Chomsky: Who Owns The World?

Chomsky: Is the World Too Big to Fail? The Contours of Global Order

There are sure to be far-reaching consequences of what is taking place both in the decaying industrial heartland of the U.S. and in the Arab world.

Alternet

The democracy uprising in the Arab world has been a spectacular display of courage, dedication, and commitment by popular forces -- coinciding, fortuitously, with a remarkable uprising of tens of thousands in support of working people and democracy in Madison, Wisconsin, and other U.S. cities. If the trajectories of revolt in Cairo and Madison intersected, however, they were headed in opposite directions: in Cairo toward gaining elementary rights denied by the dictatorship, in Madison towards defending rights that had been won in long and hard struggles and are now under severe attack.

Each is a microcosm of tendencies in global society, following varied courses. There are sure to be far-reaching consequences of what is taking place both in the decaying industrial heartland of the richest and most powerful country in human history, and in what President Dwight Eisenhower called "the most strategically important area in the world" -- "a stupendous source of strategic power" and "probably the richest economic prize in the world in the field of foreign investment," in the words of the State Department in the 1940s, a prize that the U.S. intended to keep for itself and its allies in the unfolding New World Order of that day.

Despite all the changes since, there is every reason to suppose that today's policy-makers basically adhere to the judgment of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s influential advisor A.A. Berle that control of the incomparable energy reserves of the Middle East would yield "substantial control of the world." And correspondingly, that loss of control would threaten the project of global dominance that was clearly articulated during World War II, and that has been sustained in the face of major changes in world order since that day.

From the outset of the war in 1939, Washington anticipated that it would end with the U.S. in a position of overwhelming power. High-level State Department officials and foreign policy specialists met through the wartime years to lay out plans for the postwar world. They delineated a "Grand Area" that the U.S. was to dominate, including the Western hemisphere, the Far East, and the former British empire, with its Middle East energy resources. As Russia began to grind down Nazi armies after Stalingrad, Grand Area goals extended to as much of Eurasia as possible, at least its economic core in Western Europe. Within the Grand Area, the U.S. would maintain "unquestioned power," with "military and economic supremacy," while ensuring the "limitation of any exercise of sovereignty" by states that might interfere with its global designs. The careful wartime plans were soon implemented.

It was always recognized that Europe might choose to follow an independent course. NATO was partially intended to counter this threat. As soon as the official pretext for NATO dissolved in 1989, NATO was expanded to the East in violation of verbal pledges to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. It has since become a U.S.-run intervention force, with far-ranging scope, spelled out by NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who informed a NATO conference that "NATO troops have to guard pipelines that transport oil and gas that is directed for the West," and more generally to protect sea routes used by tankers and other "crucial infrastructure" of the energy system.

Grand Area doctrines clearly license military intervention at will. That conclusion was articulated clearly by the Clinton administration, which declared that the U.S. has the right to use military force to ensure "uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources," and must maintain huge military forces "forward deployed" in Europe and Asia "in order to shape people's opinions about us" and "to shape events that will affect our livelihood and our security."

To read more HERE.

Fuerzas de la OTAN cerca de Libia

Para ampliar imagen AQUI.

La guerra, según Bush

En el libro Decision points –que empezó a circular en Estados Unidos– el expresidente George W. Bush describe hechos y decisiones que marcaron su administración, entre ellas las invasiones de Afganistán e Irak y la guerra contra el terrorismo. Reconoce “errores”, pero los justifica: sí autorizó “el submarino” para interrogar a presuntos terroristas, pero lo consideró necesario para obtener información; sí ordenó la invasión a Irak sobre la premisa falsa de que había en ese país armas de destrucción masiva, pero sostiene que hizo lo correcto al derrocar a Sadam Husein…

Bush. Justificaciones.

Alejandro Maciel

SAN DIEGO, 22 de noviembre (Proceso).- Revisé la lista de técnicas de interrogación y había dos que pensé que iban demasiado lejos, aun en el caso de que fueran legales. Pedí a la CIA que no las usaran. La otra técnica era el waterboarding (submarino), un proceso que simula el ahogamiento del interrogado. No me cabe duda que el procedimiento era muy duro, pero los médicos expertos le aseguraron a la CIA que la técnica no provocaba daños permanentes”.

El expresidente de Estados Unidos George W. Bush justifica así la autorización de métodos de tortura que dio a la CIA en marzo de 2002. Lo hace en su libro Decision points, publicado el martes 9: un recuento de los principales acontecimientos que marcaron su administración.

“Cuando el director de la CIA, George Tenet, me pidió autorización para seguir utilizando la técnica del submarino, valoré cuidadosamente esa alternativa. Pensé en las 2 mil 971 personas que fueron arrebatadas a sus familias por Al Qaeda el 11 de septiembre (de 2001) y pensé: demonios, claro que sí”, escribe Bush.

“Bajo mi dirección los abogados del Departamento de Justicia revisaron todos los aspectos legales y concluyeron que el Programa de Técnicas Mejoradas de Interrogación cumplía con todos los preceptos de la Constitución y todas las leyes aplicables, incluyendo aquellas relacionadas con la tortura (…) Las nuevas técnicas probaron ser sumamente efectivas, ya que los prisioneros empezaron a revelar información muy valiosa”, justifica.

No todos están de acuerdo con esas afirmaciones. El exagente de la CIA Robert Baer, quien durante dos décadas estuvo asignado al Medio Oriente, reveló el 19 de abril de 2009 durante una entrevista con MSNBC que los interrogatorios se hacían sin control alguno.

Y sí.

En los memorandos internos de la CIA del 30 de mayo de 2005 se indica que a Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, presunto jefe de propaganda de Al Qaeda, se le practicó el “submarino” 183 veces en marzo de 2003, mientras que al supuesto terrorista Abu Zubaydah se le aplicó la misma técnica en 83 ocasiones en agosto de 2002.

Baer aseguró entonces que “Khalid Sheikh Mohammed quedó al borde de la muerte cerebral y la información que se obtuvo no tenía utilidad alguna”.

Paranoia

A Bush la tragedia del 11 de septiembre de 2001 le cayó, literalmente, del cielo y le permitió reivindicar su imagen, que se encontraba por los suelos después de que llegó a la Presidencia de Estados Unidos en medio de una gran controversia que se resolvió con unos cuantos cientos de votos a su favor en el estado de Florida, donde su hermano era gobernador.

Decision points es un libro de autojustificación y autodefensa del presidente número 43, que en 2008 dejó la Casa Blanca con índices de popularidad muy bajos, sólo ligeramente superiores a los de Richard Nixon, quien fue obligado a renunciar por el escándalo de Watergate.

Bush detalla las horas siguientes a los atentados del 11 de septiembre de 2001. “Empecé a sentir la niebla que cubre la guerra, con reportes contradictorios (...) Había rumores de que habían bombardeado el Departamento de Estado, que había fuego en el National Mall, en Washington; que habían secuestrado un avión de Korean Airlines que se dirigía a Estados Unidos y que había llamadas de amenaza al Air Force One. La persona que había llamado para amenazar el avión presidencial había usado un nombre en código, ‘Ángel’, que muy pocas personas sabían.

“Un reporte que recibí resultó cierto: un cuarto avión había caído en algún lugar de Pennsylvania. ‘¿Lo derribamos o se estrelló?’, le pregunté al vicepresidente Dick Cheney. Nadie sabía nada.”

Bush recuerda que una vez pasada la emergencia de las primeras horas le preguntó a Tenet (director de la CIA) quién estaba detrás de los ataques. “Al Qaeda”, respondió éste.

Las semanas posteriores a los ataques terroristas fueron clave para definir el perfil de la administración de Bush, lo que acarreó profundas consecuencias internas e internacionales.

En los primeros días de octubre de 2001, los estadunidenses –que aún no se reponían de la conmoción por los ataques al World Trade Center– empezaron a sufrir la sicosis de una nueva guerra, pero ahora biológica. La prensa reportó el 2 de octubre de ese año que una persona en Florida había sido infectada por el virus del ántrax. A partir de ese momento decenas de cartas contaminadas con el microorganismo fueron enviadas a las principales cadenas de televisión y a oficinas del Senado.

Estados Unidos entró en paranoia y para Bush toda medida de seguridad era justificada.

“Nuestros servicios de inteligencia en Europa nos dijeron que sospechaban de Irak. Que el régimen de Sadam Husein era uno de los pocos en el mundo que tenía antecedentes de haber utilizado armas biológicas de destrucción masiva y se sabía que en 1995 tenía ántrax”, escribe Bush.

En esos días Tenet informó al presidente que se aproximaba un ataque mayor al del 11 de septiembre de 2001. Le precisó: sería para el 30 o 31 de octubre.

“Ordené al vicepresidente Dick Cheney que saliera de Washington. Yo decidí que debía quedarme en la Casa Blanca. Si era decisión de Dios que muriera en la Casa Blanca, la aceptaba”, afirma Bush.

No hubo ataque alguno. Pero en esos días el procurador general, John Aschroft, dio a conocer el Acta Patriótica. Una legislación que otorgó al gobierno facultades para intervenir llamadas telefónicas, revisar archivos de empresas y ciudadanos, inspeccionar de manera exhaustiva a personas en aeropuertos, intervenir cuentas bancarias y otras medidas que en otras circunstancias se habrían considerado violatorias de los derechos individuales.

La ley fue firmada el 26 de octubre de 2001, 45 días después de los ataques al World Trade Center.

En 2010, una investigación del Departamento de Justicia y del FBI reveló que los ataques con ántrax fueron realizados por el doctor Bruce Ivins, un científico que trabajaba para el gobierno de Estados Unidos y que se suicidó en 2008. El reporte concluyó que Ivins llevó a cabo los ataques por cuenta propia.

La invasión a Irak

Bush inicia el capítulo sobre la guerra contra Irak con la reunión del Consejo de Seguridad Nacional de la Casa Blanca que se llevó a cabo el 19 de marzo de 2003.

Luego reflexiona: “Durante más de un año había tratado de evaluar el tamaño de la amenaza que constituía Irak, pero cuando Don Rumsfeld, secretario de Defensa, me dijo ‘nuestras fuerzas están listas’, me di cuenta de la gravedad del momento (...) El 8 de noviembre (de 2002) ya habíamos obtenido la resolución 1441 de la ONU con una votación unánime de 15 a 0. Sadam tendría una última oportunidad para cumplir con las exigencias de la comunidad internacional. La resolución puso en claro que la responsabilidad de probar que no tenía armas de destrucción masiva ya no era de los inspectores de la ONU, sino de Sadam Husein”.

Ya entonces no había poder humano que lo convenciera de que probablemente Husein no tuviera las armas de destrucción masiva. Bush afirma que los servicios de inteligencia de Estados Unidos aseguraban que el líder iraquí las tenía. Ni siquiera el informe que Hans Blix, jefe de inspecciones de armas de las Naciones Unidas, entregó el 27 de enero de 2003 al Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU logró convencerlo:

“Desde que llegamos a Irak hemos realizado más de 400 inspecciones cubriendo más de 300 sitios. Las inspecciones se han realizado en zonas industriales, depósitos de armas, centro de investigación, universidades, sitios presidenciales, laboratorios móviles, casas privadas, fábricas de producción de misiles, campos militares y áreas agrícolas. Con base en lo visto puedo decir que por nuestra experiencia, Irak ha decidido en principio cooperar con el proceso”, dijo Blix en esa ocasión.

Independientemente del informe Bush ya tenía firmes sus planes de guerra. “El 7 de septiembre de 2002 llamé en Camp David al equipo de Seguridad Nacional para darles a conocer mi decisión. 51 semanas antes nos habíamos reunido en ese mismo sitio para planear la guerra de Afganistán, ahora estábamos ahí, en el mismo salón tratando de encontrar un camino para eliminar la amenaza de Irak. Les di a todos la oportunidad de exponer sus puntos de vista. Dick Cheney recomendó que reiniciáramos el caso contra Sadam, que le diéramos entre 30 y 60 días para cumplir con nuestras demandas. Si no lo hacía, lo desarmaríamos. ‘Es tiempo de actuar’, dijo Cheney. ‘No podemos posponer esto un año más. El régimen de inspecciones no resuelve nuestros problemas’. Colin Powell (secretario de Estado) insistía en una resolución de la ONU. ‘Si llevamos el caso a la ONU podemos obtener aliados; si no, tenemos que actuar de manera unilateral y no tendremos el apoyo internacional para ejecutar nuestros planes militares’”.

Según Bush, las agencias de seguridad estadunidenses clasificaron de la siguiente manera las amenazas a Estados Unidos: Estados que patrocinaban el terrorismo, Estados que eran enemigos jurados de Estados Unidos y Estados con gobiernos hostiles que amenazaban a sus vecinos. “Irak combinaba todas esas amenazas –escribe Bush–. Sadam Husein no era sólo un enemigo jurado de Estados Unidos, había disparado en contra de nuestros aviones, había hecho una declaración celebrando el ataque del 11 de septiembre de 2001 y había intentado asesinar a mi padre”.

Continúa: “A fines de enero (de 2003), durante una visita de Tony Blair (primer ministro de Gran Bretaña), llegamos a la conclusión de que había llegado el momento de que Husein encarara las consecuencias de sus actos. Se introdujo una petición para una segunda resolución de la ONU, para que Blair pudiera enfrentar la presión política de ir a una guerra aliado con Estados Unidos. Por petición de Blair hice un último esfuerzo para persuadir a México y a Chile, miembros del Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU, para apoyar una segunda resolución.

“Mi primera llamada fue a Vicente Fox. La conversación fue directa. Le dije que quería aconsejarle que no se aliara con la posición francesa que no nos respaldaba. Me dijo que lo pensaría y que me hablaría para darme a conocer su decisión. Pasó una hora, entonces Condi (Condoleezza Rice, asesora de Seguridad Nacional) me dijo que había escuchado en la embajada que Vicente Fox había ingresado a un hospital para una cirugía de espalda. No me volvió a llamar para hablar del tema.

“Mi conversación con el presidente Ricardo Lagos de Chile no fue mejor. Habíamos ya negociado un tratado de libre comercio que esperábamos fuera aprobado por el Congreso, pero la opinión pública en Chile estaba en contra de una potencial guerra, y Ricardo estaba seguro de no apoyarla. Me dijo que deberíamos darle a Sadam otras dos o tres semanas. Le pregunte una vez más cómo iba a votar en la Asamblea de la ONU y me dijo que lo haría en contra.”

El 17 de marzo de 2003, el embajador de Estados Unidos en la ONU, John Negroponte, retiró la propuesta para una segunda resolución del Consejo de Seguridad debido a que no contaba con los suficientes votos para ser aprobada.

“Esa noche dirigí un mensaje a la nación: el Consejo de Seguridad de las Naciones Unidas no asumió su responsabilidad, por lo que tendremos que asumirla nosotros. Sadam Husein y su hijo tendrán que salir de Irak en un plazo de 48 horas. Si no lo hace, provocará un conflicto militar...

“En ese momento –recuerda Bush– estaba convencido de que la vía diplomática y la militar habían confluido ya en un mismo cauce y que la decisión de la guerra estaba ya en manos de Sadam.

“El miércoles por la mañana reuní al Consejo Nacional de Seguridad de la Casa Blanca y di la orden de lanzar la operación Irak Freedom. En las dos primeras semanas las cosas ocurrieron tal y como lo teníamos planeado y en menos de 20 días nuestras tropas estaban en Bagdad.”

Todo iba a pedir de boca. “En ese momento Tommy Franks (general en jefe de la invasión a Irak) sentía que había concluido una fase de la guerra y que estaba por empezar otra. Como una forma de mostrarlo, el 1 de mayo de 2003 me subí a un jet militar y aterrice en la cubierta del USS Lincoln y les dije: ‘Americanos, las mayores operaciones de combate en Irak han terminado’. No me había dado cuenta que atrás de mí había una gran lona que decía ‘misión cumplida’, y que estaba dirigida a los marinos que volvían a casa, no a la misión en Irak. Pero fue percibido como una declaración de victoria”.

En efecto, la frase “misión cumplida” se volvió contra Bush cuando las cosas salieron mal en Irak. “Mi discurso hizo claro que estábamos muy lejos de haber terminado, pero todas las explicaciones no pudieron revertir la percepción de que estábamos declarando victoria antes de tiempo. Ese fue un error muy grande”, reconoce.

Luego cuenta que “cuando Sadam no utilizó las armas me sentí aliviado, pero no encontrarlas me sorprendió. Cuando pasó todo el verano sin encontrar ninguna arma, me empecé a alarmar. La prensa empezaba a levantar cada vez con más fuerza la pregunta ¿dónde están las armas de destrucción masiva? Yo me preguntaba lo mismo. Los militares y los equipos de inteligencia me aseguraron que las estaban buscando. Examinaron los lugares en los que Sadam había guardado armas durante la Guerra del Golfo. A través de la CIA seguimos cientos de pistas y denuncias. Buscamos bajo un puente en el río Éufrates, excavamos cientos de millas de túneles y nada...”.

Confiesa: “Sabía que no encontrar las armas iba a cambiar la percepción de la guerra, aunque el mundo era indudablemente más seguro sin Sadam, la realidad es que enviamos a miles de soldados a la guerra basados en una información que resulto falsa. Eso fue un golpe a nuestra credibilidad, a mi credibilidad (…)”.

How the Mountain of Climate Change Evidence Is Being Used to Undermine the Cause

As the backlash against climate science grows, the number of Americans who believe humans are to blame for warming the planet is shrinking.
Twenty-one years ago, in 1989, I wrote what many have called the first book for a general audience on global warming. One of the more interesting reviews came from the Wall Street Journal. It was a mixed and judicious appraisal. “The subject,” the reviewer said, “is important, the notion is arresting, and Mr. McKibben argues convincingly.” And that was not an outlier: around the same time, the first president Bush announced that he planned to “fight the greenhouse effect with the White House effect.”

I doubt that’s what the Journal will say about my next book when it comes out in a few weeks, and I know that no GOP presidential contender would now dream of acknowledging that human beings are warming the planet. Sarah Palin is currently calling climate science “snake oil” and last week, the Utah legislature, in a move straight out of the King Canute playbook, passed a resolution condemning "a well organized and ongoing effort to manipulate global temperature data in order to produce a global warming outcome" on a nearly party-line vote.

And here’s what’s odd. In 1989, I could fit just about every scientific study on climate change on top of my desk. The science was still thin. If my reporting made me think it was nonetheless convincing, many scientists were not yet prepared to agree.

Now, you could fill the Superdome with climate-change research data. (You might not want to, though, since Hurricane Katrina demonstrated just how easy it was to rip holes in its roof.) Every major scientific body in the world has produced reports confirming the peril. All 15 of the warmest years on record have come in the two decades that have passed since 1989. In the meantime, the Earth’s major natural systems have all shown undeniable signs of rapid flux: melting Arctic and glacial ice, rapidly acidifying seawater, and so on.

Somehow, though, the onslaught against the science of climate change has never been stronger, and its effects, at least in the U.S., never more obvious: fewer Americans believe humans are warming the planet. At least partly as a result, Congress feels little need to consider global-warming legislation, no less pass it; and as a result of that failure, progress towards any kind of international agreement on climate change has essentially ground to a halt.

Climate-Change Denial as an O.J. Moment

The campaign against climate science has been enormously clever, and enormously effective. It’s worth trying to understand how they’ve done it. The best analogy, I think, is to the O.J. Simpson trial, an event that’s begun to recede into our collective memory. For those who were conscious in 1995, however, I imagine that just a few names will make it come back to life. Kato Kaelin, anyone? Lance Ito?

The Dream Team of lawyers assembled for Simpson’s defense had a problem: it was pretty clear their guy was guilty. Nicole Brown’s blood was all over his socks, and that was just the beginning. So Johnnie Cochran, Robert Shapiro, Alan Dershowitz, F. Lee Bailey, Robert Kardashian et al. decided to attack the process, arguing that it put Simpson’s guilt in doubt, and doubt, of course, was all they needed. Hence, those days of cross-examination about exactly how Dennis Fung had transported blood samples, or the fact that Los Angeles detective Mark Fuhrman had used racial slurs when talking to a screenwriter in 1986.

If anything, they were actually helped by the mountain of evidence. If a haystack gets big enough, the odds only increase that there will be a few needles hidden inside. Whatever they managed to find, they made the most of: in closing arguments, for instance, Cochran compared Fuhrman to Adolf Hitler and called him “a genocidal racist, a perjurer, America’s worst nightmare, and the personification of evil.” His only real audience was the jury, many of whom had good reason to dislike the Los Angeles Police Department, but the team managed to instill considerable doubt in lots of Americans tuning in on TV as well. That’s what happens when you spend week after week dwelling on the cracks in a case, no matter how small they may be.

Similarly, the immense pile of evidence now proving the science of global warming beyond any reasonable doubt is in some ways a great boon for those who would like, for a variety of reasons, to deny that the biggest problem we’ve ever faced is actually a problem at all. If you have a three-page report, it won’t be overwhelming and it’s unlikely to have many mistakes. Three thousand pages (the length of the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)? That pretty much guarantees you’ll get something wrong.

In order to read the complete article HERE.

Iran Had a Democracy Before We Took It Away

By Chris Hedges, Truthdig.

AlterNet.

Iranians do not need or want us to teach them about liberty and representative government. It is we who need to be taught.

Iranians do not need or want us to teach them about liberty and representative government. They have long embodied this struggle. It is we who need to be taught. It was Washington that orchestrated the 1953 coup to topple Iran’s democratically elected government, the first in the Middle East, and install the compliant shah in power. It was Washington that forced Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, a man who cared as much for his country as he did for the rule of law and democracy, to spend the rest of his life under house arrest. We gave to the Iranian people the corrupt regime of the shah and his savage secret police and the primitive clerics that rose out of the swamp of the dictator’s Iran. Iranians know they once had a democracy until we took it away.
The fundamental problem in the Middle East is not a degenerate and corrupt Islam. The fundamental problem is a degenerate and corrupt Christendom. We have not brought freedom and democracy and enlightenment to the Muslim world. We have brought the opposite. We have used the iron fist of the American military to implant our oil companies in Iraq, occupy Afghanistan and ensure that the region is submissive and cowed. We have supported a government in Israel that has carried out egregious war crimes in Lebanon and Gaza and is daily stealing ever greater portions of Palestinian land. We have established a network of military bases, some the size of small cities, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Kuwait, and we have secured basing rights in the Gulf states of Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. We have expanded our military operations to Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Egypt, Algeria and Yemen. And no one naively believes, except perhaps us, that we have any intention of leaving.
We are the biggest problem in the Middle East. We have through our cruelty and violence created and legitimized the Mahmoud Ahmadinejads and the Osama bin Ladens. The longer we lurch around the region dropping iron fragmentation bombs and seizing Muslim land the more these monsters, reflections of our own distorted image, will proliferate. The theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, “Perhaps the most significant moral characteristic of a nation is its hypocrisy.” But our hypocrisy no longer fools anyone but ourselves. It will ensure our imperial and economic collapse.
The history of modern Iran is the history of a people battling tyranny. These tyrants were almost always propped up and funded by foreign powers. This suppression and distortion of legitimate democratic movements over the decades resulted in the 1979 revolution that brought the Iranian clerics to power, unleashing another tragic cycle of Iranian resistance.
“The central story of Iran over the last 200 years has been national humiliation at the hands of foreign powers who have subjugated and looted the country,” Stephen Kinzer, the author of “All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror,” told me. “For a long time the perpetrators were the British and Russians. Beginning in 1953, the United States began taking over that role. In that year, the American and British secret services overthrew an elected government, wiped away Iranian democracy, and set the country on the path to dictatorship.”
“Then, in the 1980s, the U.S. sided with Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war, providing him with military equipment and intelligence that helped make it possible for his army to kill hundreds of thousands of Iranians,” Kinzer said. “Given this history, the moral credibility of the U.S. to pose as a promoter of democracy in Iran is close to nil.
Especially ludicrous is the sight of people in Washington calling for intervention on behalf of democracy in Iran when just last year they were calling for the bombing of Iran. If they had had their way then, many of the brave protesters on the streets of Tehran today—the ones they hold up as heroes of democracy—would be dead now.”
Washington has never recovered from the loss of Iran—something our intelligence services never saw coming. The overthrow of the shah, the humiliation of the embassy hostages, the laborious piecing together of tiny shreds of paper from classified embassy documents to expose America’s venal role in thwarting democratic movements in Iran and the region, allowed the outside world to see the dark heart of the American empire. Washington has demonized Iran ever since, painting it as an irrational and barbaric country filled with primitive, religious zealots. But Iranians, as these street protests illustrate, have proved in recent years far more courageous in the defense of democracy than most Americans.
Where were we when our election was stolen from us in 2000 by Republican operatives and a Supreme Court that overturned all legal precedent to anoint George W. Bush president? Did tens of thousands of us fill the squares of our major cities and denounce the fraud? Did we mobilize day after day to restore transparency and accountability to our election process? Did we fight back with the same courage and tenacity as the citizens of Iran? Did Al Gore defy the power elite and, as opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi has done, demand a recount at the risk of being killed?
President Obama retreated in his Cairo speech into our spectacular moral nihilism, suggesting that our crimes matched the crimes of Iran, that there is, in his words, “a tumultuous history between us.” He went on: “In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government. Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians.” It all, he seemed to say, balances out.
I am no friend of the Iranian regime, which helped create and arm Hezbollah, is certainly meddling in Iraq, has persecuted human rights activists, gays, women and religious and ethnic minorities, embraces racism and intolerance and uses its power to deny popular will. But I do not remember Iran orchestrating a coup in the United States to replace an elected government with a brutal dictator who for decades persecuted, assassinated and imprisoned democracy activists. I do not remember Iran arming and funding a neighboring state to wage war against our country. Iran never shot down one of our passenger jets as did the USS Vincennes—caustically nicknamed Robocruiser by the crews of other American vessels—when in June 1988 it fired missiles at an Airbus filled with Iranian civilians, killing everyone on board. Iran is not sponsoring terrorism within the United States, as our intelligence services currently do in Iran. The attacks on Iranian soil include suicide bombings, kidnappings, beheadings, sabotage and “targeted assassinations” of government officials, scientists and other Iranian leaders. What would we do if the situation was reversed? How would we react if Iran carried out these policies against us?
We are, and have long been, the primary engine for radicalism in the Middle East. The greatest favor we can do for democracy activists in Iran, as well as in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Gulf and the dictatorships that dot North Africa, is withdraw our troops from the region and begin to speak to Iranians and the rest of the Muslim world in the civilized language of diplomacy, respect and mutual interests. The longer we cling to the doomed doctrine of permanent war the more we give credibility to the extremists who need, indeed yearn for, an enemy that speaks in their crude slogans of nationalist cant and violence. The louder the Israelis and their idiot allies in Washington call for the bombing of Iran to thwart its nuclear ambitions, the happier are the bankrupt clerics who are ordering the beating and murder of demonstrators. We may laugh when crowds supporting Ahmadinejad call us “the Great Satan,” but there is a very palpable reality that has informed the terrible algebra of their hatred.
Our intoxication with our military prowess blinds us to all possibilities of hope and mutual cooperation. It was Mohammed Khatami, the president of Iran from 1997 to 2005—perhaps the only honorable Middle East leader of our time—whose refusal to countenance violence by his own supporters led to the demise of his lofty “civil society” at the hands of more ruthless, less scrupulous opponents. It was Khatami who proclaimed that “the death of even one Jew is a crime.” And we sputtered back to this great and civilized man the primitive slogans of all deformed militarists. We were captive, as all bigots are, to our demons, and could not hear any sound but our own shouting. It is time to banish these demons. It is time to stand not with the helmeted goons who beat protesters, not with those in the Pentagon who make endless wars, but with the unarmed demonstrators in Iran who daily show us what we must become.
The fight of the Iranian people is our fight. And, perhaps for the first time, we can match our actions to our ideals. We have no right under post-Nuremberg laws to occupy Iraq or Afghanistan. These occupations are defined by these statutes as criminal “wars of aggression.” They are war crimes. We have no right to use force, including the state-sponsored terrorism we unleash on Iran, to turn the Middle East into a private gas station for our large oil companies. We have no right to empower Israel’s continuing occupation of Palestine, a flagrant violation of international law. The resistance you see in Iran will not end until Iranians, and all those burdened with repression in the Middle East, free themselves from the tyranny that comes from within and without. Let us, for once, be on the side of those who share our democratic ideals.