This will be a quickie – I’m kind of pressed this week, for a variety of reasons.
It’s always astonishing to me to watch how issues in foreign affairs are reported in our nation’s mainstream media. This week there was a major network interview with the new president of Iran, Hassan Rouhani. This was broadly characterized as part of a “charm offensive” that will include his appearance at the U.N. Any discussion of Iran is couched in the context of what is uncritically reported as their drive toward building nuclear weapons or a “nuclear weapons capability,” which the U.S., Israel, and some European allies oppose. We have imposed very punishing economic sanctions, which cause tremendous misery amongst the Iranian population, and we and the Israeli government regularly threaten Iran with military aggression. So the reporting on the “charm offensive” is a bit like trash-talking the victim after kicking them in the gut (and promising worse down the road).
I think if we’ve learned anything over the last thirty-five years it’s that the United States does not want any detente with the Iranian government, no matter how accommodating they become. We saw this with the Khatami government, which was very moderate and reformist and yet ended up on the “Axis of Evil” shortlist. Frankly, our leaders much prefer it when Iran elects presidents like Amedinejad, who are conveniently cartoon-like, racist, and easy to demonize. It’s the Rouhani’s who give them a belly ache.
Try for a moment to imagine a scenario in which we stop confronting Iran. There are two compelling reasons why it is unlikely to happen, so long as we remain an empire. First, it would put us squarely on the wrong side of Saudi Arabia in the great ongoing war against the Shi’ia. Second, it would further compel Israel to make peace, to deal, and that cuts against more than 35 years of stalemate strategy in which we have been a primary participant.
So, peace with Iran? Don’t hold your breath. It will only happen if we insist upon it … and you can’t do that without breathing deeply.
luv u,
jp
We have, under the banner of American Exceptionalism, invaded any number of third-world countries over the past century and a quarter. The results have not been positive. (Just ask them.) Putin and others are approaching us as if conducting an intervention; trying to keep us from repeating the same bad behavior, over and over again. You know you have a problem when it takes Russia and China to talk you down. One can only hope that they succeed. This Syria intervention is just a crazy, bad idea, and one that the president seems very attached to. It’s a kind of madness, executive power, and it’s long since taken hold of old Barry-O.
Obama, Kerry, and others have latched onto this trope about defending an international norm that goes back ninety years; one that only Hitler and Saddam Hussein violated. I am grateful for people like retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson for blowing a hole in this line of attack. What, one might ask, is the distinction between using Sarin and using napalm, white phosphorus, agent orange, or depleted uranium? The short answer is that we have used all of the latter four, while our enemies have used the more garden variety poison gas. These are all indiscriminate, deadly weapons, based in chemistry, that can kill large numbers of people. Not that being blown up by fragmentation grenades is any walk in the park. You have to wonder how these people can make so measured a choice in these matters.