Category Archives: Iran

Sincere?

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Today I found myself, not for the first time, arguing with a friend about whether the U.S. under Bush was “sincere” in its desire to bring democracy to the Middle East. My position has always been that many of the people around Bush (people like Paul Wolfowitz), as well as Bush himself, were sincere. However crazy their reasoning may have seemed to us, and however full of hubris it may have been (believing that the U.S. could reshape the world merely by wishing it so) there was a plan to turn the Middle East into a series of democratic states (not just take their oil) in the belief that only free Arabs in control of their destiny could help us to fight Al Qaeda-style terrorism. My friend wasn’t buying any of this, so for documentary proof, I went back to this April 2003 article by Josh Marshall, creator of the political news site TPM, in which he lays out the grand vision neoconservatives had at the time (improbable as it was), in the first days of the war in Iraq. The article made an impression on me then that I never forgot, and I still feel it’s the best piece of political analysis of that decade.

    “In their view, invasion of Iraq was not merely, or even primarily, about getting rid of Saddam Hussein. Nor was it really about weapons of mass destruction…. Rather, the administration sees the invasion as only the first move in a wider effort to reorder the power structure of the entire Middle East. Prior to the war, the president himself never quite said this openly. But hawkish neoconservatives within his administration gave strong hints. … Late last month, The Weekly Standard‘s Jeffrey Bell reported that the administration has in mind a ‘world war between the United States and a political wing of Islamic fundamentalism…a war of such reach and magnitude [that] the invasion of Iraq, or the capture of top al Qaeda commanders, should be seen as tactical events in a series of moves and countermoves stretching well into the future.’ In short, the administration is trying to roll the table — to use U.S. military force, or the threat of it, to reform or topple virtually every regime in the region, from foes like Syria to friends like Egypt, on the theory that it is the undemocratic nature of these regimes that ultimately breeds terrorism. … Each crisis will draw U.S. forces further into the region and each countermove in turn will create problems that can only be fixed by still further American involvement, until democratic governments — or, failing that, U.S. troops — rule the entire Middle East. …
    “[According to neoconservatives] the Middle East today is like the Soviet Union 30 years ago. Politically warped fundamentalism is the contemporary equivalent of communism or fascism. Terrorists with potential access to weapons of mass destruction are like an arsenal pointed at the United States. The primary cause of all this danger is the Arab world’s endemic despotism, corruption, poverty, and economic stagnation. Repressive regimes channel dissent into the mosques, where the hopeless and disenfranchised are taught a brand of Islam that combines anti-modernism, anti-Americanism, and a worship of violence that borders on nihilism. Unable to overthrow their own authoritarian rulers, the citizenry turns its fury against the foreign power that funds and supports these corrupt regimes to maintain stability and access to oil: the United States. … Trying to ‘manage’ this dysfunctional Islamic world…is as foolish, unproductive, and dangerous as détente was with the Soviets, the hawks believe. Nor is it necessary, given the unparalleled power of the American military. Using that power to confront Soviet communism led to the demise of that totalitarianism and the establishment of democratic (or at least non-threatening) regimes from the Black Sea to the Baltic Sea to the Bering Strait. Why not use that same power to upend the entire corrupt Middle East edifice and bring liberty, democracy, and the rule of law to the Arab world?
    “The hawks’ grand plan differs depending on whom you speak to, but the basic outline runs like this: The United States establishes a reasonably democratic, pro-Western government in Iraq — assume it falls somewhere between Turkey and Jordan on the spectrum of democracy and the rule of law. Not perfect, representative democracy, certainly, but a system infinitely preferable to Saddam’s. The example of a democratic Iraq will radically change the political dynamics of the Middle East. When Palestinians see average Iraqis beginning to enjoy real freedom and economic opportunity, they’ll want the same themselves. With that happy prospect on one hand and implacable United States will on the other, they’ll demand that the Palestinian Authority reform politically and negotiate with Israel. That in turn will lead to a real peace deal between the Israelis and Palestinians. A democratic Iraq will also hasten the fall of the fundamentalist Shi’a mullahs in Iran, whose citizens are gradually adopting anti-fanatic, pro-Western sympathies. A democratized Iran would create a string of democratic, pro-Western governments (Turkey, Iraq, and Iran) stretching across the historical heartland of Islam. … Syria would be no more than a pale reminder of the bad old days. (If they made trouble, a U.S. invasion would take care of them, too.) And to the tiny Gulf emirates making hesitant steps toward democratization, the corrupt regimes of Saudi Arabia and Egypt would no longer look like examples of stability and strength in a benighted region, but holdouts against the democratic tide. Once the dust settles, we could decide whether to ignore them as harmless throwbacks to the bad old days or deal with them, too. We’d be in a much stronger position to do so since we’d no longer require their friendship to help us manage ugly regimes in Iraq, Iran, and Syria.
    “The audacious nature of the neocons’ plan makes it easy to criticize but strangely difficult to dismiss outright. … You can hear yourself saying, ‘That plan’s just crazy enough to work.'”

I should note that the article is titled “Practice to Deceive,” so doesn’t that undermine my claim that the Bush administration was sincere? But the article doesn’t claim that their desire to democratize the Middle East was insincere. To the contrary, the duplicity referred to is of the opposite variety — they were claiming to the American people that their plan was far narrower in scope, dedicated only to ensuring that Iraq was free of chemical and biological weapons. Only after American troops were engaged would the full dimensions of the plan become clear, and the American people realize that we were committed to a region-wide project of twenty years’ duration. By then we would have no other choice but to swallow our doubts about democratization and nation-building, and see things through.

Of course, none of this turned out quite as the neoconservatives imagined it then. The Palestinians, for example, saw nothing worth imitating in the fate of their Iraqi brothers. And where democratic elections did occur, the people stubbornly refused to vote for the sort of people the Bush administration had in mind (like Ahmed Chelabi), choosing instead pro-Iranian Shi’a conservatives in Iraq, the Muslim Brotherhood in the Egyptian parliamentary elections of 2005, and Hamas in Palestine in 2006. Eventually, the Bush administration grew considerably less sincere in its desire for democracy in the Middle East, and backed away almost entirely from the original plan. A few neoconservatives (not many) even apologized to us for their naive and deceptive advice. But still, it helps from time to time to go back to this original snapshot of Josh Marshall’s, and remind ourselves of the kind of imperial hubris that was in the air then.

“Beware the False Fury”

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Read this now. He gets everything right.

    “The same danger is now looming from Cairo to Benghazi to the rest of the Arab and Muslim world—for militant Salafis or Wahhabis to abuse this ignoramus film to derail a world historic succession of revolutions. … The US has done enough atrocities around the globe to be blamed for just about everything—but this is a different season—this is the season of the Green Movement and the Arab Spring—do not be fooled by these zealotries of the fanatics who are trying to steal the revolution. … President Obama must do absolutely nothing. The true measure of his statesmanship is [to]…let Muslims raise their own voice in condemning both bigotry and violence at one and the time—as indeed we see it happening in both Libya and Egypt…. This is the season of the Arab Spring—binary banalities of fanatics on both sides of the divide cannot derail the course of history anymore.”

Netanyahu, Make My Day!

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today:

    “The world tells Israel, ‘Wait, there’s still time’ [to deal with Iran]. And I say, ‘Wait for what? Wait until when?'”

Okay then, attack Iran. Get it over with, already! You’ve been yapping about it for months. Just don’t drag President Obama into it.

Netanyahu went on:

    “Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel.”

He must be referring to people like General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said recently that an Israeli attack would “probably not destroy Iran’s nuclear program” and added, “I don’t want to be complicit if they choose to do it.”

In his usual delicate, subtle fashion, Netanyahu has been trying to inject himself into the American presidential campaign, threatening that Israel will attack Iran between now and November, in an attempt to force Obama’s hand before the election. What he wants, apparently, is a full-throated commitment from Obama to use force against Iran if certain “red lines” are crossed. This while publicly embracing Mitt Romney, who accuses Obama of “throwing Israel under the bus,” and who is bankrolled by Netanyahu’s biggest supporter, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.

Two days ago, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reaffirmed American policy, saying, “We’re not setting deadlines” and negotiations with Iran remain “the best approach.” Netanyahu’s latest trash talk is his response to that. It has since emerged that President Obama won’t be meeting with Netanyahu while he’s in New York to address the U.N. General Assembly later this month. It was assumed only recently that Netanyahu would make a side trip to Washington to discuss his famous “red lines.” But now, the president says he’s too busy.

Draw your own conclusions!

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In unrelated news, this is the most fun you’ll ever have learning about the effects of Federal Reserve policy on the U.S. economy.

And Mitt Romney has warned that if President Obama is reelected, he will “take God off our coins.”

Obama’s War of Choice

Obama’s war of choice, coming in 2011?

    “Iran is definitely in Obama’s sights. He has ceased courting it, and is girding for the confrontation. But not yet. … Last year was the year of public relations; 2010 is the year of pressure. The crushing blow that comes after the pressure will not be dealt before next year.”

“The year of public relations” — that’s what worries me. Did Obama “court” Iran not because he wanted a deal — whether a narrow deal on uranium enrichment, or a broader deal leading to warmer relations — but as a gesture designed to fail? Did he set out merely to show the world that he was being reasonable, that he offered his hand and Iran refused? If that is the case, the failure will now be used to isolate Iran even further, softening world public opinion for military action down the road — once punitive sanctions, too, have been tried and failed.

The Ha’aretz writer I cited above thinks he can read Obama’s mind. He believes that Obama has given up on negotiations and will attack Iran, but is waiting until after the November elections for political reasons. I’m not so sure, but I do worry. Washington has limited its outreach to Tehran to a single issue — an all-or-nothing uranium swap — and now keeps repeating how unimpressed they are with Tehran’s attempts to meet them halfway. (Iran is willing to do a swap, but not all at once, rather in stages over several months.) Negotiations are at a stalemate, and the U.S. is busy rallying the global powers to punish Iran through sanctions. Meanwhile, Congress has passed its own sanctions bill by an overwhelming vote. Unless the game changes suddenly due to an Iranian popular revolution in the next few months — which won’t happen — it increasingly looks like the stage is being set, and consciously so, for a military showdown in 2011 as Ha’aretz claims.

What has Iran done to deserve this? Its leaders have said repeatedly they don’t want a nuclear weapon. Western intelligence has found no evidence that they are pursuing a weapon. Stories were planted in Western newspapers claiming that the Iranians are testing some sort of nuclear detonator, but these stories have been shown to be false. Iran’s uranium enrichment program is well within its rights under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and they are cooperating with IAEA inspectors. I don’t understand the justification — moral, strategic, or otherwise — for a showdown with Iran.

If it’s true that Obama has already made up his mind to attack Iran, that would prove him to be even more duplicitous than I already know him to be. The condescension of pretending to want peace, while preparing for war — I’ve perceived it in him since his Nobel Peace Prize speech. But if he goes so far as to attack Iran, a country that has done nothing to the U.S., after pledging to reach out — may he be condemned by history, may he be buried in shame.

Of course, I may be jumping the gun. Perhaps the Ha’aretz columnist is projecting his own fantasies onto Obama. My own fears, too, could be wrong — I certainly hope so. If Obama decides to negotiate sincerely, without preconditions as he promised during his campaign, far-ranging breakthroughs are possible, instead of this senseless division. Or maybe Russia and China will make the price of military action too high. Or maybe the U.S. will blunder into the bloody chaos of its third Middle East war. I guess we’ll know soon enough — in another year or two.

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Here’s Iranian rapper Salome calling for the Iranian people to remain united regardless of “family” differences — since there are those trying to exploit those differences “who don’t care about us.” This addresses itself to those in Washington who hope a “Green Revolution” will play to its advantage, as well as to opportunists in Iran hoping to use the divisions to gain power. (Thanks to Lenin’s Tomb for the link.)

Iran: Let’s Be Clear

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Here is guest poster doga’s response to recent events in Iran. He warns of possible hidden motives in the West’s support for Mir-Hossein Mousavi, asking why the West has been quick to champion a man who is part of the same system they have so long criticized?

It’s clear that the reactions of Iranian society to the events of recent weeks, and to the pressures these events have placed on them, haven’t followed a clear logic either in favor of the individual or in favor of the Iranian authorities. It’s true that there has been violence against the demonstrators, but there has also been a destruction of private property which the police are responsible for protecting. For this reason, whether we are for these demonstrations or against them, if we are sincere we mustn’t betray our belief in the liberating and pacifying potential of reason and communication.

Before these events the West had the greatest difficulty in understanding the Iranian people, their way of thinking and their view of the world, and the Western media put their energies into perpetuating a distorted image such as the one presented in the American film Not Without My Daughter—but now all of a sudden everything is reversed, and the majority of Iranians are progressives who support the open, liberal vision of the reformer Mousavi. But are Mousavi’s ideas really as friendly to the West as they seem?

We need to remember that Mousavi is part of the overall Iranian system, even if he now claims that if he had succeeded in the presidential elections, the Revolutionary Guard would have launched a coup against him! We mustn’t forget that in the early days of the revolution he was the editor of the official journal of the Islamic Republican Party, then foreign minister and finally prime minister from 1981–1989 under the presidency of Ali Khomeini, who is none other than the current Supreme Leader of the Revolution, the highest post in the republic. Mousavi chose not to run for the presidency in 1997 when his reformist ally Mohammed Khatami was elected and then reelected by a significant margin, which goes to show that the reformers are part of the Islamic system and have been playing a direct role in it for years, even though the Islamic revolution is only 30 years old! That is why in normal circumstances the West would not support Mousavi today even with words, simply because he doesn’t share their values and goals.

We can say that the West is more against Ahmadinejad than it is for Mousavi. Indeed it is against the system in general and for civil disorder, for well-known reasons. It is hardly obvious that Western call for liberty and for demonstrations, mixed with the indirect call for an uprising against the Iranian system, is in the best interests of the Iranian people, who in my view are an open and tolerant people despite the stereotypic image we see in the media.

In my opinion we need to be vigilant if we want to understand objectively what is currently happening in Iran, because there is always the possibility of hidden interests that want to manipulate the system to their own private ends. We may agree with someone who tells us that gambling destroys the social life of the people, but never with someone who loses everything in the casino and then tells us the same thing!

Towards Justice in Iran

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There is objective proof now that the Iranian election was stolen. Juan Cole has the details.

Meanwhile, from the behavior of the Iranian state — arrests of opposition figures, a crackdown on communications, threats of “bloodshed and chaos” if the opposition doesn’t back down — it seems obvious that they have something to hide. They are acting threatened and cornered, not like their preferred candidate has just won a landslide victory.

Would a regime that enjoys broad popular support be acting like this (watch video) or this?

One of the things that stands out in these events is the courage of Iranian women, who have been in the front lines of the resistance from the beginning. Another is the inability of the major media to keep up with the story, and their dependence on citizen reporters on sites like YouTube and Twitter. Finally, there is the fact that while this is playing out before the eyes of the world, this is an Iranian struggle that must be won by the Iranians themselves. There is little the rest of us can do except bear witness as President Obama said yesterday.

Here is an excellent piece by Roger Cohen of the New York Times, who has somehow managed to be on the ground in Teheran, and who eloquently captures the essence of this dangrous, inspiring moment.

My best wishes to the Iranian people in their struggle for justice.

Iran’s Fair Election?

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Despite the way it’s being played in the American media, it’s possible that the Iranian presidential election wasn’t stolen or rigged after all. I was always doubtful that the theatrical scenes of hope and change we were seeing in the major cities in the days leading up to the election, featuring youths and women in face paint and green clothing, would be validated by the rural poor whom Ahmadinejad has cultivated since the beginning of his presidency. Iran has an enormous population that lives outside the major cities and beyond the reach of Western media. These people don’t Twitter or go on Facebook, and their values can be very different from the urban, educated, often pro-Western middle class.

I’ve now found anecdotal evidence to back up this idea. Blogger south/south spoke with her Iranian grandmother, herself no Ahmadinejad supporter, around 48 hours after the election, and posted their conversation. The grandmother explains that the televised debates leading up to the election turned people against Ahmadinejad’s chief opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, rather than toward him as the Western media have assumed. Mousavi’s connection to former president Ali Akbar Rafsanjani also didn’t help, because Rafsanjani is widely seen as a “shark,” a manipulator and profiteer. Finally, Ahmadinejad spent his last term cultivating the image of a humble, down-to-earth person who raises his own food. He won in a landslide among the rural poor because he made a show of addressing their concerns. The other campaigns were focused in the cities, but as the grandmother put it:

    What about the provinces? We don’t have too few of them. Ahmadinejad went to the provinces and reached out to the poor. People there still worry about buttering their bread. He went to every single one….
    Iran is not Tehran, Tehran isn’t even the size of the eye of the needle. Every single countryside, province, Ahmadinejad had them…. He worked for four years holding babies and making visits to the countrside. You could have predicted these results.

So in watching coverage of this election and the protests taking place now, it may be helpful to question the assumptions of the Western media from which we get most of our information. While there are surely millions of Iranians who yearn for European-style progressive democracy, there are many millions more for whom “buttering their bread” is the first concern. And for those people, whether we like it or not, Ahmadinejad is their man.

My thanks to neufneuf and homeyra for the grandmother link. Also from neufneuf, in a similar vein, is this article by former NSC staffers Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett entitled, “Ahmadinejad Won, Get Over It.”

No More of This

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No more lounging around the house in a leisurely way for me! Today I hit the road, first to visit friends in New York, then on to Paris, and finally Morocco before the end of the month. Watch this space as eatbees blog “goes live” from Morocco and around the world!

Also, best wishes to the Iranian people on today’s presidential election. The current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is running again, but there is talk that major change is coming. For one thing, women and young people are participating in unpredecented numbers. Go here for an slideshow of the colorful rallies that have taken place in recent weeks, and here for live updates from the ground in Tehran.

Citizen of the Blogosphere

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I was interviewed last spring by blogger Reb (Rebecca Robinson) for her graduate school project, which looks at political Islam and its relation to the Moroccan blogosphere. We talked for quite a while, and she is beginning to post excerpts of the interview on her blog. The first excerpt argues that because Islam encourages free thought and individual responsibility, it is compatible with democracy. I’ve written about this before here, and less directly, here and here. Here is the quote Reb pulled from our interview.

    The Qur’an emphasizes an individual’s personal responsibility for his actions. The idea is that God gave us the Qur’an as a complete understanding—well, it’s not a complete understanding, but it’s all that human beings would need to understand about God…so we are required to interpret it for ourselves…because another thing that the Qur’an emphasizes is that no one is going to stand in for us on Judgment Day. We are each going to face God alone based on our own actions. It’s like the Christian idea that all people are created equal in the eyes of God—this is the basis for the democratic system. So I don’t see any contradiction between Islamic ideas and democracy or the responsibilities of individuals within a democratic system to define right and wrong. I don’t think the imam can do it for us, and I don’t think the Qur’an has answers to every possible situation…. It’s sort of like when Christians ask “What would Jesus do?” They use that analogy, but Jesus didn’t do everything possible. He did some things, so they say, “What would he do in this other situation that we don’t have any record of him being in, based on the situations that we do know about?” It’s the same thing. The Qur’an doesn’t give instructions for every possible situation. We have to be our own judges. I think this is consistent with a democracy. I think the religious influence from the mosque about specific customs and festivals…that’s a private affair that is separate from the running of the state. When you get to the bottom of the state, each individual has his conscience based on his moral system just like a Christian, a Jew, or even a pagan would.

If you are a Moroccan blogger (or blog about Morocco) and would like to participate in Reb’s project, feel free to contact her by e-mail. You can also find more information about her project in this interview she did with Jillian York of Global Voices.

Oh, and I got an award! The real honor isn’t the award itself, but that it was offered to me by the always discerning Homeyra, who blogs about culture and politics from Tehran. Don’t miss this chance to get to know Homeyra and the other folks she considers Kick Ass Bloggers. (There are five of us.) Trust me, Homeyra’s friends should be yours as well.

I’m supposed to pass this award on, so I will tag Hicham, Reda, Mounir, Bouba and Ayoub. All of these bloggers have inspired me repeatedly with their thought-provoking posts. If some of them have been sleeping lately, it’s not my fault! And here’s the obligatory link to the originator of the Kick Ass meme.

Hillary: Three Shameful Quotes

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I didn’t have to choose between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton until May 6, because my state of North Carolina was one of the last to hold a primary this year. After hesitating for a long time, because of doubts as to who would do more to transform America after the Bush years—Obama has good intentions, but that isn’t enough—I finally went with Obama, based on my respect for him after seeing how he handled the controversies that have dogged his campaign in recent weeks.

I still felt bad for Hillary because of her fighting spirit, and because I had no doubt that she would make an excellent president. However, rather than dying with dignity, her campaign has been acting ever more mean-spirited and bizarre. Hillary herself has said a number of things over the last two weeks that truly scare me, forcing me to question her thinking and reconsider the respect for her that I once had.

I have in mind three quotes in particlular. The first was in response to a question about how she would respond if Iran were to launch a nuclear attack on Israel. Rather than challenging the question as absurd, speculative, or warmongering, she said this.

    I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran. … Whatever stage of development they might be in their nuclear weapons program, in the next ten years during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.

Next, after proposing a summer “gas tax holiday” that economists of all political stripes have criticized as useless or counterproductive, she was asked to name a single expert who supports her plan. She responded by attacking the very idea that experts have a role in shaping policy.

    I’m not going to put my lot in with economists. … We’ve been, for the last seven years, seeing a tremendous amount of government power and elite opinion basically behind policies that haven’t worked well for the middle class and hard-working Americans.

Finally, while making the argument that she could do better than Obama against John McCain in November, because Obama supposedly has failed to win the confidence of white working-class voters, she said this.

    Senator Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and…whites in both states [Indiana and North Carolina] who had not completed college were supporting me. There’s a pattern emerging here.

In other words, in a desperate, last-ditch attempt to win her party’s nomination, Hillary is painting herself as more warlike towards Iran and less interested in listening to experts than even George W. Bush. On top of that, she has indulged in racial chauvinism, joining the terms “hard-working Americans” and “white Americans” in a way that makes it sound like non-white Americans don’t like to work.

There is no doubt in my mind, I voted the right way. Barack Obama has run the nobler campaign, the campaign that will bring the biggest change from the Bush years, and on top of that, the winning campaign. I’m just waiting for Hillary to leave the stage so we can move on to the national debate we need to have before starting a new era in 2009.