toward Israel and Washington. It would open up Iran to investment and exploration on the part of the American petroleum majors, which are at the moment excluded because the U.S. slapped an economic boycott on Iran. It might remove support for the more hard-line elements among Shiite political parties in Iraq, making that country easier for the U.S. to shape and dominate. In short, a U.S.-installed regime in Iran would hold out the promise of returning to the halcyon 1960s, when the shah was an American puppet in the region.
The nuclear issue is for the most part a pretext for the Americans to exert pressure on the regime in Tehran. This is not to say that proliferation is not a worrisome issue, or that it can be ruled out that Iran wants a bomb. It is to say that the situation simply has not reached the point of crisis, and therefore other motivations must be sought for the Bush administration’s breathless rhetoric.
President Ahmadinejad, it should be freely admitted, has, through his lack of diplomatic skills and his maladroitness, given his enemies important propaganda tools. Unlike his predecessor, Mohammad Khatami, Ahmadinejad is a Holocaust denier. He went to an anti-Zionist conference and quoted Ayatollah Khomeini, saying that the “Occupation regime” must “vanish.” This statement about Israel does not necessarily imply violence. After all, Ariel Sharon made the occupation regime in the Gaza Strip vanish. The quote was translated in the international press, however, as a wish that “Israel be wiped off the map,” and this inaccurate translation has now become a tag line for all newspaper articles written about Iran in Western newspapers.
In another speech, Ahmadinejad argued that Germans rather than Palestinians should have suffered a loss of territory for the establishment of a Jewish state, if the Germans perpetrated the Holocaust. This argument is an old one in the Middle East, but it was immediately alleged that Ahmadinejad was advocating the shipping of Israelis to Europe. That was not what he said.
It is often alleged that since Iran harbors the desire to “destroy” Israel, it must not be allowed to have the bomb. Ahmadinejad has gone blue in the face denouncing the immorality of any mass extermination of innocent civilians, but has been unable to get a hearing in the English-language press. Moreover, the presidency is a very weak post in Iran, and the president is not commander of the armed forces and has no control over nuclear policy. Ahmadinejad’s election is not relevant to the nuclear issue, and neither is the question of whether he is, as Liz Cheney is reported to have said, “a madman.” Iran has not behaved in a militarily aggressive way since its 1979 revolution, having invaded no other countries, unlike Iraq, Israel or the U.S. Washington has nevertheless succeeded in depicting Iran as a rogue state.
A final issue between Iran and the United States that might explain the escalating rhetoric over nonexistent nukes is Iraq. The U.S. is bogged down in a quagmire there, fighting militant Sunni Arabs. But it has also seen its political plans for Iraq checked on several occasions by the rise of powerful Iraqi Shiite parties, such as the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the Dawa Party, and the Sadr Movement. Iran hosted SCIRI and Dawa in exile in the Saddam years, and has close relations with them. There are allegations that it gives them money.
To any extent that Iran has helped these parties win elections and maintain their paramilitary forces, it has undermined the American hope of installing a relatively secular figure as a Karzai-like ruler. The U.S. would very much like to limit Iranian influence in Iraq, and aggressiveness on the nuclear issue is a way for the Bush administration to enlist European and other countries in the effort to put pressure on Iran and make it cautious about intervening too forcefully in Iraqi affairs.
In fact, the Shiite parties in southern Iraq are homegrown and would almost certainly have done well in elections without any Iranian support. The Americans are in some ways scapegoating Iran for their own failures of analysis. They appear to have been unaware of how popular the Shiite religious leaders had become in the late Saddam period, and so were unprepared for their strong showing in the U.S.-sponsored elections.
The United States has succeeded in bringing Iran before the United Nations Security Council, though it is unclear if that body will slap economic sanctions on Tehran. Such a move could be vetoed by Russia or China, both of which have high hopes of sharing in the Iranian oil bonanza. If an international boycott is imposed, it will mainly harm the civilians and children of Iran. The crisis has been fueled by Ahmadinejad’s alarming and foolish rhetoric, and by the clever aggressiveness of the Bush administration, which is better at framing its enemies than any other U.S. administration in history.
Washington no longer has much leverage on Iran. Its military is bogged down in Iraq, and its diplomats are forbidden to speak to Tehran under most circumstances. Its attempt to prevent even a civilian Iranian nuclear energy program may convince the clerical hard-liners to pull their country out of the NPT and to end international inspections. If the Iranians really did want a bomb, they could not have asked for a better pretext to leave the NPT. President Bush’s policies toward Iran have already failed, and could fail even more miserably in the months to come.
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By Jennifer, October 10, 2006 at 2:27 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
I like it and the background and colors make it easy to readk
Report thisBy b a usman nigerian, July 14, 2006 at 5:13 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
America should just go ahead and repeat what she did to Iraq in Iran and stop hiding under the pretext of nuclear.
Report thisBy Correction, May 23, 2006 at 2:24 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Cole’s response to the ridiculous hit piece on Cole by Hitchens linked to in comment #8547 (right below mine) can be found here:
http://www.juancole.com/2006/05/hitchens-hacker-and-hi tchens.html
Report thisBy Christopher H., May 3, 2006 at 2:06 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Great article on Cole at Slate.
Report thishttp://www.slate.com/id/2140947/
By Patriot L Rots, May 3, 2006 at 4:36 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
“However, this article does not go out of its way to show with absolute certainty that Bush and Co. are entirely wrong”.
Try a little harder 5096 - you were almost there - then you blew it.
You are asking Cole to prove that the neocons are ‘not wrong’ with ‘absolute certainty’. Hehe.
Do you realise how foolish that is? Were you even born when the US took us into Iraq? Is it not incumbent upon Bolton et al to ‘prove’ that Iran intends to develop a military capability. Your so-called ‘smoking gun’ showed nothing of the sort.
Perhaps you thing that the US should launch a nuclear dtrike against Iran because Juan Cole can’t prove that the neocons are wrong.
I’m only responding to your comment because I don’t have time to scroll up and find the other idiots. Bless you 5096 [American?]
Report thisBy Iranian from Iran, April 25, 2006 at 5:22 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
To the oxymoron “American Iranian Patriot” and Mr. Mazloom’e bad bakht. It happens all the time but it never ceases to amaze seeing how low some people can fall under the American guidance and tutorship. The free and proud people of Iran are one hundred percent behind their sovereign government. The proud and free people of Iran have given too much in blood and treasure for their freedom to forget what kind of people you are and what criminal vulgar entity America and Israel are. We will fight America and people like you, although it is a given that you are too much of a coward to do any actual fighting, to your inevitable end and by Grace of God we will keep our freedom and we will prevail. You ran away to America the last time we showed you our fury. Lick all the American ass you want but don’t ask for our fury again; as there will be no place for you to run to this time, except perhaps up that American ass you are licking, you miserable piece of shits.
Report thisBy arash, March 25, 2006 at 3:59 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
to all you iranians who wish US to attack iran and all that your a disgrace and you know what at least mullahs were elected by people 28 years ago after the revoloution people like you are the people that use to suck up to the sah or had liquir stores or any other illegal business with the shas regime, now with the islamic regime you cant countiniue your robbery of the iranian wealth before shah and you people use to take it for your swiss banks now the islamic regime spendis it on advanced weapons at least this benifits the people.
Report thisBy RGN, March 24, 2006 at 3:40 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
As a British citizen I deeply regret and I am angry that our own Prime Minister Tony Blair, commonly called in our country “ the poodle”, has allied himself so closely to President Bush’s policies in Iraq and for the new adventure in Iran. Even demonstrations against entering the Iraq war by over 1,500,000 people in London failed to obtain any acknowledgement by the Blair government.
Report thisI would ask the American people to wake up and “smell the napalm” which reeks throughout the Bush Administration. Their stench and stealth should not be allowed to kill one more person in the Middle East. The Bush/Blair alliance has caused incalculable damage to the harmony between religions, sects races and faiths throughout the region. Has the US or Britain gained one iota from the Bush/Blair action in the Middle East? Certain interested parties may have but as a citizen the only involvement I, my family and the other 60 million people of this Island have is the payment of many billions of tax pounds to finance these war games and the case of the US many hundreds of billions of dollars.
Remember Iran has threatened no one. It has been interfered with throughout the 20th century by oil companies, the CIA and US allies such as Saddam Hussein of Iraq during the 1980’s Iraq invasion of Iran.
PLEASE DO NOT FALL FOR ANY MORE PROPOGANDA, LIES, CHEATING, AND HYPOCRISY.
By JP, March 23, 2006 at 8:25 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
I think it has to do more with the Israel lobby and the oil bourse than a threat. Just more fearmongering--same story, different country.
Report thisBy Iranian-American Patriot, March 22, 2006 at 3:17 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
This is a response to those who think that the likes of Juan Cole give a damn about Iranian people, or their apirations for democracy and human rights.
First, this is a dmocratic society and people have every right to write and publish whatever they want, including Professor Juan Cole who is teaching in a respectful department of ME studies at the University of Michigan, the flag-ship of the Michigan universities. He is not in the pay of IRI, or CIA, or Mossad, or whatever one may claim, but he is a known sympathizer of the IRI and has been rooting for this criminal regime since the time of the Revolution in 1979 to present. I could not careless if he were Bahai, or Hindu, or Zantoo, or Twelve Imami Shia, or pur agnostic, or genostic of Goosaleh-Parast for all I car.
Second, I do care and every men and woemn of conscience should care that Juan Cole is repeating this regime’s calims at a time that the world-over has come to this conclusion that the entity called Islamic Republic of Iran has become a big concern for stablity, peace and progress in the Middle East region that provides the bulk of energy resources for Japan, Europe, and partially the North Americ; the world consensus is that IRI is sponsoring all kind of Terrorist Organizations from Al-Qaeda to Hizbollah to a wide range of other terroristic organization that use Islam as their cover, and being financed by the IRI, carry out these terroristic activities in whichever part of the democratic wworld that Iran’s mullahs desire. IRI is a cancerous tumor that has got to be removed for the sake of the wealth of the world and it seems that we are moving in that direction.
Third, USA and her allies should not attack Iran under any circumstance, but should support Iranian Oppositional Forces (from Jebhe Melli to Monarchists to non-Stalinist Leftist to Mojahedin Khalq, to Iranian Kurdish, Baluch, Torkmen etc., etc.) in order to topple this regime. Prior to this, our President Georg W. Bush should come forward and declare the IRI as an illegtimate regime that has no support in Iran and is an international paraih for its past 27 years of continuous crimes against Iranian people (documents already exist and have been used by democratic societies against IRI officials as in the case of the Mikonos Trials in Germany), and against many other countries.
In addition, the EU parliament shoudl take the case of the IRI’s crimes, including crimes of international terrorism that IRi has committed with the direct knowledge, order and participation of IRI’s top officials (from Khomeini all the way to Ahmadi Nejad).
Once the dossie is coplete it should be presented to the UN General Asse,bly for consideration. Once it has been determined that IRI is an enemy of humanity for its continuous violations of Iranian people’s Human Rights and for comitting Crimes against Humanity (it is in the Charter of the UN), than IRI officals should be arrested and put in a Nurenberg tpe of International Tribunal and once convicted, should be pusnidhe accordingly.
In the mean time, the Interpol should be given the authority to arrest known IRI agents around the world, IRI’s embassies and consulates which ar ethe Den’s of International Terrorism should be closed and these elements should be declared persona non grata and asked to leave the civilized countries of the world, or better deported to Iran by a Con-Air type of operations.
Finally, IRI’s assests should be frozen and Iran’s seat in UN and in any other world organizations be given to those who represent the Council of Iranian Resistance in Exile who would hve the authority to speak on behalf of the Iranian People inside Iran and diaspora.
In short, no war, no invasion, no bombing, let Iranian people get rid of this cancerous tumor called IRI, and in the mean time, if a bunch of ex-Bahai now whatever Professors would like to defend Ahamdi Nejad, let them do it, who cares. But I would not respoind to those agents of IRI who are of the opinion that we have “democracy” in Iran if we compare ourselves with Afghanistan under a bunch of 7th centry hominiods called Taliban.
As to one gadfly who thinks that I seek job at White House, I have a very good job and thanks to Allah, don’t need to apply for anything.
Report thisBy N. Sadeghi, March 21, 2006 at 7:42 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Once I was listening a debate between some democrat and republican politicians and ex-generals on C-SPAN TV in late 1990’s. The Democrat eager to score a political point against the Republicans pushed the argument rather forcefully that the 1991 war against Iraq was a failure. The Republican general could not take it any more and there slipped out the Freudian truth and he ushered. “We sent back Iraq at least two centuries to the dark ages and you are telling me that we did not succeed?” This is the real truth behind US policy, naked and revealed. And her policy towards Iran is not any different.
I hope by now there should be no question that the intentions of US policy in the greater middle east has to do all with domination for their own best interest, or better even, the best interest of few who are trying to take the world as their hostage while they are the only supper power and feel unchecked. For those naives including the “Iranian American patriot” who like to take the truth of undemocratic and theocratic regime in Iran as the evidence of US legitimacy for messianic quest to destroy Iran as it did for Iraq, it must be obvious that what is going on in Iraq or went on with over ten years of sanctions prior to this war is nothing to wish for. If some are naive enough to think that US wants democracy and respect for human rights etc in the Middle East region, grow up. US want client states. Just look at their allies in the Middle East, and wake up. If US want justice in the Middle East, learn the ABC of politics. Justice is only between equals. US can’t even provide health care for 40 million of its own population. If US does not care about its own population, many of them so poor and disadvantaged that is beyond understanding for a economic superpower, why would it care about the state of economy and overall well being of 70 million Iranians.
Lastly true that Iranian regime is for most part not democratic. True that it has suppressed its own people not allowing Iranians to become strong citizens and to be the authors of the laws they should obey. True that political executions, imprisonments, restrictions to Iranian journalists, authors etc has been hallmark of its governance. But Iran has not broken any international law; Is not in pursuit of nuclear weapon; is not threat to US or Israel or any other country in the world.
Democratic transformation in Iran can and will only be achieved by Iranians alone. The best world can do is not hurt the democratic aspirations of Iranians who are struggling to gradually institutionalize democracy in Iran and to some extent they have succeeded. After all Iran is a lot more democratic than Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Kuwait, Jordan, and other Middle East allies of USA except Turkey. I have seen and have been in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Turkey and have lived most of my adult life in Canada and now in US. Even Ahmadi Nejad’s election is more democratic than Mubarak’s. And furthermore Iranians should take some of the blames for Ahmadi Nejad taking the office. Just like Americans who should take the blame of re-electing Bush and not wonder why people in the world have such a negative view of America and Americans. 20 million Iranians who could have otherwise voted in the last presidential election in Iran and most likely were of moderate aspirations did not. They could have prevented Ahmadi Nejad from coming to power by at the least choosing a more moderate figure. But they chose to not play by the democratic rule and use the limited power of voting they have. I am sure they must be now regretting. They must understand that the reformists are impossible to be worst than current radicals. This is how it works. You want democracy you have to use every bit of it you have. Democratic transformation in Iran does not pass through the road of sanctions and military interventions in Iran. Nor does the road of piece and stability in the Middle East. Well beings of Iranians cannot be planned in Israel or Washington. Their missery surely would. And this is what US wants. Iranians must count on themselves to improve their lives not on US or any other country. Iranians have enough political sophistication to unite in the face of external threat as well.
Report thisBy Hass, March 21, 2006 at 2:42 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Here come the MEK-MOnarchist brigade to accuse Cole of being a “pro-IRI agent”—how pathetic can you guys get? You’ve spent 27 years in comfortable exile, and in all that time you’ve done NOTHING against the IRI yourselves. You’/re the best “opposition” any mullah could want. And FYI, Cole speaks farsi and was even Bahai, morons.
Report thisBy S. J., March 21, 2006 at 10:19 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
I am startled at Juan Cole’s naiveté. Clearly, he does not know the culture and mentality of the unique brand of post-revolutionary Iranian Shiite jurists/rulers. For the latter, the end justifies the means, period. Khomeini himself has emphasized the point many times, notably in his cancellation of the Muslim required Hajj pilgrimage. I myself also once heard him say that “even divine monism (tohid) can be suspended when the issue is the perseverance of Islam,” (read the rule of the mullahs. Thus, it snot bizarre at all, and totally plausible that the ruling clerical elite i Iran would cooperate with the devil himself in order to defeat the Us and repel the American threat against the “Islamic state.”
Moreover, if Juan Cole, as busy as he is, had read the report of the former senior negotiator Hassan Rohani, published in Iran, he would surely see the many instances of deceitfulness throughout the project. The new more radical officials were quite angry with Rohani for publishing the report which they believe, quite correctly, implies the regime’s desire to produce nuclear arms.
I am an Iranian myself and would wish nothing more than for Juan Cole’s optimism to be true. However, as careful as the clerics are in Iran, they have left enough evidence. Besides, one has to take into account the whole past 27 years and the culture of the elite leadership. Optimism is different from naiveté, and although Bush has been wrong in many instances, he is on the mark about the regime in Iran.
Report thisBy Ali Akbari, March 21, 2006 at 4:58 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
It seems to me the Iranian American Patriot is applying for a job at the whit house, the way he repeats their propaganda. One thing is sure. If the US had ever had a slightest proof for Iranian terrorist activities, we would have seen it in the international bodies. Just because the same lies and accusations are repeated again and again does not make them true. So my suggestion for the Iranian American Patriot is to omit the Iranian from his name and put patriot in quotation marks.
Happy Norooz to all Iranians.
Report thisBy An Iranian American patriot, March 20, 2006 at 12:03 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
The piece by Professor Juan Cole is typical of academic nonsense written by the so-called “experts” on Iran most of whom neither read, nor speak, Persin (Farsi) whose knowledge and view of the Iranian history is shallow at best; in the case of Professor Cole, his views represents those who believe that the present regime in Iran is a pure form of Shii Islam+ third world populism that combined, can resist the hegemony of the West as represented by the USA.
Having read many of Professor Cole’s and his like-minded comrades views as to what the present regime in Iran represents, Cole seems to be beating on the same dead-horse namely, that Iran (the the other name for this regime), has every right of pursuing the right of the people regarding access to nuclear technology for “Peaceful” purposes because it is a signatory to the NPT.
First, this regime does not represent the Iranian people. It has never been a representative regime and it will never be. It is the regime of a bunch of unelected mullahs who have committed prosecutable crimes, including the crimes of international terrorism against many countries.
Professor Cole does not seem to realize that it is not one’s signature that gurantees one’s right to access to nucelar technology, but one’s intentions, action, rehtoric and long-term plans that lend credibility to one’s signature. The present regime in Iran is an international paraiah due to its years of enmity with Iranian people and their national aspirations for democracy, human rights, an slef-determination in peace and prosperity; this regime has rejected every conceivable good and decent structures and institutions that all civilized societies have adapted to their social norms, values.
This regime is despised by the majority of the Iranian people based on the very words of the top mullahs in Iran who openly threten Iranian youth on a daily basis that if they attmpt to dismentle the regime they will face death and destruction. To make good on their threats, they hang, on a regular bais, those youths who dare to challenege this regime’s criminal and terroristic actions that include public lashing of teenaged boys and girls, public hanging of yoths and adults, stoning to death of women who have shown their love and affection for others, behading, gauging the eyes and cutting the limbs of those who have committed a wide range of wierd things that this regime has criminalized based on its Jurasick Park mentality.
The likes of Professor Cole usually ignore these stark relaities of the Iranian society as they sit in their ivy league universities and colleges writing a bunch of academic gabildigook whitewashing the crimes of these type of corrupt and terroristic regimes that rule the larger Middle East region in the name of Islam, Nationalist, Socialism etc.
The present regime has been condmned for 51 times by the General Assembly of the UN based on reports that HRC has presnted to the UN doumenting the most blatnet violations of human rights in Iran from the time of Khomeini to the time of ahmadi Nejad. Yet, Professor Cole has the audacity of supporting this regime’s “rights” to pursue neuclear technology in the name of the “rights” of the Iranian people.
It is not ironic that Professor Cole, like his pro-IRI lobbyists in the academia, closes his eyes on the amount of death and destruction that this regime has inflicted on the Iranian People during the past 27 years, and instead tries to find legal pretexts for this regime to make its case to the world public opinion to the effect that the IRI is in search of “peaceful” (!!??) technology for procuring energy!! This is a laughable, if not utterly simplistic argument, that a country such as Iran which possess some of the largest amounts of the oil and natural gas reserviors is in need of a tchnology that the absolute majority of the civilized and technologically advanced countries of the world have dismentled as inefficient and environmentally dangerous way of procuring energy. Worse yet, Cole does not explain why a country in need of such a technology would lie, cheat, and use all kinds of gangester-like strategies to obtain such a technology from the undergound market run by the likes of Abdol Qadir Khan (known as Pakistan’s Father of the Atomic Bomb)?
Finally, Professor Cole, like all other IRI-lobbyists and sympathizers in this country, ignores the fact that one who needs nucelar-technology for “peaceful” purposes, would not make the argument that Iran lives in a region that is filled with atomic weapons, an argument that these mullahs and their supporters have been doing adnausium from the moment that the Iranian oppositional forces have disclosed this regime’s clandestine bomb-making schemes. How in the world, a technology that is supposed to produce cheap electricity according to these pathological liars, is supposed to deter Isreal from taking action against such a “peaceful” instillation if we follow the logic of Mr. Cole’s representation of Ahmadi Nejaj’s views to that effect? This is the same guy who is on record that Isreal should be wiped from the face of the earth?
To make a long story short, the likes of Professor Cole have every right of writing whatever that comes to their mind as the above article, but they have no right of ignoring or whtiewashing the crimes of this despicable regime in Iran under the pretext that because we can’t produce “eveidence” against specific acts of terrorism committed by the present regime in Iran, then it has every right of getting its dirty paws on the most dangeroud weapons of mass destruction, Atomic bomb.
contrary to Mr. Cole’s absurd logic, there are ample evidences that IRI is the god father of international terrorism and in fact it can pride itself for having invented a wide range of tactics to commit the most leathal form of terroristic acts around the world. The academic world is filled with Armchair Philosophers who devise all kind of utterly nonsensical theories as to why we can live in peace with terrorists, criminals and gangs of mafia who comprise the likes of the IRI in the Third World provided that we try to “understand” their motives; it takes one Hitler, one Khomeini, and now one Ahmadi Nejad, to prove to these academic simpletons that this mixture is quite volitile and explosive despite our good intentions towards them. Who said that the raod to hell is paved with good intentions Professor Cole?
Report thisBy Hussein Mazloom, March 20, 2006 at 11:07 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Dear Mr. Cole,
Report thisYou are either extremely naive to think the iranian regime has intentions other than terrorism and pursuit of the nuclear weapons or you think we don’t recognize a paid agent of the regime. I am convinced there is no thrid option. I hope U.S. will not back down from its position and people like you will learn a lesson in what happens when a few mullahs hold 70 million people hostage. i wish to be around for that day. The present clerical establshment in iran will do all it can to stay in power, it will hire people with no integrity, it will bild WMD’s, it will spnsor terrorism, it will kill innocent iranians, etc. I amsurprised this web site published garbage like your comments but again freedom of expression is mandatory in the west, something your types would not understand.
So dear mr. basiji what is your real name?
By Abol Hassan Danesh, March 20, 2006 at 6:44 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Let there be light ...
Report thisBy Abol Hassan Danesh, March 20, 2006 at 6:42 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Let There Be Light
Report thisBy Khashayar, March 19, 2006 at 8:41 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
More bravo sierra from the speaker of the Mullahcratic regime, Mr. Cole in the USA
Report thisBy Sherry Billy, March 18, 2006 at 11:06 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
This report by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt of Harvard shows the power of the Israeli lobby (AIPAC) on US foreign policy and the reason for the threats against Iran which is no threat to the US, Perle telling Syria, “you’re next”, and the reason the lobby runs the state department’s foreign policy regarding the Middle East.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html
Report thisBy WarZone, March 18, 2006 at 8:46 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Republican Spells Mistake
Report thishttp://www.uploading.com/?get=CRIJ4008
By dsm, March 17, 2006 at 3:57 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
America’s true agenda in the middle-east:
Report thishttp://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1036571 ,00.html
By Tony Wicher, March 16, 2006 at 11:14 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
My judgement is that Iran would love to have nuclear weapons. Why not? Once it has them, it doesn’t have to worry about being invaded by the U.S. any more, and can negotiate from a position of relative military parity. Its like Eddie Griffin was saying on the Bill Maher show, “You got a bomb, I don’t got a bomb - ok, $50 a barrel. You got a bomb, I got a bomb too - $120 a barrel. Yeah, nuclear weapons, the old equalizer.
Report thisBy anonymous, March 16, 2006 at 3:29 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
How is it that anyone attaches even one iota of credibility to anything that our president says? Name one project, other than what he delivers for his anti-abortion, NRA and assorted other absolutists, where he’s come anywheres close to telling it the way it really is.
Report thisInvariably the truth (what’s real, that is) turns out to be the opposite of what he tells us - Iraq is developing a nuclear bomb (false); there’s no man made contribution to global warming (false); nobody thought that the levees wouldn’t hold (false); the Medicare drug plan is the best that we can offer (false): we’re safer now than we were before 9/11 (false) and so on and so forth.
It’s not just that he’s a liar. It’s that his lies cost us dearly; with already more than thirteen hundred of our best and brightest killed in Iraq and with the same number (and still counting) having drowned in New Orleans when (on account of our president’s criminal neglect) those levees broke
So what happens next? We the people either continue to let the president get away with his lies and their bloody consequences or we see to it next November that we elect a Congress that’s going to place the impeachment of our president as its top priority. . Change the world, anyone? How’s that for starters?
By Snorri Sturluson, March 16, 2006 at 2:23 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Am I the only one who sees the recent US saber-rattling as diplomatic cover intended strictly for internal US consumption? The US and Iran support the same Iraqi Shiite religious parties, and the US war against the Taliban in Afghanistan was also welcome to the Iranian regime. Since our government has built the Islamic Republic into one of our top official enemies, yet in real life we are collaborating with them, some diversionary posturing seems to be necessary to avoid confusing the home audience. This seems so clear to me that I am surprised that no one else seems to see it this way.
Report thisBy R. A. Earl, March 16, 2006 at 12:50 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Juan Cole wrote: “Although Bush charges Iran with “support for terrorism,” he seems unable to name any international terrorist incident of the past six years that can unambiguously be attributed to Iran.
His baldfaced accusation that Iran is in “pursuit of nuclear weapons” is, as we will see below, not proved either.”
Religious fundamentalists of any stripe need no proof to believe anything. As always, their philosophical “infection” enables them to just make it up then repeat it until it becomes FACT and TRUTH in whatever they’re using for brains. From that point on there’s no communicating with them on the issue in question.
I sure hope there are enough “uninfected” Americans to defeat these religious nitwits who’ve hijacked your government, and soon. Otherwise, we’re all doomed.
Report thisBy Nell Lancaster, March 16, 2006 at 11:30 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Re the “IEDs from Iran”: Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a press conference that there is no proof that the Iranian government is involved.
This is so pathetic, to see the admin trotting out all the same kinds of lies and have so many people swallowing them whole.
Report thisBy Hunter W., March 16, 2006 at 9:17 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
5275 JBIRD ... you just made my point ...
Report thisBy Hunter W., March 16, 2006 at 8:26 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
# 5285 ..pardon ?? Sounds like typical elitist blather ... Your post didn’t make a bit of sense to me...(guess I haven’t reached your level of enlightenment and sophistication .. thank goodness) I made a simple point that there are alot of anti-American zealots who embrace thier kook conspiracy theories about Bush, Halliburton etc. etc. etc. without ever producing anything factual to prove it. Very simple point.You must really enjoy listening to yourself.
Report thisBy abadabadoda, March 15, 2006 at 8:46 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Well written piece by Mr. Cole…I consider most of it academic and makes an interesting opposing view on TV shows like Bill O.
To most Persian-speaking people it was obvious the mistranslation of Ahmedinejad “Israel be wiped off the map,” was intentional, this actually happens all the time- conveniently when the topic is about Israel and jews.
Living in the US for over 35 years as an Iranian-American I’ve seen how neo-zionist (euphemistically known as neo-cons) creeping into America in every way and destroying the fabric of this country for what it was established for. I just hope we as Americans wake up to what’s happening in America to regain the American way of life and stop taking Americans as fools and gullible.
Just to clear the air I have nothing against jews. Specially as an Iranian. When I lived in Iran, there were over 200,000 jews and I could not tell if I ran into one- they looked like Iranians with exception of bigger nose if you can believe that and flappy ears. So, I could not have developed any feelings toward Jews. After the revolution, most of them say about 175,000 moved to Beverly Hills and that leaves only 25,000 in Iran. This means on a daily basis Average Ahmed will not be seeing a jew on the street and they would not even know it if he saw one. So why Ahmedinejad talks about Israel and stuff like that. the short answer is that he is a politician. He creates a crisis and uses it to rally around it. Something quite foreign in our politics in America.
Let’s focus on America…
Two final notes…
US WILL NOT ATTACK IRAN PERIOD.
Report thisTHIS WHOLE SHENANIGAN IS ABOUT MONEY PERIOD.
By W. White, March 15, 2006 at 8:07 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Comment by Bill Woolsey (#5274) : ‘U.S. economic prosperity is not based on having oil priced in dollars. The dollar price of oil changes every day, as does the dollar price of the euro. It is easy to calculate the euro price of oil. If oil was mostly priced in Euros, it would be the same.’
Actually, Bill, our ‘prosperity’ will be seriously threatened if the world trades oil in Euros instead of Dollars. One major reason countries such as China and Japan buy U.S. Treasury Notes and keep Dollars in its foreign reserves (which is a loan to the U.S., and on which we depend for our ‘prosperity’) is the fact that their oil imports futures are traded in Dollars. (Trading in Euros futures, then trade that in oil futures, as you seem to suggest, does not work.)
Thus, when they can freely trade oil futures in Euros in the new Iranian bourse, many of our creditors will likely slowly switch their reserves from dollars to Euro. Some of this switching is already occuring, by China, Korea and Venezuela. The war, your mortgage, car loans, are financed with low interest loans from these countries. When the Fed bumps the interest up to continue financing our monumental debt, watch out for a serious drop in our ‘prosperity’.
For further information and confirmation, read recent articles by Harvard economist Paul Krugman.
Report thisBy AmeriPundit, March 15, 2006 at 4:15 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Re: Comment #5225 by Hunter W. on 3/15 at 8:03 am
Rather than address the post, the following is apparently considered of sufficient value to a certain breed to take the time to type, perhaps preview, and submit.
WOW ... alot of America haters in here ... #5161 wishes for our downfall .. #5160 trusts in Iran’s leaders over our own .... and there are many posts that should start with “in my opinion” because alot of insults/accusations are thrown around without a shred of proof of anything. ..
While that is completely lacking in providing “facts” and, apparently due to not starting with “in my opinion” is therefore considered “factual” by the author, the “America haters” reference is clearly trumped by the following:
Too many hate Bush/America wannabe conspiracy theorists .. oh to find some intelligent civil discussion/disagreement without all the hate ..
The identification of a man/country is interesting- actually, not really. It is the stuff of cultists or shills (paid or not).
Those who wish for a discussion filled “with intelligent civil discussion/disagreement...” while writing in that vitriolic fashion should hold up a mirror while casting a stone to see if their house is made of glass.
Apologies for any offense. Civil enough?
Report thisBy julia stien, March 15, 2006 at 3:19 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
What’s intersting to me about some of these responses is that first Bush’s saying that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, which proved untrue. Now Bush says that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon, which Juan Cole gives evidence is not true. Haven’t people learned from the Iraq example?
Bush had no evidence for his statements about Iraq and he has none for his statements about Iran. How can people, after Bush was 100% wrong about Iraq, believe in Bush about Iran? He can’t be believed. In the last weeks books and artcles have come out how Bush, Rumsfield and Tommny Franks even had disasterous war plans in Iraq that led to this current bloody fiasco.
Why would people ever believe a man who is so totally inept? Who never gets the evidence right. When evidence is given Bush, he ignores it. He couldn’t even help New Orleans. Bush isn’t going to offer any protection to Israel. Get real. He’s too inept to do that. He lives in a fantasy world which has got this country into deep disaster in Iraq. This present Bush policy against Iran will prove as much of a disaterous as his idiotic policy in Iraq.
Report thisBy jBird, March 15, 2006 at 3:01 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Hunter W at #5225, you’re an idiot…
Report thisBy Bill Woolsey, March 15, 2006 at 2:30 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
I wouldn’t assume that ending the “occupying regime” means an end to the occupation of the West bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. I suspect that it means an end to the occupation of all Palestinian territory. In other
words, pre-1967 Israel, or even what the UN gave to Israel.
Perhaps I am in error, but I think the Iranian regime has continued to be a “rejectionist state” insisting the the formation of a Jewish state on Muslim land has always been unacceptable. I think the goal is to reestablish a Muslim state in the entire territory.
Generally, the “frontline” states have been willing to deal with Israel to get territory back. Syria appears open to a deal. But the states further away have stuck to “principle.”
The Arab nationalists wanted back the lands of the Arab Nation. The Islamists take a different tack. They want it all back under Islamic rule.
Turning all of the territories currently inhabited by Jews into some kind of nuclear wasteland (wiping Israel off the map) isn’t what is proposed.
It is rather having a special state for Jews is
the Palestine (anywhere close the the ancient land of Israel) is opposed. Jews, in general, can live in an Islamic state. I’m am not certain what treatment the current citizens of Israel could expect if their state was destroyed, but it isn’t obivious that Islamists (including Iranian ones) would insist on expulsion of anyone. I do think that all of those Arab farms and olive groves would go back to the previous owners.
P.S. U.S. economic prosperity is not based on having oil priced in dollars. The dollar price of oil changes every day, as does the dollar price of the euro. It is easy to calculate the euro price of oil. If oil was mostly priced in Euros, it would be the same.
Report thisBy Mohammad Ali Reza, March 15, 2006 at 1:35 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Having lived in America and Europe and now living back home in Iran it is very easy for me to see all the sides to this “Iran nuclear problem”. The rabid ignorant redneck that has a bumper sticker that reads “Nuke Iran”, yes I know you, and may even have met you. The liberal college educated boomer that knows exactly what Bush is all about and makes regular donations to Greenpeace, yes, I know you also, and have met you. And yes, I also know you the investment banker Bush voter that deep down knows it’s about oil and believes it should be “ours” so as to be put into its most productive use so you can make a good return on your stockholdings.
But, what you all need to wake up to is this simple fact: If Bush starts dropping bombs on Iran it will instantly create 70,000,000 Iranians into enemies of America. One single bomb will be considered a declaration of war and every Iranian that still calls Iran home will find a way to take revenge. Be it a year from now or a generation from now. America will eventually pay for the crimes it has committed and continues to commit. The most important step Americans can take is to go into the streets and demand regime change in America! Because it is your outlaw regime that is the problem.
Report thisBy Micheal Pasinovski, March 15, 2006 at 11:58 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8260059923 762628848&q=loose+change
Report thisWatch this video and be amazed of how less you know about our government.
By Hunter W., March 15, 2006 at 8:27 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
WOW ... alot of America haters in here ... #5161 wishes for our downfall .. #5160 trusts in Iran’s leaders over our own .... and there are many posts that should start with “in my opinion” because alot of insults/accusations are thrown around without a shred of proof of anything. .. Too many hate Bush/America wannabe conspiracy theorists .. oh to find some intelligent civil discussion/disagreement without all the hate ..
Report thisBy E.T. Spoon, March 15, 2006 at 6:09 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
We, meaning the United States, meaning the Bush Administration, meaning fundamentalist Christians and American Zionists, do not want Iran to have nuclear weapons because Israel already does.
End of story.
Report thisBy Gary Woodman, March 15, 2006 at 5:58 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
It’s all a storm in a teacup (otherwise known as a manufactured casus belli). If the Iranians want a nuclear arsenal, they don’t have to create it from scratch themselves; they can buy raw materials, parts, or more-or-less complete weapons, from the Pakistani black market, the Russian mafia, or perhaps soon, an un-treatied India, with George Bush supplying the knowhow and John Howard supplying the uranium. There is going to be a banquet of ironies soon; pity Americans will starve.
Report thisBy fieldlab, March 15, 2006 at 4:35 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
What amazing hypocrisy and double standards the conservatives are twisting around to find a way to criticize Iran. Forget about whether Iran wants nukes. US conservatives have surrounded Iran on all it’s borders with either standing armies controlled by an openly hostile US leadership, or rouge states like Israel and Pakistan which themselves brandish nukes which are NEVER questioned. Iran has every right to defend itself against the horror of US wars or US sponsored civil wars, and nuclear parity is their best option. It is also the example offered repeatedly by the US and its subservient allies.
So US conservatives can absolutely blame themselves for any nukes built by Iran. Mad cow must be eating your steak fed brains, you freaking hypocrites. You destroyed whatever credibility you might have had.
Report thisBy refusedig, March 15, 2006 at 2:45 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Bush is all about politics money and power. And he is stupid. (I say this because anyone who has that much trouble with his native language is stupid. “Yale, Harvard,” you say. I say, “stupid.” He doesn’t read. No one that language deficient could possibly be reading anything other than--well, nothing; maybe the sports page.)
So, we come to Iran. Remember: politics, money and power. Approval rating in he 30s? Election coming up? Ah Ha! War. Iran. Attack.
So, we attack Iran; just bomb the shit out something, oh, say around September, 2006. (Rumsfeld: “I love the smell of burning Iranians in the morning.")
October’s poll Q.: “Who do you think is better able to protect America’s helpless women and children from rogue terrorist states such as Iran and Hades, Republicans or Democrats?”
Don’t think they won’t. Bush and gang are criminal. They cannot, and, I dare say, will not permit a house of the U.S. Congress to begin investigating and subpoenaing them.
Report thisBy Mojgan, March 15, 2006 at 1:14 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
In respond to Comment # 5157
Rafsanjani NEVER called for annihilation of Israel . This is the link to Rafsanjani’s speech :
http://www.rense.com/general18/mids.htm
Did anywhere in his speech Rafsanjani say that Israel SHOULD be annihilated? Did he say that he wants to Annihilate Israel? Did he say that Iran wants to annihilate Isreal ?
What he said was the fact that *** IF ***there is a nuclear*** EXCHANGE *** in Middle East , due to Israel’s Small size ( Which Israel always use as an excuse to occupy her neighbors land ) Israel will suffer more than any other country .
Your historian , Daniel Jonah Goldhagen , must have been peddling his own genocidal agenda .
Report thisBy Arash, March 14, 2006 at 9:45 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
in reply to Comment #5140 by Wayne on 3/14
So just a wild thought how bout iran or korea or russia or japan or iraq or palestine any of these countries that in the past 50 years us has invaded dropping a nuke on the united states to get their respect kill a few millions ????? is that they way all americans think well if they do then america is nothing but a big high school fully of bullys.
Report thisBy Duck of Death, March 14, 2006 at 9:31 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
The people of this nation were brought up on american mythology, buttressed by John Wayne, Bruce Willis and Chuck Norris movies. It will be its undoing. In regards to Iran, the cure sounds worse than the disease. If either the US or Israel hits Iran, whats to stop them from seriously disrupting the worlds already tight oil market? How long will our ‘house of cards’ economy survive $8 a gallon?
Report thisBy dan, March 14, 2006 at 7:21 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
The context of the Iranian president’s remarks makes it even clearer that he is talking about the elimination of Israel. Note he speaks about “the occupying regime of Qods [Jerusalem]” having been established by “the world oppressor [the United States].” Israel was established 20 years before east Jerusalem was occupied. Therefore the vanishing of that regime = the vanishing of the state of Israel, not the end of the occupation of Jerusalem. He even congratulates the conference on its name {"A World Without Zionism"}. He also reassures his listeners that it is possible to have a world without the United States as well.
Is this a pacifist who will work toward “the vanishing” of the “occupation regime” through Gandhi’s methods? I think not.
The quote is below, to be found at
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/weekinreview/30iran. html?ex=1142485200&en=60861e175f00885c&ei=5070
////////The establishment of the occupying regime of Qods [Jerusalem]was a major move by the world oppressor [ the United States] against the Islamic world. The situation has changed in this historical struggle. Sometimes the Muslims have won and moved forward and the world oppressor was forced to withdraw.
Unfortunately, the Islamic world has been withdrawing in the past 300 years. I do not want to examine the reasons for this, but only to review the history. The Islamic world lost its last defenses in the past 100 years and the world oppressor established the occupying regime. Therefore the struggle in Palestine today is the major front of the struggle of the Islamic world with the world oppressor and its fate will decide the destiny of the struggles of the past several hundred years.
The Palestinian nation represents the Islamic nation [Umma] against a system of oppression, and thank God, the Palestinian nation adopted Islamic behavior in an Islamic environment in their struggle and so we have witnessed their progress and success.
I need to thank you for choosing this valuable title for the conference.
Many who are disappointed in the struggle between the Islamic world and the infidels have tried to spread the blame. They say it is not possible to have a world without the United States and Zionism. But you know that this is a possible goal and slogan.////////////
Report thisBy Hal, March 14, 2006 at 3:00 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
PARASITE CARTEL BLUES
Sorry, but this isn’t about some premature centrifuges or even about a Hezbollah skirmish with Israel.
I ‘m no pro at Mid East analysis but it doesn’t take one to spot Cole’s amateur night fishing. Saber rattles from corporate cartel run D.C. and 10 Downing are all about the money.
Big Oil money.
It’s about a planned Iranian oil bourse that would sell oil off in Euros instead of worthless fiat Federal Reserve Notes. You know, those counterfeit little paper notes printed by an unconstitutional private bank monopoly better known as the “Federal Reserve” Corporation (that is not federal and has no reserves but a cooked Ponzi sting).
The west’s private, cozy cartel mob has force-fed the world worthless fiat paper in trade for real debt along with goods and services for so long the mob thought it could maintain the monopoly forever. But a freeloading cartel has to fall apart somewhere.
That somewhere is a perfect storm called the Mid East where oil is a commodity more precious than gold. So it’s one cartel vs. another (OPEC). Those in charge of Iran and other nations in the Mid East may be corrupt, fanatical and occasionally violent but they are far from fools. Many of them have been educated at Yale, Harvard, Cambridge, etc, where cartel history was not taught thru the usual channels. Regardless, they know private central bank scams including the one at the “Federal Reserve” Corp. And they want to break the parasite wide open.
The reality is, the Mid East owns real wealth. That wealth is one irresistible tool that could put an end to the rule of a parasite cartel that owns the west. Iran intends to use that tool. This is the story nobody wants to talk about. But it’s driving everything out of puppet brothels at D.C. and 10 Downing.
Report thisBy Todd, March 14, 2006 at 2:51 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
From USA Today “The Liberal Baby Bust”
This dynamic helps explain the gradual drift of American culture toward religious fundamentalism and social conservatism. Among states that voted for President Bush in 2004, the average fertility rate is more than 11% higher than the rate of states for Sen. John Kerry.
Thank Goodness!!
Report thisBy Patrick, March 14, 2006 at 2:09 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Jim Dwyer said:
“I’ll never understand why this point matters. Acceptance or non-acceptance of the “Official Party History” is one of the hallmarks of the Bolshevik/Stalinist era. People went to jail for it back then, just as they are today.”
think harder. This crap about ‘Official Party History’ is just that. I realize alot of people are upset at Austria, but I think Austria and Germany are special cases. In most other countries I don’t think it would be appropriate to ban the speech in that way, but you might think of these ordinances as both protection against the long standing and obviously dangerous (in Germany and Austria) Anti-Semitic movement in Europe, and a recognition and partial reparration for the evils done in those two countries. That might not be a good enough reason to ban speech, but it is a decent one, and in no way implies that we are at all like the Soviet Union was. Part of the problem with there being a real ‘Official Party History’ was that there were other plausible worthy views that were being excluded by threat of violence, from the public debate (such as it was). That is not the case here. The reason why people are almost universally derided for being Holocaust deniers is that it is a position so without merit that the only reason that someone might accept it is either that they are (a) massively ignorant (b) terribly stupid or (c) an Anti-Semite. The reason why his being a Holocaust denier is important in this context is that we can rule out that the President of Iran is either (a) or (b), so it is reasonable to assume that he is an Anti-Semite. It is very bad to have explicit Anti-Semites in control of a government, especially a government close enough to Israel to lob bombs and missles at it. That said it is probably true that most of the leaders with whom we are allied are Anti-Semites, they are simply not as public about it.
Report thisBy W. White, March 14, 2006 at 1:48 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Comment by Okie (#5123): ‘This month Iran will open a market to sell oil for euros. If the world can buy oil for euros, why would the world want to use the rapidly depreciating dollars...’
No truer words have been written. The Iran conflict is about the Euro based Iranian commodity market for oil, stupid. Yet, how many stories have you read in the press, about denominating oil in Euro vs the Dollar, and why it is so devastating to the U.S.?
If Americans want to topple the Iranian regime in order to continue borrowing from China et al to finance a lifestyle to which it is addicted, then do so honestly. Denying the truth about oneself is neither honorable nor ever really successfully accomplished.
Report thisBy Erik, March 14, 2006 at 12:54 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Wayne’s comments pretty much say it all—the proper American attitude is might makes right. Power politics, pure and simple. There are no standards of conduct—only the use of power with occasional diplomacy if it might achieve the same results.
That is why Wayne can seemingly avoid a few other salient facts: that the Americans overthrew an elected government of Iran in 1953 and kept a rather unpopular Shah at the head of the country for 25 years. But all Wayne can see are American hostages. And about that Saddam character: the man was responsible for killing quite a number of Iraqi citizens, no doubt. But when was that actually happening? Some of the worst of it was in the early 80’s, and the US knew about it, and didn’t care. In fact, Reagan was only too happy to take Iraq off the list of countries sponsoring terrorism, either in 1982 or ‘83. But, but, but, but—this man was killing his own people!
Why don’t people like Wayne just give up the pretense of law and admit that power is its own justification?
Report thisBy Afshin, March 14, 2006 at 12:26 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Here is the link to Ahmadinejad’s speech in Farsi as some here requested:
http://www.president.ir/farsi/ahmadinejad/speeches/138 4/aban-84/840804sahyonizm.htm
All who know Farsi know what it means.
Thanks for Dr. Cole clarifying it. The word by word translation “The regime that is occupying Jerusalem should be cleared from being present [or existance]”
There is nothing in it that says anything about map or country of Israel.
The translation (not word by word right) is here
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/weekinreview/30iran. html?ex=1142485200&en=60861e175f00885c&ei=5070
Report thisBy searp, March 14, 2006 at 12:24 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
I have never understood why the Iranians have been off limits for all these years. I know about the embassy hostages, and was as outraged as anyone else. I know about Iranian covert ops (read Bob Baer’s book, it is good). However, it seems to me that we simply make things worse at this point by refusing to have normal diplomatic relations. We end up creating another Cuba. Regime change didn’t work there, and it won’t work in Iran.
It is easy to distrust the Iranians on nuclear technology, harder to understand why anyone would think that the first option, the very first option, is military action. Why not do a Nixon goes to China thing?
Report thisBy Ali, March 14, 2006 at 12:15 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
A okay article to begin with. All usa media is run by few, only 2 political party running usa, and both supported by AIPAC so who ever pleases AIPAC will certainly be next president and control the senate and house. USA is digging a big hole, and poor soldiers are paying the price with there life. Regarding Iran, if the religious leaders has openly condemed nuclear weapons, then rest assured they will not make one. Probably that’s the reason why USA is so bold, knowing Iran has not one and will not have one. Try your luck with north korea or india. Poor Iran, I feel sorry for that country.
Report thisBy Afshin, March 14, 2006 at 11:51 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Hi James, There was no undeclared nuclear projects in Iran. The only violation of NPT that is attributed to Iran is a small enrichment of uranium apparently to test some enrichment equipment which based on Iranian claim they forgot or didnt know they had to declare. A technical voilation at best. Since then it has come out that Egypt and South Korea did similar things recently, in case of South Korea the enrichment was to the level of highly enrichment(HEU). In Iran’s case the enrichment was low level and in miligrams I think.
IAEA (and US) were aware of all the sites and infrastructure Iran was intending to build. As a matter of fact the Isfahan and Natanz sites were contracted to be buid by Chinese and Russians but under US pressure they canceled the contracts in the 90’s. Iran decided to build those sites on their own and they did so, they were under no obligation to report building those sites until they were ready to introduce fissionable materials. Although they build these sites secretly, they didnt violate any agreement. The reason they give why they build them secretly is because US would have done something to prevent them to finish. They actually be