Operation Iranian Freedom?
Same director, similar script. We’re beginning to think
we’ve seen this movie before …
The same guys who convinced Americans to buy a broken camel from con man Chalabi are now trying to persuade them to purchase a used rug from Pahlavi. The heir to the Peacock Throne has been schmoozing around in Washington with the members of such outlets as the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (surprised to learn that Richard Perle, James Woolsey, and Michael Ledeen are on its board of directors?), the Hudson Institute, AEI, and, well, you can guess the rest. The Persian Prince has also been the subject of admiring profiles in the American press, including the pro-war-but-now-having-second-thoughts New Republic, which noted that he has even “quietly met” with Israeli officials and complained that Pahlavi was getting a diplomatic cold shoulder from Colin Powell’s State Department.
But now that we are supposedly witnessing the coming of the democratic spring in the Middle East, one can expect that under Condoleezza Rice and her two assistants, Elizabeth Cheney (Middle East) and Karen Hughes (propaganda), warm thoughts will be emanating from Foggy Bottom in the direction of old “pro-democracy” outfits such as the Committee on the Present Danger and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies as well as new ones like the Coalition for Democracy in Iran (yes, Woolsey and Perle are listed as “individuals expressing support”) and the Alliance for Democracy in Iran, which sources quoted by the FT’s Dinmore describe as an “opposition umbrella group that would act as a ‘clearing house’ for US taxpayers’ money dedicated to advancing the cause of democracy.” According to Dinmore, the latter is headed by Bahman Batmanghelidj (known as “Batman”), a real-estate dealer in Virginia who filed for bankruptcy in 1996. Rational-choice theory would probably have something to say about why Chalabi, “Batman,” and other failed Middle Eastern businessmen seem to gravitate towards U.S.-financed regime-change campaigns.
“To the Iranian people, I say tonight: As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you,” Bush declared in his State of the Union address, a commitment reiterated by Rice during her recent European trip where she astonished a group of French policy analysts when she characterized the Iranian state as “totalitarian.” Cheney expressed on “Imus in the Morning” his concern with Iran’s “fairly robust nuclear program” and threatened to unleash Israeli military power against it. Bush similarly expressed his sympathy with Israel’s concerns over Iran’s nuclear threat, leading Israeli columnist Uri Avnery to complain, “it is not very flattering to be paraded like a Rottweiler on a leash, whose master threatens to let him loose on his enemies.”
As occurred in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq, Bush, Cheney, Rice, and the neocon-backed nexus of propaganda outlets and exile groups have been promoting a campaign that utilizes a mix of truths, half-truths, gossip, and innuendo. The aim: proving to the world that Iran is pursuing an ambitious nuclear-weapons program that violates international arms-control accords and poses a threat to American interests and that the Iranian people are ready to welcome American liberators with flowers and candies. Unconfirmed “evidence” attributed to unnamed intelligence sources and exile groups is being circulated in the press together with reports about U.S. and Israeli plans to target the country’s nuclear sites. At the same time, U.S. officials insist that an attack on Iran is “not on the agenda at this point” and the European Union triumvirate (EU3) is being encouraged by Washington to negotiate an agreement with Tehran that would offer it incentives to … to do exactly what? To give up its nuclear military program? That is the spin that Bush has produced, but in reality what Washington is demanding is that Iran give up its ability to make nuclear material by enriching uranium to produce electric power—an activity that the current nuclear-arms regime permits Iran to pursue. Moreover, neither the CIA nor the International Atomic Energy Agency has come up with clear evidence that Iran has a secret project to build a nuclear bomb.
Former arms inspector David Kay, who admitted that “we were almost all wrong” about Iraq’s WMD activities, has concluded that the Bush administration’s actions on Iran have “an eerie similarity to the events preceding the Iraq war.” And why not do a rerun? That strategy worked when it came to softening America for war and proved politically cost-effective for its architects, if you just consider the Bush re-election and the rewards provided those who warned of WMD, Saddam-Osama links, and bungled the post-war occupation: Presidential Medals of Freedom, State Department, World Bank, UN ambassadorship.
Consider another “eerie similarity” between the conventional wisdom on the prospects of confrontation with Iran and the run-up to the Iraq War. Then we were led to believe that there was a heated debate inside the administration, that President Bush hadn’t made a definite decision to use military force, that the United States and the Europeans would use diplomatic power to press Baghdad, and that the UN and its inspectors would resolve the crisis. We now realize that these optimistic assessments were a product of disinformation by a White House that was intent on ousting Saddam Hussein through military power. So when leading American foreign-policy and military analysts—with the exception of The New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh—conclude that an overstretched United States cannot afford another war in the Middle East, that foreign-policy establishment types are opposed to the idea, that Bush has decided to work together with the Europeans to deal with Iran, that the Bushies know that they would be totally isolated and couldn’t count even on British support if they decide to attack Iran, employ a healthy sense of skepticism.
If anything, the neocons are more entrenched in the power centers while the realists have been cleansed from the CIA and other government agencies. A bipartisan War Party is in control of Congress, and the media has been toeing its line. And forget also the notion of growing Euro-American co-operation. A friend of mine who works in the administration (I don’t have many of those) told me that the president returned from his trip to Europe steamed at the French and Germans for refusing to provide assistance in Iraq and has told his aides that notwithstanding the kiss-and-make-up photo ops, he is going to do it his way in the Middle East—including Iran. “Bush is not worried about the EU3 engaging the Iranians since he is counting on the Iranians to repeat the Saddam performance before the Iraq War, that they would reject compromises proposed by the Europeans and that the issue would then be brought before the Security Council where the U.S. would demand sanctions against Iran,” he said. And we know how that movie ended …
Indeed, from the perspective of Bush and the neocons, the U.S. has been at war with Iran since 1979 and the time has come to settle the score in the same way that we did with Iraq, bringing an end to the war that started in 1991. They hope that a pro-American government in Iran would not only return that country to the U.S. orbit but would also have a moderating influence on the Shi’ite communities in Iraq and Lebanon and help strengthen the foundations of Pax Americana in the Middle East.
The problem that the warriors in Washington could be facing is that the Iranian leaders are not as stupid as Saddam. Former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who will probably run for president in the coming election in June, is a cunning pistachio merchant who could outsmart the Americans and reach an accord with the Europeans, making it likely that I’ll continue to encounter Reza Pahlavi at Safeway. But don’t bet your Persian rug on that.
amconmag.com |
