Obama Continues to Bully Iran

Never Taking Yes for an Answer

No policy of the Obama administration better illustrates its fundamental mendacity than its policy of bullying Iran. In this the administration is Bush/Cheney Regime, Part II. The Post-9/11 Geopolitical Power Grab, Continued. The March of Folly: the sequel.

Obama, in his very first press conference following the election, was asked his response to Iranian leader Ahmadinejad’s congratulatory letter. He replied, changing the subject: “Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon, I believe, is unacceptable. And we have to mount an international effort to prevent that from happening.” It was a clear signal to the outgoing administration and its neocon masters of the Big Lie that he would persevere in their crusade to topple the Tehran government, using the convenient ploy of nuclear fear-mongering.

“Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon…is unacceptable.” That assumes that Iran is trying to get one. This rootless assumption was relentlessly promoted by the disinformation specialists nested in the Office of the Vice President throughout the Bush administration. The same ones who insisted that al-Qaeda had an intimate relationship with Saddam Hussein, that Iraq was procuring uranium from Niger, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, etc. (Outrageous lies Obama has never wanted to investigate, urging us all to just “move on” and thus forgive the prevaricators and ignore all the blood on their hands.)

Bush’s State Department had initially responded positively to Iranian overtures for rapprochement, including the remarkable 2003 offer most Americans have probably never heard about. That initiative, conveyed to the U.S. through the Swiss ambassador to the country, entailed talks designed to reopen diplomatic and trade ties, commit Iran to a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine, end Iranian support for Hamas and Hizbollah, and alleviate U.S. concerns about Iran’s nuclear program. Flynt Leverett, then a senior director on the National Security Council staff , has called it “a serious effort, a respectable effort to lay out a comprehensive agenda for U.S.-Iranian rapprochement.” Secretary of State Colin Powell was receptive.

But Vice President Dick Cheney, countermanding Powell — whom he had used in 2002 to deliver the false testimony about Iraq to the UN — rejected it out of hand. He even berated the Swiss ambassador and warned him from ever again troubling the U.S. with such a bothersome communication. (Isn’t it odd, by the way, that during the Bush/Cheney years the Office of the Vice President, traditionally a rather ceremonial institution, acquired such power while maintaining such secrecy, defiantly refusing to divulge to appropriate authorities even the number of confidential documents in its bloated files?)

Cheney made it U.S. policy to insist that Iran had a nuclear weapons program. Chief talking point, crafted by Cheney’s super-secretive office: Iran has so much oil, thus no need for nuclear energy. The purpose for the program can only be military.

Cheney banked (successfully) on people’s ignorance of history. But the flaw of this line of reasoning has been well-exposed to any with eyes to see and ears to hear. The peaceful nuclear program was begun under the Shah when he was a reliable tool of the U.S. It was initiated under the U.S.’s “Atoms for Peace” program in the 1950s and encouraged by successive U.S. administrations into the 1970s. U.S. corporations such as General Electric were intimately involved in its development. The nuclear reactor that produces medical isotopes for treating cancer patients, at the center of the recent Brazil-Turkey-Iran uranium enrichment deal, was built by the U.S.

When the Shah was in power, there was no talk of Iran’s nuclear program having the sole and obvious purpose of producing nuclear weapons. Iran was and is a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It sought, as it now seeks, with Russian support, nuclear energy for electric power generation. Its supply of oil will likely run out within decades, and in any case, Iran seeks to sell its oil to generate capital for national development.

The charge has nothing to do with empirical reality. The entire U.S. intelligence community, 16 agencies including the CIA and military intelligence agencies, issued a “National Intelligence Estimate” in late 2007 (delayed a year due to Cheney’s obstruction) concluding “with high confidence” that “in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.” (The Russian foreign minister questioned whether there had ever been such a program, noting that Russian intelligence hadn’t concluded such. Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter also expressed doubts. It’s quite possible that the positing of a historical nuclear weapons program was inserted at Cheney’s insistance to validate in some measure his wild accusations.) Top intelligence officials continue to endorse this assessment, although under enormous pressure to “fix the facts around policy.” (That, by the way, is how British intelligence characterized the U.S. propaganda campaign against Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion.)

This isn’t about the rational assessment of reality but about fear-mongering, Goebbels style ( “…the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism…”) And it’s worked. A CNN poll in Febuary 2010 found that 71% of U.S. residents believe that Iran already has nuclear weapons. The professionals, the IAEA, say repeatedly there’s no evidence even for a military program. But the “Bomb Iran” faction in the U.S. ruling elite, cynically aware of how gullible people can be, has persuaded most of the American people that there’s not just a program but actual nukes!

A quarter of this malleable mass would back military action now, and “if economic and diplomatic efforts fail” (meaning: if Obama and the New York Times can convince them the U.S. has gone that last mile to defuse an unproven threat) 57% would support a U.S. attack. These figures should sicken anyone reading this. (On the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll found that 54% supported an invasion without UN authorization. Most had been brainwashed into thinking Iraq was somehow connected to 9-11.)

These bellicose people are not stupid, of course, merely misinformed and misled, victims of a culture of cowboy violence, The mainstream press has not emphasized the fact that the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has never found an iota of evidence for a military program. Instead it has embraced a program of demonization. Any new item of disinformation funnelled it by those hell-bent on vilifying Iran, from the preposterous allegation that the Iranian parliament was considering a bill to badge Jews, to the charge that Iran is backing the Taliban in Afghanistan, to the claim that Iran is harboring al-Qaeda, receives respectful treatment. Thus the barrage of accusations — even those immediately discredited — produce the desired effect on an impressional public. And the media has been deeply complicit in efforts to blur any distinction between Iran’s Shiite republicanism and radical Sunni dreams of a global emirate.

With Congress it is a somewhat different matter. The legislators aren’t so much producing lies as amicably humoring and abetting the liars. This means maintaining a comfortable distance from researched reality. In the fall of 2006 Jeff Stein of the Congressional Quarterly interviewed key legislators and intelligence officials involved with foreign policy, asking them if they knew the difference between a Shiite and a Sunni. His premise was that to develop a reasoned opinion about U.S. policy in Southwest Asia one had to know some basic facts about the region. Religious differences make certain alignments all but unthinkable. Iran almost went to war with the ferociously anti-Shiite Taliban in 1999. Al-Qaeda does not recognize Shiites as real Muslims and despises the Tehran regime with a passion.

The response of Representative Terry Everett, seven-term Alabama Republican, then vice chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence, was typical. “One’s in one location, another’s in another location,” he told Stein, chuckling. “No, to be honest with you, I don’t know. I thought it was differences in their religion, different families or something.” Representative Jo Ann Davis, a Virginia Republican heading a House intelligence subcommittee, ventured, “It’s a difference in their fundamental religious beliefs. The Sunni are more radical than the Shia. Or vice versa. But I think it’s the Sunnis who’re more radical than the Shia… Al Qaeda is the one that’s most radical, so I think they’re Sunni. I may be wrong, but I think that’s right.”

No hint of of embarrassment. Team players conflating disparate groups in order to attack them as “Evil” or “Terror” don’t need to do much homework, or ask their staffs to research such obscure questions. Indeed, such questions produce umbrage. FBI spokesman John Miller berated Stein for the “cheap shot” of “playing ‘Islamic Trivial Pursuit.’”

What a damning statement. The differences between Muslims are trivial? That’s like saying that differences between Roman Catholics and Protestants in modern Europe have been trivial. This is willful ignorance, the stubborn desire to avoid inconvenient truths such as the fact that Shiite-Sunni differences virtually preclude Iranian involvement in al-Qaeda terrorism. The fact is, the 9-11 attacks on the U.S. generated a wave of sympathy for the U.S. in Iran, and thousands demonstrated their solidarity with the American people, not al-Qaeda. Iran moreover provided intelligence to the U.S. as it undertook its invasion of Afghanistan.

Time and again Congress has passed resolutions, with near unanimity, calling for sterner actions against Iran. AIPAC, however scandal-tainted, can boast an endless record of success in shaping legislators’ actions against Iran. Not only does Iran definitely have a nuclear weapons program, argues this unregistered foreign lobby group, but once it has a weapon it will surely use it against Israel, to inflict a “nuclear holocaust”! This foisting of a Big Lie on the American people is one of AIPAC’s greatest recent triumphs as it campaigns for the U.S. to bomb Iran on nuclear Israel’s behalf.

The current plan is advocated by Dennis Ross, advisor to the president on Iran working out of the White House for the National Security Agency. He has been in the Obama inner circle since the campaign — Obama’s neocon. Ross, whom a Jewish colleague in the State Department involved in U.S.-brokered Israeli-Palestinian negotiations once matter-of-factly labelled “Israel’s lawyer,” says: “Everybody needs to worry about Iran.”   The plan involves imposing sanctions on Iran including an embargo on the export of gas to the country: an act of war designed to provoke a response justifying a massive assault destroying not just nuclear facilities but the entire government infrastructure.

Uncomfortable with U.S. plans, which are bound to further destabilize the region, Europe proposed a deal whereby Iran would send most of its low-enriched (3.5%) uranium to Russia, where the enrichment process for electricity producing purposes (20%) would be completed. Russia would then send the uranium to France for conversion into fuel rods before being sent back to Iran. This would alleviate any fears about Iranian enrichment plans prior to the activation of a nuclear reactor designed for medical research. The Iranians expressed interest, but also mistrust of the French, who had reneged on agreements with them in the past. The U.S., along with Britain and Germany, backed the European deal, if grudgingly, indeed demanded that Iran agree in order to stave off further sanctions. The UN backed it as well. The Iranians, however, declined to accept it last fall, citing specific concerns.

In the last week, following energetic diplomacy by Brazil and Turkey, both temporary members of the UN Security Council, it was announced that Iran would accept a version of the European plan. But Turkey, rather than Russia, would receive the low-enriched uranium. That’s (from the traditional State Department standpoint) secular Muslim Turkey, U.S. ally, NATO member, EU applicant. Friend of Israel as well as Iran. From the Iranian point of view, perhaps, an honest broker.

If Washington were sincere, there would have been champagne toasts last week in the White House. Finally, this problem’s resolved! But no! There were dour faces. “Too little, too late,” says one top official. “Given Iran’s repeated failure to live up to its own commitments, and the need to address fundamental issues related to Iran’s nuclear program,” says Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs, “we continue to have serious concerns.” Indeed, in worried anticipation of the Brazil-Turkey-Iran deal, the U.S. announced that the permanent Security Council members plus Germany had agreed on a new round of sanctions against Iran. Just saying this doesn’t make it so, and indeed the deal might quash the plot to bully the “international community” into backing Washington’s regime-change plot.

Washington is irked at both Brazil and Turkey for betraying the anti-Iran cause and even threatens to retaliate by opposing a permanent Brazilian seat on the Security Council and backing off on support for Turkey’s admission into the EU. Typical thuggery.

If Obama does diss the new agreement, the dishonesty of his Iran policy should be apparent to all. The real intention — the toppling of a third government in Muslim Southwest Asia, the better to establish long-term U.S. hegemony — ought to be plain. And the real character of the Obama administration, as yet another regime dependent on the manipulation of opinion via big lies and fear-mongering, ought also to become clear — even (hopefully, especially) in the minds of sometime supporters.

This is not the promised “change,” but more of the same. There is no “hope” here, but rather cause for deep foreboding. The same sort of foreboding, so soon validated, that many of us felt as of early 2003. But what to do? Calls to “your” Congressman/woman won’t do anything. Electing more people who pretend to be (sort of) anti-war won’t do jack-shit if their sense of political “realism” (and in Obama’s case, instinctive inclination towards “conciliation” with the most vicious proponants of ongoing aggression) causes them, upon taking office, to jump in bed with the military-industrial complex. And that is the norm, the default mode. The sincere anti-imperialist cannot survive long in Congress, any more than a freshwater fish in salt water.

Hope-spinner Obama’s capitulation to the liars shows that real change is hopeless under the status quo, that this system that never really triumphed after the collapse of “communism” in 1991 has just tread water, swimming into deepening crisis. Capitalism isn’t healthy. Capitalist imperialism isn’t healthy. U.S. imperialism specifically is in trouble, although Europe, whose share of the world economy now exceeds that of the U.S., is also in deep shit.

It would be so nice (think some) to buy some time for the teetering U.S. by conquering what the neocons call “the Greater Middle East.” But that means explaining the project to the people of this country. That gets really hard to do after Iran says “Yes” to what — up until last week — was a U.S.-backed offer.

Gary Leupp is a Professor of History at Tufts University, and author of numerous works on Japanese history. He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu. Read other articles by Gary.

12 comments on this article so far ...

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  1. MichaelKenny said on May 22nd, 2010 at 9:26am #

    The amusing part of all this is that there is now nothing that the US could do to Iran that would not benefit Iran and further damage the US. And any Israel intervention would make things even worse! Essentially, it’s yet another neocon screw-up. Once again they’ve painted themselves into a corner and ended up in a “lose-lose” situation. Look at the list of “trophies”: Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Georgia, Polish missiles, Latvia, Greece, Gaza and God knows what else. Indeed, a propos of the latter, I would even add the Pope to the list! They’re in total panic and lashing out wildly in all directions. Panic is a bad councillor and, not surprisingly, they shoot themselves in the foot at every turn. Europe, and the EU is indeed now the largest economy in the world, just wants to keep out of other people’s fights. That, of course, is a disaster for the neocons, since Europe sits astride the direct route from their beloved Israel and the American bully they have hijacked on its behalf. But of course, even there, they have shot themselves in the foot. By attacking the euro, they have antagonised European leaders, to the point that even David Cameron’s first act was to rush to Paris to defend the euro! The special relationship is dead, vive la relation spéciale! Now, isn’t that good news for Whit Sunday!

  2. msfreeh said on May 22nd, 2010 at 10:12am #

    to view a partial list of crimes committed by FBI agents over 1500 pages long see
    http://www.forums.signonsandiego.com/showthread.php?t=59139

    to view a partial list of FBI agents arrested for pedophilia see
    http://www.campusactivism.org/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=29

    also see
    http://www.ctka.net/pr500-king.html

  3. bozh said on May 22nd, 2010 at 10:15am #

    It wld be nice if s’mone or s’mpeople wld prove that feudal lords and masters of wars are losing anything in afgh’n, iraq, and elsewhere.
    And once proving that they are losing [what? money, power, prestige?], prove also that the master class is not noticing their losses; thus, not losing in their eyes, keep doing wars, oppression, and destabilization-demoralization of own people.
    So how ab it MSM and Side Street or Back Alley collumists? U got a job to do. Sniff around and find out for us what are multim’naires and b’naires losing for the last nine yrs.
    Maybe they are losing some hairs but not sleep, wives, children, etc? tnx

  4. Rehmat said on May 22nd, 2010 at 6:39pm #

    Obama is not a fool. He knows very well the pro-Israeli group which put him in the White House can make him end up like John F. Kennedy. That’s why he, like the Zionist warmongers, is living in self-denial. Even if Tehran agrees to ship all its nuclear spent-fuel abroad – USrael will find some other excuses to bully the Islamic Republic because the issue behind the conflict is not Iran’s nuclear program but Tehran’s support for Hamas and Hizb’Allah.

    Nuclear swap: Is it a trap for Islamic Republic?
    http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2010/05/18/nuclear-swap-is-it-a-trap-for-islamic-republic/

  5. hayate said on May 23rd, 2010 at 6:43am #

    Yup, the Jewish run corporate media in the usa is exactly what goebbels created in nazi Germany. Mummy tells the wad Iran is bad and the wad froths for war. These are some very dumbed down people, in spite of the fact the media related polls of their views are mostly a dishonest marketing job. “Al jolson” is following his master’s orders from tel aviv to the letter, as he always has. There’s no doubt this prez is the “tel avivian candidate”. There is a simple mechanic at work here. If Iran wont be an israeloamerican colony, then it must be wrecked as a country. This is what the usa practiced in Southeast Asia and how israel treats its neighbours in the Mideast. The nuclear issue is a front for blatant aggression, ww2 nazi style, which is how the israeloamerican 21st century nazis practice international relations.

  6. hayate said on May 23rd, 2010 at 6:50am #

    I forgot to add that wrecking these countries prevents them from being an asset of the “enemy”. It also sends a message to those in other countries thinking about breaking those fascist israeloamerican chains.

  7. hayate said on May 23rd, 2010 at 7:06am #

    About that Iran-Turkey-Brazil nuclear deal, Bhadrakumar had a refreshing view. I’ll quote it:

    “The agreement between Iran, Turkey and Brazil for a swap deal on the stockpile of Tehran’s nuclear fuel sets the stage for a diplomatic pirouette of high significance for regional security. The paradigm shift affects Indian interests.

    The Barack Obama administration has hastily debunked the Iran-Turkey-Brazil deal, which was announced in Tehran on Monday, and announced its intention to press ahead with a United Nations Security Council sanctions resolution, claiming that a “strong draft” has been reached by the so-called “Iran Six” (the five permanent council members plus Germany). The grandstanding highlights that Washington’s policy is at a crossroads as the cohesiveness of the “Iran Six” comes under renewed stress.

    The statements and innuendos – and, more importantly, the unspoken words – from Moscow and Beijing suggest the two capitals are quietly chuckling with pleasure over America’s discomfort over Iran outsmarting the Obama administration’s own best instrument of diplomacy in present-day world politics – “smart power”.

    Russian commentators even portray that Moscow had a hand in bringing Iran, Turkey and Brazil together in an act of strategic defiance to the United States – which is a considerable exaggeration of the emerging templates of the Iran nuclear issue. China, on the other hand, has coyly welcomed the announcement in Tehran without rubbing salt into America’s injured pride.

    Evidently Russia and China, both members of the “Iran Six”, have left the door ajar for much horse-trading with the Obama administration that is sure to follow in the coming weeks.

    For India all this becomes a morality play of big-power politics. And it offers salutary lessons as to where things went horribly wrong in India’s Iran policy in the past three to four years and how the recent course corrections now need to go further.”

  8. hayate said on May 23rd, 2010 at 7:15am #

    The commentary that was from is called “India’s course correction on Iran”
    By M K Bhadrakumar and here is a link to it:

    http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LE22Df02.html

    If the israeloamerican fascists can no longer beat iran with the nuclear stick, will they back off? Or will they take the aggression a step higher? To get popular support for the latter, they will need something along the lines of the wtc attacks again, which will then be blamed conveniently on the Iranians. That’s the standard israeloamerican marketing ploy for their war crimes. A false flag attack, followed by a huge propaganda campaign to blame the enemy of the moment.

  9. bozh said on May 23rd, 2010 at 9:06am #

    Meine komunistische freunden! ich bin kein berliner, ich bin ein kommunist ueber alles.
    Ich liebe alle bolscheviken. Mein heroen sind vladi mir [peace remains-rules] ilyich ulyanov, und khrushchev.

    All that is true, bnut i am also married to a fascist but not born as such but made in canada. So, that’s the end of my communism! tnx

  10. Don Hawkins said on May 23rd, 2010 at 9:11am #

    How about this Bozh. A tribe of Indians in say the Amazon no contact with the outside World. There own language and God. I wonder what there system might be?

  11. beverly said on May 24th, 2010 at 6:06pm #

    Rehmat writes:
    “Obama is not a fool. He knows very well the pro-Israeli group which put him in the White House can make him end up like John F. Kennedy. ”

    Yes, there are risks, but if those who came before us didn’t take risks, we’d be further up shit creek than we are now. The excuse that Obummer “can’t do but so much because the white man, the Zionists, the power structure, or fill in the blank with other boogeymen won’t let him or will “get him,” is getting tired. He can’t do what’s right for the oil spill, he can’t name a REAL liberal to the Supreme Court, he can’t get an effective stimulus bill (i.e. one that creates jobs via investing in public infrastructure), he can’t provide REAL relief for distressed homeowners, he can’t pass decent health care bill, he can’t stop the eons-long tradition of exploitation of Africa, he can’t stop regurgitating the lie that Iran is a nuclear threat to US, he can’t name at least a half dozen folks other than Clintonistas, warmongers, Zionist devils, and Wall Street crooks to his cabinet.

    If Obama can’t do any of the above, what the hell good is he to the average Joes/Janes who make up most of this country? If he is paralyzed by fear, we are no better off than we were pre-civil rights era. MLK and the civil rights pioneers (abolishionists, labor, and women’s rights advocates, too) before him faced far greater threat of death but accepted the risks, experienced setbacks and fear, but eventually persevered and won many battles. Why is it now in these modern times that everyone – from the President to the Congress to the local media talking head – is too afraid to stick their neck out and stand up for at least one damn cause they believe in?

    Sidenote: who knows why JFK was offed. Some of his administration’s dirty dealings in Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere might have done him in more so than any of his “good works.”

  12. Mulga Mumblebrain said on May 25th, 2010 at 1:48am #

    I always thought that the ‘Goebbels’ quote in the article was actually one made by that notorious quipster, Hermann Goering. That aside, we all know why Iran is targeted. Because Obummer’s controllers, owners and long-term patrons, the Zionists, want it to be so. They want another bloodbath so much they are positively slavering. The process of lying and demonising is being carried out in exactly the same manner, by the same Judeofascists and their Sabbat Goy stooges, aided and abetted by the same propaganda chiefs like Rupert Moloch, as was seen before the destruction of Iran. This is coldly planned, clinically executed aggression, the ‘supreme crime’ under international law. But we must never forget that for the Judaic rulers of the world, international law and international humanitarian law in particular are mere ‘Christian morality’. In the true law, that of the Torah and Talmud, killing civilians isn’t a crime-it’s an act of religious devotion.Killing children is not absolutely forbidden-it’s exonerated as the killing of future enemies. What is worse, this religious fascism,the sickening ideology of the clerico-fascist Right in the Israel, the dominant force in that evil state, is, if the Zionists get their way (as they usually do)to be inflicted on the rest of the world. It is the ideology of globalised race and religious hatred, the operating principles of a pitiless, sadistic and genocidal global apartheid system. Iran and its stalwart allies, Hezbollah and Hamas, having forgotten that they are untermenschen, ‘human dust’ and that their persecutors are the highest form of existence, have committed the unforgivable sin of beating their tormentors, Hezbollah twice. However, the Zionist controlled media, with Orwellian facility (perhaps Big Brother was Yahweh)portrays the gallant guerilla partisans as villains, and the genocidal cowards bombing from 30.000 feet as the heroes, based on nothing but racism and grovelling obedience to their Zionist owners and paymasters. It’s exactly like supporting the German Nazis and berating the Soviet partisans, but, come to think of it, that probably is the preferred position of most of the fascists who are the hardcore of Zionism’s racist support base amongst obedient goyim.