Iran - some perspective - Democratic Underground

mogster

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Sun Feb-12-06 03:47 PM
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Iran - some perspective

US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice is following the now so obvious track and escalates the rethoric towards Iran:

"- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Monday there was strong international consensus against Iran's nuclear plans and time had run out for talking to Tehran.
With Italy's foreign minister at her side, Rice said the next step must be to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council. The United States believes Iran is building a nuclear bomb but Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful, energy purposes."

Heard it before?
From the grass root here, the immediate reaction was unified:

Fridays Child: Fuck you, Neocondi.

umass1993: I second that.

AtomicKitten: I third that. n/t

And I can probably twohundredandsixtyone that by now. Anyone remember the previous time the Secretary of State took the stage and built his case?

"Mr Powell said the evidence was based on sources and intelligence and included spy satellite photos as well as intercepted conversations between Iraqi officials.
(...)
I cannot tell you everything that we know. But what I can share with you, when combined with what all of us have learned over the years, is deeply troubling.

What you will see is an accumulation of facts and disturbing patterns of behaviour. The facts on Iraqis' behaviour - Iraq's behaviour - demonstrate that Saddam Hussein and his regime have made no effort - no effort - to disarm as required by the international community. Indeed, the facts and Iraq's behaviour show that Saddam Hussein and his regime are concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction."

It's all in the behaviour. Nevermind the DATA...

In 2004 Powell had to admit that there was no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, CIA released a report that showed Hussein had no weapons (and that the possibilities he had had to produce them was very slim), and Don Rumsfeld said: 'To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links Saddam Hussein and Al-Queda'.
Later Powell confessed that he had been lying to the Security Council.

Regrets.
But not Bush, oh no. He would have gone to war once again, even after all evidence had proved him wrong. Absurd.

TONIGHT: Mr President, if I can move on to the question of Iraq, when we last spoke before the Iraq war, I asked you about Saddam Hussein and you said this, and I quote: "He harbours and develops weapons of mass destruction, make no mistake about it."

Well, today, no WMD, the war has cost 1,700 American lives, many more Iraqi civilians killed, hundreds of billions of dollars in cost to your country. Can you understand why some people in your country are now beginning to wonder whether it was really worth it?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Absolutely. I mean, when you turn on your TV set every day and see this incredible violence and the havoc that is wreaked as a result of these killers, I'm sure why people are getting discouraged. And that's why I spoke to the nation last night and reminded people that this is a - Iraq is a part of this global war on terror. And the reason why foreign fighters are flocking into Iraq is because they want to drive us out of the region.

See, these folks represent an ideology that is based upon hate and kind of a narrow vision of mankind - women don't have rights. And I believe this is an ideological movement. And I know that they want to use suicide bombers and assassinations and attacks on the World Trade Centre, and the attacks in Madrid, to try to shake our will and to achieve an objective, which is to topple governments.

'And I know that they want to use suicide bombers and assassinations and attacks on the World Trade Centre, and the attacks in Madrid, to try to shake our will and to achieve an objective, which is to topple governments' - what kind of sentence IS that?
:rofl: It's his mantra.
This interview are from July 2005, and he still drones on about Iraq as a part of his 'war' on terror. WMD is not mentioned at all.

Methods of propaganda

We can recognize the rethoric and the method from just three-four years ago:

1. There are no actual data to prove that Iran has started a nuclear program for weapons. If there are indications of such a program, they're bound to be technical. Like 'yellow cake' or 'aluminium tubes', or just scratched pictures of technical documents written in Farsi. Meat scraps for the public.
Where's the smoking gun?

2. To take the focus away from the quality of the data the agitation shifts to the behaviour of the regime in Iran. This is the same technique they used last time, under Reagan. I call it 'monstrifying' in lack of a better word for it; to accellerate the rethoric towards a given object and just give it a hell of a time. Build a reverse image of yourself. To the official Reagan, Iran was the Adversary to God and Democracy during the 80's, but at the same time he had a cosy money-for-weapons-scheme going AND the regime in Iran helped him by holding back the hostages release, so that Carter wouldn't get his October surprise.
It shows that it can't be all THAT bad, at least not for him?

Four years ago, they used this method on Hussein's regime by producing bogus information that made him a threat, then replace every space in every sentence uttered in public with the term WMD. And call on past behaviour as proof; he had WMD before, he probably still has them, he gassed the Kurds, he attacked Iran, et cetera. 16 years ago, Bush senior used the method with the help from the daughter of the ambassador from Kuwait; she lied about the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in a tear-dripping show that sent us all over to the 'yes' side, and at once established Iraqi's as a breed of their own, capable of anything. Thruth is, that invasion was not very brutal in comparison to other wars.
The impression the 'grabbing babies out of incubators and smashing their heads against the floor'-statement made on the world must not be underrated, I believed for years that this was the new nazi's. But they weren't, it was a lie made by a professional communication company paid for by the Kuwaiti state. You can imagine Bush I helped them a bit.

I think Hussein deserves whatever punishment he gets, he was one brutal dictator with a lot of blood on his hands. But he wasn't a threat anymore, and his image as a Class 1 World Horror needed to be rebuilt before they could swing the tide.

Today, the same is happening to Iran. Just as in 2002/2003, the campaign started early; a year and a half into the Iraqi war Iran announced they was gonna start enrichment of uranium, and amazingly: the words 'yellow cake' appears again. The next day, Colin Powell puts the pedal to the metal and demands that the UN Security Council be brought in:

The US wants the UN to impose sanctions on Iran over its alleged nuclear weapons programme, says Secretary of State Colin Powell.
(...)
Mr Powell said the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) should refer Iran to the Security Council for possible sanctions.

He said Iran has repeatedly failed to comply with its international obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

'Repeatedly failed to comply' - it points to behaviour, no? And it sounds so strangely similar to the pre-war build up of Hussein.

So does Rice's, and above all Bush's, statements in the recent weeks and months.

And who can blame them, apparently? With Ahmadinejad as Iranian president, the situation has escalated and the notion that Iran is in fact on their way to produce a nuclear bomb isn't that way out there. If I had a mind from the 13th century and had Bush at the door, snarling and barking, I'd want something to defend myself. But theres something about this man that doesn't ring true, he's to much of an asset for the neocons to be a pure coincidence.

Ahmadinejad is a new 'super-muslim' - like bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein.
And he's a credible threat, allright. If the purpose is war, he serves perfect into any neocon plan.
How did he come to power, and from where? Who's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was elected Iran's president in June 2005, was an obscure figure when he was appointed mayor of Tehran in the spring of 2003.
He was not much better known when he entered the presidential election campaign, although he had already made his mark as Tehran mayor for rolling back reforms.
(...)
Mr Ahmadinejad reportedly spent no money on his presidential campaign - but he was backed by powerful conservatives who used their network of mosques to mobilise support for him.

He also had the support of a group of younger, second-generation revolutionaries known as the Abadgaran, or Developers, who are strong in the Iranian parliament, the Majlis.

His presidential campaign focused on poverty, social justice and the distribution of wealth inside Iran.

An introvert religious hardliner, focused on national politics. Sounds like Bush before 911 hit, at least as I thought then. It also says he 'has a reputation for living a simple life and campaigned against corruption'. Does not sound like Bush, but you get the same rookie feeling about him. Not too bright. Just as Bush is led by the nose by strong forces in the US, Ahmadinejad is weak because of his inexperience and one might surmise that the two groups mentioned has a lot of influence on him. And the opposition has been at his throat ever since he was elected.

But these groups influencing him and/or working to get him elected are interesting.

The 'Developers'? Now, that sounds just so ..modern :D

From Wikipedia:

The Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran (ائتلاف آبادگران ایران اسلامی E'telāf-e Ābādgarān-e Īrān-e Eslāmī), usually shortened to Abadgaran (آبادگران), is an alliance of some conservative Iranian political parties and organizations. The alliance, mostly active in Tehran, won almost all of the Tehran's seats in the Iranian Majlis election of 2004 and the Iranian City and Village Councils election of 2003. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former mayor of Tehran (who is chosen by Tehran's City Council) and now President of Iran, is considered one of the main figures in the alliance.

Second generation revolutionaries with a religious conservative view that call themselves the 'Developers'. An 'alliance of some conservative Iranian political parties and organizations' - this is the neocon's Persian mirror. If you count Reagan as a revolutionary, and I think we should, the Neocons must be counted as a second generation of that original revolution. A lot of them grew up as Reaganites, and are now Neocons.
In addition, these two regimes came into power at the same time; in 1979/80, and instantly became enemies on the surface, while the tone was much more cozy in private.
Enough to (apparently) hold back the release of the hostages in the Tehran embassy, and then get them released only 44 minutes after Reagans inauguration.

How could Reagan achieve so easy what Carter couldn't even reach?

Here's an Iran timeline:
1979 16 January - As the political situation deteriorates, the Shah and his family are forced into exile.
1979 1 February - The Islamic fundamentalist, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, returns to Iran following 14 years of exile in Iraq and France for opposing the regime.
1979 1 April - The Islamic Republic of Iran is proclaimed following a referendum.
1979 4 November - Islamic militants take 52 Americans hostage inside the US embassy in Tehran. They demand the extradition of the Shah, in the US at the time for medical treatment, to face trial in Iran.
1980 25 January - Abolhasan Bani-Sadr is elected the first President of the Islamic Republic. His government begins work on a major nationalization programme.
1980 27 July - The exiled Shah dies of cancer in Egypt.
1980 22 September - Iraq invades Iran following border skirmishes and a dispute over the Shatt al-Arab waterway. This marks the beginning of a war that will last eight years.
1981 20 January - The American hostages are released ending 444 days in captivity.

And Reagan was inaugurated.
On the eve of the 1980 Washington for Jesus Rally, Jerry Falwell held a speech to the gathered crowd:

"There'll be no peace until Jesus comes. That's what the Anti-Christ promises. Any teaching of peace prior to His return is heresy.
It's against the word of God!
It's Anti-Christ!"

And just as Khomeiny did in Iran, Reagan set out to change the US society - and the world - in his neoconservative revolution.
There's no doubt that the world of 1979 and the world of 1988 was totally different, and not all can be credited evolution and the crumbling of the Soviet. Reagan used religion (and anti-communism) to inflame his electorate and achieve the change, Khomeiny did the same. But while Reagan still was bound by the laws of the Cold War, Khomeiny had free reins inside Iran and could purge Iran from the old regime. I have often wondered what would have happened in the US if Soviet had fallen a decade earlier.

Reagan wasn't a religious man, he was a politician with a big extremist religious movement that should have been a clamp around his foot. But he understood how to take advantage of that movement to an extent that he was lifted into power in a surge, nothing could stop him.
The time was set for Reagan to come to power, just as the conditions in Iran was set for their religious revolution.

Digression:
If you want to feel the real spirit from that era, buy this CD: My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts by David Byrne and Brian Eno.
It is an amazing piece of art work, capturing the frenzy of rightwing religious radio in the US just as it took off, sampled and played with some of the worlds best musicians, and some songs sampling the frail peace of Islam - at that time considered a non-extremist religion - also funked up. It is a world timestamp from 1981.

Fast forward to today's incredibly generalized rethoric about Iran, and their (still) illusory WMD.

Did you know there are Jews living in Iran? Not a huge community, but still - 30.000 Jews live in Iran, and mostly support the Iranian govt. in criticizing Israel:

The chairman of Iran's Jewish Council has strongly criticised the country's hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for saying the Holocaust was a myth.
In a letter to the president, Haroun Yashayaei said the leader's remarks had shocked the international community and caused fear in Iran's Jewish community.
(...)
Iran's small Jewish community of about 30,000 is recognised by the Islamic Republic and there is even a Jewish member of parliament.

Iranian Jews normally do not interfere in political issues and they often support the country's stance on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The way the rethoric goes from the Bush-administration, you'd think all Jews in Iran would be slaughtered long time ago. I for sure didn't know this.

Due to the cartoons published in Norwegian media, a couple of journalists from Dagbladet have been inside Iran for a week now. They say the burning of embassies and demonstrations isn't supported by more than a couple of hundred people. On the contrary, the Iranians they meet are very civil, and even invites them for dinner. The journalist in question is female.

LINE FRANSSON
Here's a translation of excerpts from an article (in Norwegian) published yesterday:

I'm jumping out of the car and walks towards the demonstration. 60-70 iranians are shouting slogans against Norway, Denmark and the USA. Broken windows and dark spots on the white building is sad to see. Now, a little hour after the demo startet, the situation is seemingly under control. Riot police keeps demonstrators away from the building with shields and batons. The demonstrators shouts «Down with Norway», «Down with Israel» and «Allah is great». I hide my Norwegian passport to avoid their anger.
Three young people walks towards me. «We're ashamed. Embassies is supposed to be a place where people should feel safe. The demonstrators are idiots. They're few and doesn't represent the opinion of the people», the students say. When they hear I'm from Norway, they excuse the behaviour of the demonstrators even more. «These people doesn't think, they just follow orders. No one dare to demonstrate on their own in Iran. These people have strong forces behind them. It makes us sad and scared», says the students.
The three young people aren't alone in making excuses outside the partly destroyed Norwegian embassy in Iran. A number of Iranians comes by to say they're sorry. And ashamed. «We're 70 million people in Iran. The demonstrators are fewer than hundred. They're sent from the government», a man says.

So the Iranians aren't all that hostile, at least not behind the mask. I've seen more articles by this journalist, and they convey the same message; not a public 'riot' demonstration, but govt. sponsored.
A Norwegian undersecretary in the Foreign dept., Raymond Johansen, cancelled his trip to Iran today. I can imagine why.

OK. I'm writing a book here, so I'll stop now. I know most of you people all have a lot of knowledge aboard and can make up your own mind based on self experience.
I just felt I'd broaden the picture a bit for those that don't know much about this country and their ways :-)

Note: Unintentional smileys in farsi text intentionally left standing. Can't hurt?