Brilliant piece by Roger Cohen in today's Times saying, Goddamnit, the Iranians are a lot like us, let's start talking to them. In a word: heretical. A few comments ahead of the excerpt, then more comment below. First, Cohen's view of the pragmatism and democracy of Iran bears out the wonderful piece Mohammad of Vancouver, who is from Iran, wrote on this site a month ago. Also: note the full embrace of Chas Freeman! Finally, note that Cohen is being a broken record on Iran. And this is vital; this is what a columnist should be when he is on to something, repeat himself till all hear him. Cohen [emphases mine]:
While Bernard Lewis, in a recent article in Foreign Affairs, posits
an epochal clash between “Islamic theocracy and liberal democracy”
whose outcome will be decisive, I don’t see any victor in this fight.
Rather, a variety of compromises between the two forces will emerge, as
in Iran.
relations with the most dynamic society in the region. What autocrats
from the Gulf to Cairo fear most is an Iranian-American breakthrough,
precisely because it would shake up every cozy, static regional
relationship, including Washington’s with Israel…
I think pragmatism lies at the core of the revolution’s survival. It
led to cooperation with Israel in cold-war days; it ended the Iraq war;
it averted an invasion of Afghanistan in 1998 after Iranian diplomats
were murdered; it brought post-9/11 cooperation with America on
Afghanistan; it explains the ebb and flow of liberalization since 1979;
and it makes sense of the Jewish presence.
Pragmatism is also one
way of looking at Iran’s nuclear program. A state facing a
nuclear-armed Israel and Pakistan, American invasions in neighboring
Iraq and Afghanistan, and noting North Korea’s immunity from assault,
might reasonably conclude that preserving the revolution requires
nuclear resolve.
What’s required is American pragmatism in
return, one that convinces the mullahs that their survival is served by
stopping short of a bomb.
Obama to jump over his own bonfire of indignation as the Mideast taboos
that just caused the scandalous disqualification of Charles Freeman for a senior intelligence post are shed in the name of a new season of engagement and reason.
OK. Why is Cohen heretical? Two reasons. One idealistic, one ambitious. I believe he was deeply moved by Gaza, which shamed him as a Jew, to look again at What Israel has become. He has recognized that Israel's militarism is a huge threat to its neighbors, and this is a theme; it has been since Egypt went nuts in the 60s cause Israel was acquiring nuclear weapons. So Cohen is now using his fine mind in the service of exploring these truths that our national security depends upon. That's the idealism. Ambitious reason. Cohen understands (as Glenn Greenwald and I do too) that These ideas are being mainstreamed. It's taking a while, but Realism with a Human-rights soul is coming in. He wants to be in the van, and write the bestseller that will change Jewish public opinion. It's a big job. Someone's gonna do it. Is Cohen too early? Has he spent his journalistic capital on a stock that won't surge for another five years? I don't think so.
Again, your description touches a portion of the gist. Also in the article:
"Exile, expropriation and, in some cases, executions have left bitter feelings among the revolution’s Jewish victims, as they have among the more than two million Muslims who have fled Iran since 1979. Abraham Berookhim gave me a moving account of his escape and his Jewish uncle’s unconscionable 1980 murder by the regime.
Earlier, Sam Kermanian, a leader of the Iranian Jewish community, said I had been used, that Iran’s Jews are far worse off than they appear, and that my portrayal of them was pernicious as it “leads people to believe Israel’s enemies are not as real as you may think.” He called the mullahs brilliantly manipulative: “They know their abilities and limitations.”
On at least this last point I agree. Just how repressive life is for Iran’s Jews is impossible to know. Iran is an un-free society. "
So, compared to the straw dog of mass media (a generalization) presentation of Iran as universally anti-semitic murderers, the truth is not that.
But, the truth is NOT that Iran is a vibrant democracy with good relations to its neighbors, and a genuinely open hand to US, Europe and Israel.
It IS in the process of developing nuclear capability, developing missile capability, funding, arming, compelling terror applications of "dissent" on a foreign UN recognized country's borders.
The truth is enough.
2 countries that have nuclear weapons want to bully the other one that doesn't… what does that say about those 2 countries???
I would like to add something I already used in a longer reply to Richard Witty, since I am prepared he won't look back:
Is Admiral Blair next?
From Richard's perspective Pat Lang, a supporter of Freeman and somebody who considers him able and fit for the job, is probably suspect too. Is Rohen Cohen now?
Roger Cohen took that difficult step of going back and analyzing why he made the mistake of supporting the Iraq War. This past week on C-Span Doug Feith, Andy Card, Ari Fleischer and others formed a panel to discuss 9-11, the environment they were in, and the drive to war.
What was most interesting to me in the Cohen article was the realization that the anthrax scare put him over the top, after 9-11. And, that at the time, the media push was that it was a terrorist act somehow linked to 9-11 and "those people" meaning those who were out to get us – terrorists, probably Muslim, probably Arabs.
How so many in America made that leap, just as Cohen did, remains one of the puzzling aspects of that time period.
How did Anthrax get tied up with the push to war with Iraq?
I appreciate where Mr. Cohen is searching.
@ cherylb:
From 'Who Planned the Anthrax Attacks?'
link to antiwar.com
/>
–
"The anthrax letters that arrived at major media outlets as well as the Senate offices of two prominent Democrats certainly added a special fillip of fear to the war hysteria that ensued in the wake of 9/11: the senders definitely had an agenda, and there seems little doubt as to what they aimed at: to prepare the nation for war, for some kind of massive retaliation against the Arab world. That was the agenda, and it largely succeeded – but whose agenda was it? Hatfill's exoneration raises the question: if he didn't mail the anthrax letters, then who did?
"The answer is not really a mystery, since all the facts are on the public record, but I'll reiterate them here in case you aren't familiar with my past writings on this fascinating subject.
"Just before the anthrax letters became public knowledge but after they'd been mailed, military police headquarters at Quantico, Virginia, received a letter that accused an Arab scientist who once worked at the USAMRID facility, a biowarfare lab at Ft. Detrick, of being a terrorist about to unleash biological warfare against civilian targets in the U.S…
"The ideological flavor of the Camel Club's jibes isn't too hard to fathom: they sound just like the participants in the hate-fest over at Little Green Footballs, or, come to think of it, the editorial board of the Weekly Standard. The anthrax-laden letters read "Death to America" and "Death to Israel," and invoked the name of Allah. Clearly this wasn't just an attempt to set up a particular Arab, Dr. Assaad, but to finger all Arab-Americans, and Muslims, as potential terrorists – weeks after bin Laden and his boys downed the World Trade Center and took out the Pentagon.
"The trail that leads us to the perpetrators of the anthrax letter terrorist attacks ends at Ft. Detrick, where the "Camel Club" held court. Check out this Courant story that details the incredible laxity of the security controls in place at one of the U.S. government's most sensitive military facilities – and then imagine how easy it was for the terrorists to have smuggled out anthrax and other even more lethal toxins.
"Doesn't any of this merit investigation by our "law enforcement' agencies – or are they too busy reading ordinary people's email and spying on antiwar organizations to bother going after a gang of dangerous poisoners and murderers?
–
So it seems, Cheryl, that the anthrax letters originated in a Ft. Detrick ideological cell that wanted Americans to beleive that the same people who wanted "death to Israel" now also wanted "death to America."
One of the members of that cell was Bruce Ivins, a Judeophile Zionist who was once quoted as saying: "By blood and faith, Jews are God's chosen, and have no need for 'dialogue' with any gentile."
Yet more evidence that in addition to the Middle East, the psychotic Zionists are waging an ideological war for control of America, as well. And using terrorist tactics to accomplish it here, too.
@ Witty
So, compared to the straw dog of mass media's (a generalization) presentation of Israel and AIPAC as universally democratic and with interests identical to the USA as the truth is not that.
But, the truth is NOT that Israel is a vibrant democracy with good relations to its neighbors, and a genuinely open hand to US, Europe and other nations.
It IS in the secretly developed nuclear capability, always increasing development of missile capability, funding (with free money given to it annually by the USA for free & without strings attached), arming, compelling terror applications of "dissent" on the natives of former Mandate Palestine that the UN recognizes as rogue state activities, activities that require the UN to question its authorization of the creation of the state in the first place
The truth is enough.
Of course Israel does not have good relations with its neighbors. Most of the harbor genocidal palestinians.
but Israel is a vibrant democracy.
Yes, the truth is enough. But it's not enough for dickie and the rest of Phil's phools.
Yeah, they love Israel. The Israelis blend.