A nation’s leaders choose peace, setting aside years of distrust. Forgiving decades of political subversion and economic sabotage, they send emissaries to request full diplomatic relations from their once and present nemesis. They persist, even though they’re repeatedly rebuffed. When war breaks out, they offer military assistance–to their “enemy.”
The nation is Iran. And the reaction is ridiculous.
“The Evil Has Landed,” shrieked the headline of the New York Daily News on the occasion of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speeches at the United Nations and Columbia University. A “madman,” Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post spat, setting the tone for a week of Bizarro News. On “60 Minutes,” the Iranian president said there was no reason his country and ours couldn’t be friends–even the best of friends.
“La la la la–we can’t hear you” was the response.
“Is it the goal of your government, the goal of this nation to build a nuclear weapon?” CBS News’ Scott Pelley asked Ahmadinejad.
He replied: “You have to appreciate we don’t need a nuclear bomb. We don’t need that. What need do we have for a bomb?”
Pelley followed up: “May I take that as a ‘no,’ sir?”
Ahmadinejad: “It is a firm ‘no.'”
Some Americans would pay good money to hear an answer as honest and straightforward as that from their leaders. Yet, minutes later, Pelley kept badgering: “When I ask you a question as direct as ‘Will you pledge not to test a nuclear weapon?’ you dance all around the question. You never say ‘yes.’ You never say ‘no.'”
Weird. Is Pelley hard of hearing? But what I really can’t figure out is how Iran qualifies as our–Very Big Word coming–“enemy.” We’re not at war with Iran. Neither are our allies. What gives?
Capitalizing on the reliable ignorance of the American public and the indolent gullibility of its journalists, the Bush Administration regularly conflates its numerous targets of regime change, pretending they love each other to death and are united only in their desire to slaughter innocent American children. There are gaping chasms in this narrative, but they vanish into our national memory hole.
In 1998, three years before 9/11, while the U.S. was still sucking up to the Taliban, Iran nearly went to war against Afghanistan. Taliban guards burst into Iran’s consulate at Mazar-e-Sharif and murdered eight diplomats and an Iranian journalist. Iran massed 35,000 troops on its eastern border with Afghanistan before the U.N. stepped in to mediate.
After the 9/11 attacks turned the U.S. against the Taliban, U.S. media outlets put footage of a handful of jeering Palestinians on heavy rotation. Meanwhile, “In Iran, vast crowds turned out on the streets and held candlelit vigils for the victims. Sixty-thousand spectators respected a minute’s silence at Tehran’s football stadium.”
Wondering why you never heard that? The above quote comes from the BBC. Fox News didn’t report. American news consumers didn’t know, much less decide.
Finding an opportunity for rapprochement and a mutual foe in the Taliban, Iran became a silent America ally after 9/11. The Iranian military offered to conduct search and rescue operations for downed U.S. pilots during the fall 2001 war against the Taliban. It used its influence with the Afghanistan’s Dari population to broker the loya jirga that installed Hamid Karzai as president of Afghanistan.
Everyone expected U.S.-Iranian relations to thaw. There was even talk about ending sanctions and exchanging ambassadors. A few weeks later, however, White House neocons had Iran named as a member of an “Axis of Evil” in Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address. “We were all shocked by the fact that the U.S. had such a short memory and was so ungrateful about what had happened just a month ago,” remembers Javad Zarif, now the Iranian ambassador to the U.N.
Bush accused Shiite-majority Iran, a mortal enemy of Sunni-dominated Al Qaeda, of offering sanctuary to Al Qaeda fighters fleeing Afghanistan. “Iran must be a contributor in the war against terror,” Bush railed. “Either you’re with us or against us.” The allegation was BS. No one–not the CIA, not one of our allies, no one–believed that Iran would harbor, or had harbored, members of Al Qaeda. “I wasn’t aware of any intelligence supporting that charge,” says James Dobbins, Bush’s special envoy to Afghanistan. But we never took it back.
In May 2003, Iran shook off its annoyance and again tried to make nice. The Iranian overture came in the form of a letter delivered to the State Department after the fall of Baghdad. “Iran appeared willing to put everything on the table–including being completely open about its nuclear program, helping to stabilize Iraq, ending its support for Palestinian militant groups and help in disarming Hezbollah,” reported the BBC.
U.S. officials confirm this overture.
“That letter went to the Americans to say that we are ready to talk, we are ready to address our issues,” says Seyed Adeli, an Iranian foreign minister at the time. Larry Wilkerson, chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, says the Bushies made a conscious decision to ignore it. “We don’t speak to evil,” he recalls that Administration hardliners led by Donald Rumsfeld said.
In the minds of the hard right, the case for Iran’s evilness rests on three issues: the 1979 hostage crisis, its opposition to Israel, and its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Readers of Mark Bowden’s “Guests of the Ayatollah” can’t help but sympathize with the American embassy staffers who spent 444 days in captivity from late 1979 to early 1981. But the right-wingers’ real beef over this episode concerns our wounded national pride.
What they fail to mention is that President Carter brought the mess upon himself, first by continuing to prop up the corrupt and brutal regime of Reza Shah Pahlavi long after it was obviously doomed, and then by admitting him to the U.S. for cancer treatment. Carter knew that his decision to coddle a toppled tyrant could stir up trouble.
“He went around the room,” said then-Vice President Walter Mondale,” and most of us said, ‘Let him [the Shah] in. And he said, ‘And if [the Iranians] take our employees in our embassy hostage, then what would be your advice?’ And the room just fell dead. No one had an answer to that. Turns out, we never did.”
Iran finances and arms Hezbollah, the paramilitary group-cum-nascent state based in Lebanon that wages sporadic attacks against Israel. If proxy warfare and funding Islamist terror organizations that despise Israel were a consideration, however, the U.S. would cut off relations with and impose sanctions against Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. (Can we stop talking to ourselves? We supported the Afghan mujahedeen.) It is possible to maintain friendly relations with nations that hate one another, and we do.
There are two points missing from most discussions of Iran’s nuclear energy program and whether it’s a cover for a weapons program. First, Iran ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1970. Leaders of the Islamic Republic inherited the NPT from the Shah. The revolutionaries voluntarily chose to honor the agreement after they threw him out.
Second, the U.S. practices a double standard by threatening war against Iran while ignoring Israel’s refusal to obey a U.N. resolution calling for a nuclear-free Middle East passed in 1996. As of the late 1990s, U.S. intelligence agencies believed Israel to possess between 75 and 130 nukes. Iran has zero. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, there’s even less evidence against Iran than there was against Saddam’s Iraq.
There are many legitimate reasons to criticize the government of Iran. They’re just a regional rival in the Middle East–another frenemy.
(C) 2007 Ted Rall, All Rights Reserved.
14 Comments.
I often wonder how different the last 50 years would have turned out had the US not installed the Shah back in '53.
I actually remember some of the warm talk in the media from analysts not that long ago. They were citing that the population in Iran is young and there is hope for change. Many of the children of the revolution are 'westernized'. This jived with my experience talking with families at my school, who travel there regularly. Now I wonder if I ever actually heard that coverage to begin with. This is the kind of thing we need to get used to. We have a corporate-state-sponsored media.
Wow, Carter forseeing the hostage crisis is news to me. (Too bad he could not forsee the famine he helped cause in Ethiopia.)
I have several friends from Iran who now live here in the US. When they were in Iran, they lived comfortably under the Shah, very similar to what we call upper middle class. Society there was very Westernized before his downfall.
Excellent recap of the last 30 years of Iran-US relations. I too was appalled at the 'axis of evil' speech, and even more appalled at how little most Americans pay attention to the rest of the world.
What's even more ridiculous is that the neocon dead-enders in the White House are stirring up war against Iran when they've already got one war they can't afford. I've read speculations that the US may be encouraging Israel to take on Iran (as our proxy); as if that would stablize anything in the Middle East.
Anyway, Ted, I always enjoy pieces like this one, reminding everyone of recent history that Americans are forced to forget (even if they try to remember), as useful and important information gets pushed out of one's brain by the headline about Brittney and her custody case.
Ahmadinejad's introduction at Columbia was extremely rude by any standard, especially for a head of state.
As for Iran's nuclear program, it's a necessity since most of their exports consist of oil (which is on it's way out), they require a substitute. The bushies and euros don't really care much about the nukes, but they do care about future competition in their "family" enterprises.
Nukes are simply a by-product of efficient reactor technology, seems to me that outlawing nukes totally, while promoting nuclear innovation and technology would be far more effective way of handling the issue.
anon,
Yes, it was possible to live comfortably under the Shah in Iran. That is unless you expressed religious views that didn't jive with his secularist ideals. Then life was a living hell. His strong arm police state tactics helped drive many people into the arms of the Islamic revolutionaries. Extremism begets extremism.
Owen
Ted,
Nice column. As always you remain the only columnist who can make my blood boil one week and then say exactly what we all need to hear the next.
As a nation, we need to take a step back and take inventory of events in the past which have led, either directly or indirectly, to the current state of affairs in the Middle East. The problem is that when one starts questioning U.S. motives and how those motives might have a negative affect, some reactionary starts screaming about traitors and "America haters". The ractionaries make the most noise and the voices of moderation are drowned out. Then an Anna Nicole Smith crokes or a Britney Spears shaves her head, and the country's collective attention turns elsewhere.
Blogger John Caruso pointed out the hypocracy of Columbia's Lee Bollinger by comparing the way he treated Ahmadinejad with the way he treated Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf. In Bollinger's introduction of Musharraf, he said things like "It is with great gratitude and excitement that I welcome President Musharraf" and "we take a great scholarly and personal interest in what the President has to say." Columbia's official biography of Musharraf says he "assumed the office of chief executive" in 1999.
But what Columbia doesn't mention is that Musharraf actually took power in a coup. After taking over, Musharraf forced judges to swear a loyalty oath to the military, causing many judges to resign and enabling Musharraf to stack the judiciary with his supporters. He did allow the formation of a parliament, but he has the power to dissolve it. This parliament retroactively legalized the 1999 coup.
Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad is the democratically-elected leader of Iran. Also, he's not really in charge and is basically subordinate to Ayatollah Khamenei.
I'm not sure why the Bush Administration keeps talking up war with Iran. They might just want to rattle their sabers without actually doing anything, but I'm not sure of the point. But sometimes I wonder if they want to start a war in Iran just so there'll be an even bigger mess for the Democrats to have to clean up in 2009.
Think about Ken Burns' 'The War' and the title of his first installment, 'A necessary war,' and think about why World War II still plays so heavy in the American psyche as our finest hour, while elsewhere in the world it stands as a monumental human catastrophe.
Americans are militant, belligerent, and willfully and gleefully susceptible to expanding anything into a blanket excuse for maintaining a permanent state of war.
Why is this? Who benefits under the current system in the US? Labor who wants jobs and doesn't care that they make machinery of death, military contractors, politicians?
Face it, our entire culture and society is sick with this disease, and will make up any excuse to feel validated in their childish usage of military power.
I wonder if the best real solution to this problem in the long run is what's happening in Chattanooga, TN, where Northern liberal and Southern conservative secessionists are getting together to discuss ways for states or regions to secede from the Federalist War Machine.
The only other 'solution' I see is our own German Solution….and why don't you speak to the women of 1945 Berlin to find out the horrors of that solution.
Dave
As far as I am concerned, the President of Columbia University behaved in a shameful uncivilized manner. Calling Ahmadinejad a cruel petty dictator to his face, was petty and moreover–false. He is a bit of dick-head but definitely not a dictator. The questions are all pretty idiotic as he pretty much answered all of them during his initial speech except the question about homosexuals in Iran.
The guy is clearly an intellectual. I wish they had asked him more intellectual questions, like "what was it in Rushid's 'Satanic Verses' merited the author's death? The story seemed pretty metaphysical to me. Didn't see anything offensive to Islam in it."
So yes, far as I know Iran is not a terribly nice place to live.
1) That said, Ahmadinejad is not a dictator. Khomeini might be a dictator but Ahmadinejad is an elected president, maybe not the most perfect elections but he was still elected like Putin was elected.
2) Saddam's regime was repressive too. Getting rid of him made a bad situation worse. The example of China shows the right way to deal with repressive regimes.
3) Avowed enemy of Israel– yes but I don't think he's an avowed enemy of all Jews. Anyway, Iran is an avowed enemy of the US too. This whole enemies thing is a big distraction if you ask me.
4) Acquiring nukes… maybe so but Pakistan had them and they were best buddies of the Taliban who were best buddies of Bin Laden and yet Pakistan hasn't handed over any nukes to Bin Laden. Again, best way to deal with enemies is to make them your friends. Then they can have all the nukes they want.
Point is, running around the world harassing other countries and their leaders is, "forgetting the lessons of 9-11." Sooner or later the Israelis are going to have to make peace with the Islamic world. They can't keep their technological edge forever.
So maybe all of Ahmadinejad peace talk is empty rhetoric but hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.
I wish our countrymen (Republican and Democrat) weren't so damn hysterical.
Goddammit folks it's JIBE not JIVE!!! Something JIBES with something else. ARRRRRGH!!!!!
Something that's not widely known is that the Iranian Revolution was something that was brewing for a long time and that didn't necessarily have to go the way it did. There were a lot of students who supported the ideas of Ali Shariati, who blended a sort of Marxism with respect for traditional Islamic culture. Traditional in the sense that he saw the need for Westernization as being imperialist and tried to formulate an alternative that respected the cultural heritage of the Middle East, and of Iran, which includes Islam.
Once Khomeini was installed these folks were arrested and taken out of the competition for power, but if they had won Iran probably would have become a semi-Socialist society that officially opposed Westernization as being cultural imperialism masquerading as 'progress'.
"Anna Nicole Smith crokes or a Britney Spears shaves her head, and the country's collective attention turns elsewhere."
right on owen.
And yet, my friends' eyes glaze over at the mention of even the most sensational scandals that might affect them (like arming our enemies). USA has an official religion, but it is not Christian. It is a strain of self-proving nihilism so vile, that it calls itself Christian.
Hundreds of thousands of gays, people with birth defects, gypsies, communists, labor leaders, socialists and so forth were killed in the Holocaust. We don't hear about them, especially the labor leaders. Why?
For him to question is 100% correct in every way. The whole episode has been hijacked for propaganda. How sad.