Surprise. Max Boot at Commentary wants Israel to bomb Iran now. So does John Bolton, speaking from the fever ward, the Washington Post op-ed page. The former ambassador says the Tehran revolt has upped the urgency for regime change.
Significantly, the uprising in Iran also makes it more likely that an effective
public diplomacy campaign could be waged in the country to explain to Iranians
that such an attack is directed against the regime, not against the Iranian
people. This was always true, but it has become even more important to make this
case emphatically, when the gulf between the Islamic revolution of 1979 and the
citizens of Iran has never been clearer or wider. Military action against Iran's
nuclear program and the ultimate goal of regime change can be worked together
consistently.
I spoke to Antony Loewenstein today, who says that the Bolton piece lends credibility to the theory that the U.S. had some (even mild) involvement with the Tehran spring. If you look at all the color revolutions and "democratic" insurgencies in Europe and Asia, from Ukraine to Belarus to Moldova to Georgia, he says, there has been a U.S. role. Why and to what end? Mohammad of Vancouver suggested as much in a post on this site a few weeks back. Huh.
Bombing/Invading countries with unpopular governments has worked so well in the past. For example, in 1812 the US invaded the British colonies of Canada. It seemed like a sure thing – what with the nasty way the colony was run by the British. People in Canada had far more in common with their US neighbours than with the British – an ocean away.
http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Invasion-Cana... So the US managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by invading a colony where the mother country was mistreating its subjects when all it had to do was nothing at all. If most of Ontario was part of the US, there would be no Transcanada railroad and British Columbia would have joined the US as well. Probably piecemeal – all of Canada would have ended up as part of the United States. So anyone want to place bets on US soldiers being showered with rose petals in a liberated Terran?
this is a no brainer, some dots you may want to connect. btw, moon of alabam is closing up. massive bummer. b wrote some excellent iran election posts all found on this thread
RE: "…speaking from the fever ward, the Washington Post op-ed page." MY COMMENT: LOL Good one, Phil!
John bolton,go ahead make my day.The Iraqis missed their chance at glory.
Loewenstein's logic is at best unclear, at worst imaginary. That neocons take advantage where than can find it to try to promote their discredited policies is not surprising. To say that this somehow "lends credibility to the theory that the U.S. had some (even mild) involvement with the Tehran spring" is a non sequitur. Nor is this quite the same as the argument that Mohammed of Vancouver made, which was not that the US had "some involvement" but that essentially the whole thing was US-driven.
On the money, Craig. I wish Phil and people would actually learn Persian the way we've spent years learning English and French and Arabic so that they could actually try to dig deeper into Iran's situation, and stop spreading this sort of echo chamber innuendo. What on earth could the US have done, practically, to either "drive" or "be midly involved" in this uprising? Did the US force Khamenei to put essentially the entire leadership of every major reformist party in jail, almost a week *before* the Leader had declared the protests to be illegal? Maybe the CIA sniped Neda as some have brilliantly suggested, but did the US manage to buy out virtually every remaining, non-jailed opposition leader into declaring the elections illegitimate? Because anyone who can read Persian and knows anything about Iran knows that the groups and people that have united in their opposition to the Supreme Leader at this moment are from a united front — they have and have had huge differences in the past. Does everything have to be a CIA plot? Really? Phil Weiss needs to read My Uncle Napoleon. It is a great masterpiece of Iranian literature, and mocks this sort of mentality that attributes near magical power to the conspiratorial forces of evil. If that's the case, why do we even bother at all? Pop your soma and let all the Palestinians and Iranians be jackbooted into submission, right?
So what did the CIA do with the $400 million that shrub gave them two years ago specifically to distabelize Iran.?hm,they migth've used to to overthrow Hamas or Chavez or zelaya or the islamic courts in somalia.The money was spent in and on Iran ….
I know exactly what was done with that money. It was given to terrorist groups like Jundallah, separatist ethnic or religious based terrorist/resistance groups. Probably some to the MEK also. None of these groups have had significant success against the regime in the past few years, nor in the current uprisings, though they have tried. (These events have not been widely reported in non-Persian press, but every savvy Iranian has followed the numerous bombings and other activities being carried out in provincial areas for years now.) The money certainly was not given to any of the major reformist groups (Mosharekat, Sazman-e Mojahedin-e Enqelab (not to be confused with the MEK), Rowhaniyun-e Mobarez, and Etemad-e Melli) The paper trails those legitimate groups have would make it inevitable that such funding would come out into the open, fairly soon and fairly obviously. And none of those groups have been or are radical enough in their ideologies that the Bush administration would have supported them as "resistance" groups.
This was a reply to Dagon above.
More flawed logic from the paranoid left. Simply the fact that AN's power garb lends credibility to the neo-fascists in the America doesn't mean the neo-fascists did it. It's like saying 9-11 helped bush, so bush did it. *exactly* the same. As someone who knows Iran well, let me assure you, the neo-conservatives didn't carry out the massive electoral fraud. They didn't attack student dormitories, killing 12 students. They didn't shoot protesters in the street. They didn't convert the main religious shia "maraje" (sources of emulation) in Iran to the side of Mousavi. It was the militaristic-fascist coup of the Sepah and AN which did all that. Give credit where it's due.
It's only a no-brainer if you have no brain. I'd suggest a bit of background reading. read my post below. If you'd like to learn a bit of Iran, leave an email address and I'll send you some books.
They gave it to seperatists, insurgents, terrorists, the MEK and the pahlavists. All of which strenghtened AN's status in Iran. (there was a bombing in a shia mosque the day of the election, sponsored by the US). Despite all of the US support for groups which essentially strengthened AN's hand, Iranians still voted for Mousavi in the millions. Votes which were apparently not counted.
And significantly, the votes for Ahmadinejad probably weren't counted either. That's the problem with the myriad irregularities that have come out about this election, and the fact that it coincided with such an unprecedented government crackdown on every major political party in Iran that didn't support AN. Whereas Iranian state media, Ahmadinejad, and Khamenei have been referring to the by and large peaceful protestors as "garbage," "terrorists," "foreign agents," Mousavi has been very clear in pointing out that he understands AN had millions of supporters too, and that he has no enmity against them, and ran for election in a system where he believed the President's role was to represent *all* Iranians. Mousavi gave a speech last week to several dozen univ. professors (who were subsequently arrested, then released). This speech is on youtube but has not been translated. There is a humorous anecdote towards the end, which I think provides some insight into Mousavi's character, which I think should be interesting and relevant to this point: He mentioned that during the campaign, he was driving to a campaign event in a town (not Tehran), when a group of AN supporters recognized him and pulled up to him in a car. They unfurled AN flags and paraphernalia and chanted, "Azadi-ye andishe ba chiz o chiz o chiz nemishe." This literally means "Freedom of expression won't be achieved through 'um' 'um' 'um'." This is a parody of a reformist student slogan that has been popular for at least a decade, and in this case, was meant to mock the fact that Mousavi had a bad "um" habit during one of his debates with AN. Mousavi was laughing as he told this story last week, and explained that after the AN supporters said this, he joked a little with them, and at no time did he feel any real enmity towards him or feel offended by them. There was a sense of healthy electoral rivalry that the government's actions during the election and afterward proceeded to destroy. When one compares Mousavi's remarks to the hateful and ridiculous confessions being shown on IRI Broadcasting, one realizes why so many people have hopes that this man can yet succeed in bringing some real change to Iranian civil and political life. If has nothing to do with any pro-Western or pro-American sentiments. Iran will never back to being a US client state, no matter who its president is.
What on earth could the US have done, practically, to either "drive" or "be midly involved" in this uprising? The same things they did to "drive or be mildy involved in" the overthrow of Mossadegh. No one denies that there are real grievances underlying most of those protests. It is those very real grievances that can be easily manipulated simply by buying off a particular leader who polls suggested had no chance of winning the election and getting him to scream "election fraud!" without offering any concrete evidence of same and then suggest his followers should take to the streets in protest. All the CIA had to do was exploit the fissures that were already there and drive them wider, hopefully to foment a civil war at best or, at worst, to delegitimize the Iranian government and create a case for US intervention. That's basically what they did in every other color revolution, so why not Iran as well? Now this conjecture doesn't prove CIA involvement or that Mousavi was paid off obviously, but only how easy it might have been for the CIA to manipulate this situation. This could just as easily been a strictly Iranian affair with Mousavi playing through these same motions but without US puppet strings attached. But you have to ask yourself why, at a time when Iran faces attacks and even invasion from the US, would any patriotic Iranian leader risk dividing the country by urging his followers into the streets in protesting "election fraud" rather than simply presenting his evidence of election fraud first, seeing what the top leadership does, and taking it from there. Why did he do something this irresponsible? No matter how this plays out, Iran's government has been delegitimized, he has opened a severe rift among the Iranian people, and he has created a casus belli for a US invasion in support of "democracy" that the neocons and the Western propaganda networks have been only too happy to exploit, including with endless coverage of Neda's murder under highly questionable circumstances.
RE:But you have to ask yourself why, at a time when Iran faces attacks and even invasion from the US, would any patriotic Iranian leader risk dividing the country by urging his followers into the streets in protesting “election fraud” rather than simply presenting his evidence of election fraud first, seeing what the top leadership does, and taking it from there. Why did he do something this irresponsible?
This would be ‘Columbo’s’ first question!
I read that the american intel.and diplomats were advising the hondouran military and opposition leaders on what and how to deal with Zelaya.Paranoia is to beleive in the purity of your actions while dismissing Usa manipulation.Why some parties are adamant at discounting americas role in IRAN ?OH,the US says so.
US "involvement" in Iran's elections is a conclusion desparately looking for evidence. In other words, nearly entirely a prejudice.
In other words, nearly entirely a prejudice. it is if you do all you can to ignore the elephant in the roon, namely the $400 million Bush allopcated to supporting oppositon groups, not to mention, support for terrorist groups like the MEK and the Jundullah (Kaleid Sheik Mohammed's old gang) as they set off bopmbs in Tehran.
THIS is the elephant in the room. THIS is the story of Iran. They are desparate to provoke a confrontation with the west to preserve their dominance. They are dangerous. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/04/world/middleeas... Iran Cleric Says British Embassy Staff to Stand Trial Article Tools Sponsored By By ALAN COWELL and STEPHEN CASTLE Published: July 3, 2009 PARIS — Brushing aside British and European efforts to seek the release of local British Embassy staff members held in Tehran, the Iranian authorities indicated Friday that they planned to put some of them on trial — a move that could deepen a crisis in diplomatic relations with the European Union and provoke the withdrawal of ambassadors.
"I know exactly what was done with that money. It was given to terrorist groups like Jundallah, separatist ethnic or religious based terrorist/resistance groups. Probably some to the MEK also."–Arash Now why would the U.S. government throw our hard earned tax money away to these terrorist organizations Arash? Unless they wanted them to infiltrate the major reformist groups in Iran and than commit covert acts of terrorism to stir up the pot in Iran….
So who killed the 8 Basij members, which has barely goteen any mention in the Western media, with guns A.S.?
Mousavi claiming the Iranian elections were a fraud lacked real evidence yet the Western media jumped right on it, therefore based on your logic Richard, I conclude this allegation that the Western media jumped on was based a U.S. prejudice against the present government of Iran more than anything else….
So after what just unfolded in Iran, in which the British and West were clearly supporting through our media and beyond, you think that because the Iranian government wants to put some British embassy employees on trial, that they suspect had helped to foment the unrest on the streets where twenty Iranians(including 8 Basij by gunfire) were killed, not to mention the British government has a history of helping to overthrow one of their governments in 1953, means that they are dangerously desperate to provoke a confrontation with the west? I would say based on all of the evidence (including the 400 million covert operations funds) that the West has desperately been trying to provoke a confrontation with Iran, and NOT vice versa as you just claimed Richard….
Your refusal to open your eyes to the evidence of election fraud does not mean the evidence does not exist. It just means you're being intentionally obtuse.
Sean, it's nothing like the Mossadeq affair. Because back then you had a pro-Mossadeq front fall apart essentially in days because of US black ops and money given to people like Ayatollah Kashani, who suddenly switched sides and splintered the front. That, and back then, there were social phenomena like Shaban Jafari's lutis which could be counted on to provide armed manpower for any riot, which is a phenomena that just does not exist in Iran anymore. The problem now is, it's not just "a particular leader" or two that are screaming election fraud. It is every single reformist or moderate leader that has every been relevant in Iranian politicss. Many of these people had been in jail during the Shah, participated in the 1979 revolution personally — they don't have warm feelings about the U.S. Is it possible that one, or maybe even two of them, got a call from someone in the U.S. saying God knows what? Maybe, but not every single one of them. Mousavi actually was complaining about electoral irregularities on the day of the vote — it was not widely reported in American press — but there was already ample evidence of government wrongdoing. And this, coupled with an attack on Mousavi's campaign HQ, the highly irregular early release of voting returns, and a (repeatedly confirmed) phone call from the Ministry to Mousavi's staff telling them that early returns suggested a Mousavi victory — was more than enough evidence for Mousavi to call the thing into question. And knowing the IRI system, he had to do it early, before the inevitable crackdown. The funny thing is, my father — who is a scholar who knows Iran politics better than anyone I know — has been convinced for years that only one person in Iran is on the CIA payroll: Ali Khamenei. Because his actions, since 1980, have served US interests in keeping Iran, simultaneously, an externally threatening but internally weak regional bogeyman. Of course I disagree with this, I think Khamenei has plenty of his own personal reason for being stupid, but it's a perspective some of you should consider.
What evidence Craig? So you consider what has been presented thus far to be evidence?
I tend to agree with Marion; there's that 400 million, US history of such antics, and Britain's, and that immense amount of MSM coverage–we bombed Iraq to stop WMD, err–to help the Iraq people yearning for freedom from tyranny–and now we have the yearning of the Iranian people to be freed from their tyranny regime plastered all over TVs–did we have that in 2005 when Egypt clamped down on its yearners?
And the 500,000 in the streets for a week? It is scapegoating. If Iran distrusted diplomats, they would be expelled, and that would be a big enough diplomatic fiasco for them. To arrest diplomats is a VERY bad precedent for them to undertake. It is an invitation to escalation. If you think that is rationalizable as "just", then you live in a very different world.
To arrest them, force them to declare confessions publicly. I know you like to talk about international law. Look that one up.
The twerpo-fascist (Max Boot) and his shaggy dog (John Bolton) speak. They just love to send in the troops to slaughter Muslims. I know that Samantha Power is an intellectual slut, but it was more than I ever expected to see her going gaga over the twerp at Harvard: Killing Muslims Under Humanitarian Cover.
Every once in a while? I thought that from the jump. Iran, whose government we demolished in 1953? Iran, against whom we fought a proxy war via Iraq for much of the 80′s? I have no doubt that the CIA did whatever they could to encourage and supply the protests.