Diplomatic triumph as Obama authorises Iranian nuclear strike against Israel

News just in from The Guardian.  Obama is thrilled with his diplomatic triumph whereby Iran is happy to launch a nuclear strike against Israel and Netanyahu is happy because he really does have something to be unhappy about.  It looks like win-win for Obama.

More detail from Hurry up Ha'aretz's diplomatic correspondent, Sarah Hannahs Braun in Tel Aviv.  "I am happier than I have ever been in all my years as Israel's Prime Minister" said Binyamin Netanyahu (or "Bibi").  "I really have something to be unhappy about and so I cannot contain my joy."

"Well, if you're happy I'm happy" Hannahs Braun told Bibi "though I am sure I would be equally happy no matter what you were happy about even if it was a completely opposite thing."

Hagel dialectic - disinterested or uninterested?

I know "Hagel/'s dialectic" has already been done - 945 times if google search is anything to go by.  I even saw an example from 2007 but I like all this chatter about Hagel.  It gives me the chance to consider which word out of disinterested or uninterested is appropriate to the position of anti-zionists with regard to whether or not Obama should appoint Chuck Hagel to be his Defence Secretary.  I think both could work, both might not work or a bit of both or nothing of either might work.

Disinterested means we have no interest i.e., stake, in the outcome.  But some will take comfort from the one in the eye for the Lobby that appointing Hagel would represent.  And of course if the Lobby gets ignored it could have an impact on how various careerists in US politics and the media approach the question of Israel and the Palestinians in future.

Uninterested means we are simply not interested, i.e., bored, with the whole thing.  But some people find the collective state of apoplexy the Lobby goes into whenever it doesn't get its way on something interesting, even exciting.

I think to be realistic we have to understand that if Hagel was that bad for Israel he probably wouldn't be where he is now let alone being considered for a higher position.

But of course it's not just Israel that's an issue here.  He's considered soft on Iran.  Now suppose he gets hard on Iran after he's in office?  Won't the war party say, look how convincing the case for war on Iran is,  Even Hagel's convinced?

Those of us who don't want war on Iran might not have an interest in his appointment.  We do then have an interest in the outcome but, at the mo', other things being equal, I think disinterested and uninterested both apply.

Iran threatens self-defence, shock!

Here's The Independent today:

Tehran said it will respond with “full force” to any attack on its nuclear facilities after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged global action to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

In a speech to the UN General Assembly, Mr Netanyahu warned that the world has less than a year to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power, a prediction that will raise fears of a military confrontation.

Iran "is strong enough to defend itself and reserves its full right to retaliate with full force against any attack," said Eshagh al-Habib, Iran's deputy UN ambassador. He insisted the country's nuclear programme was peaceful.

I was impressed by the first comment below the line from an Ian Watson:

Lets look at the evidence shall we...?

Israel has ignored 150+ UN resolutions, Iran has ignored 4.

Israel has attacked openly every one of its neighbours in its short history. Iran has not attacked any neighbour and only defended itself when the US and UK cajoled Iraq to attack them leaving a million dead.

Israel has refused pointedly to sign the NNPT, has refused to allow the IAEA into its Dimona area whilst Iran has allowed the IAEA to monitor its stockpile, facilities and research programmes.

The IAEA has stated recently that Iran's 20% enriched uranium has reduced on a par with produced medical isotopes, not one ounce of Uranium has gone unaccounted for.

The Intelligence communities of the US STILL agree that Iran finally closed down its last research programme into nuclear weapon design and had in fact stopped all proper research some years earlier.

Netahanyu has "predicted" every year since 1992 that Iran would have a nuclear weapon "very soon".

Iran has fairly withdrawn some facility inspections until the IAEA give it guarantees that its inspection will not be used for military intelligence purposes for Israel and the US, this is a fair option seeing as we would not allow the Chinese or Russians to wander round Aldermastion or Fort Lauderdale would we?

Well over a year ago a friend of mine pointed out to me that when Israel threatens Iran the oil price goes up but when Iran responds to the threat the oil price stands still. It could be that the threat and the response are too close together in time to tell but it does look like the serious money is on an Israeli attack on Iran rather than the other way round.

Bibi's bombshell blows up in his face

I thought this was a joke when I first saw it but apparently Netanyahu was serious when he unfurled what purported to be Iran's blueprint for the bomb.  Seeing the pic on Times of Israel didn't help me believe it was serious but it is for real after all.



As ToI points out,

Even some supporters of Israel, such as American journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, bemoaned Netanyahu’s use of the cartoon.

@JeffreyGoldberg

Jeffrey Goldberg

Okay, it's official: #Netanyahu has no idea what he's doing. He has just turned a serious issue into a joke.

+972 Mag has the responses of various Israeli artists.   Here's my fave:


(Noa Angel)

Elsewhere, The Guardian contained just a hint of the ridicule directed at Bibi:

European officials were sceptical about Netanyahu's argument, comparing it to the infamous illustrated presentation about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction made in 2003 by the then US secretary of state, Colin Powell. "It was like Powell and WMD, but much lower quality graphics," one European diplomat said.

Searching "Netanyahu UN" in Google news, it appears that most of the main players in the US media have done Bibi the favour of ignoring him.  Certainly the LA Times and Fox News have withheld the pic which makes Bibi look so ridiculous.

Israel's attacks on Gaza - consolation, training or maybe both for Iran

It's not really news when Israel kills Palestinians but when zionist sources describe Palestinian retaliation as "Palestinian.... rocket attacks" on Israel you know there's a game on.

In a meeting Saturday night with the mayors of southern Israeli communities, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue hitting Palestinian forces in Gaza responsible for a barrage of rocket attacks.

Netayahu praised the residents for their resilience in the face of the rocket barrage.

“We will continue to hit whoever plans to attack citizens of the State of Israel,” Netanyahu said. " At the same time, we will continue to improve home front defense including by means of additional Iron Dome systems, the effectiveness of which was shown again over the weekend."

More than 130 rockets have been fired at Israel from Gaza since an Israeli airstrike killed the leader of a Palestinian terrorist group.

Ah, so it was Israel attacking Gaza not the other way around.

Here's Gush Shalom on the same escalation:

In the beginning of the week, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu failed in his attempt to get an American autorization for an attack on Iran, which might raise oil prizes and overthrow the world economy. At the end of the same week, he is setting the Gaza Strip border on fire with an act of "liquidation" which was certain to precipitate a barrage of rockets at the communities of southern Israel and make their children huddle in air-raid shelters on the Purim holiday.

The bombings and killings in the Gaza Strip look like a general rehearsal and test of weapons systems towards the great war to come - and a "consolation prize" for not yet have gotten the authorization.

In recent weeks, there were many indications of a growing distance between Hamas and Iran, and an unwillingness of the Hamas leaders to take part in a war between Israel and Iran, should it break out. A responsible Israeli leadership should have been seeking to deepen this gap, and therefore do all in its power to keep the Gaza border calm. But a responsible leadership is not exactly the right term for Israel's present government.

And what's this distance between Hamas and Iran all about?  Well it could be described as fallout from the Arab spring.  Hamas is distancing itself from Syria's Assad regime.  Here's The Guardian:

Hamas will not do Iran's bidding in any war with Israel, according to senior figures within the militant Islamic group.

"If there is a war between two powers, Hamas will not be part of such a war," Salah Bardawil, a member of the organisation's political bureau in Gaza City, told the Guardian.

He denied the group would launch rockets into Israel at Tehran's request in response to a strike on its nuclear sites. "Hamas is not part of military alliances in the region," said Bardawil. "Our strategy is to defend our rights"

The stance underscores Hamas's rift with its key financial sponsor and its realignment with the Muslim Brotherhood and popular protest movements in the Arab world.

It's curious to see how Israel and Iran both have issues with Palestine arising over the Arab spring, But what attracted my curiosity in the first place was how an attack by Israel on a Palestinian target could be described as a Palestinian attack on Israel.  Perhaps that too was a rehearsal for an Israeli attack on Iran.

War on Iran?

The question mark there means that this quick post is a guess regarding the current round of sabre-rattling against Iran.  I didn't think too much of Netanyahu's yabbering about a possible strike against Iran because he's always doing that. If he stubs his toe it's Iran's fault and the PA/PLO's recent successful UNESCO bid together with the US's failure to prevent it even by pulling the plug on UNESCO funding has given Netanyahu an urgent need for a distraction.  This has been all over Ha'aretz for a little while now.  But The Guardian is usually a tad more cautious and nuanced over middle east issues and it is reporting mostly a pro-US line on its front page and some inside pages today; including its editorial. In fairness the editorial is urging caution but it is not negating what it is promoting as legitimate Israeli and American concerns. It doesn't mention a UK interest in all this but it does say, uncritically, that the UK is making contingency plans to do whatever America decides.

Now what else has been happening apart from the Palestinian diplomatic efforts? Well, the Arab spring has been happening since, er, the spring.  The west has been mostly opposed to the Arab spring because it has challenged some of its favourite dictators. Even Gaddafi had come into business friendly favour in recent years and Assad has been a handy chap for those nasty "extraordinary" renditions.  But they lost that Tunisian chap and Israel's fave Mubarak had to go, though his mainstay, er, stays, er, mainly.

So what to do? Trump up an issue with Iran.  Distract attention from the Palestinians and try to halt the Arab spring, though smartly, by attacking or just winding everyone up over Iran, a non-Arab middle eastern state.

That's just my guess, that's all.  I've rushed this and I ought to have included more links and comments. If I have time later I'll do just that.

No depth too deep for Obama

I'm not talking about Obama's ludicrous speech to the UN on Abbas trying to find somewhere to sit in Manhattan.  It's this article from yesterday's Daily Beast (Newsweek) about how it was Obama, not Bush, who sold bunker buster or deep penetration bombs to Israel.

While publicly pressuring Israel to make deeper concessions to the Palestinians, President Obama has secretly authorized significant new aid to the Israeli military that includes the sale of 55 deep-penetrating bombs known as bunker busters, Newsweek has learned.

In an exclusive story to be published Monday on growing military cooperation between the two allies, U.S. and Israeli officials tell Newsweek that the GBU-28 Hard Target Penetrators—potentially useful in any future military strike against Iranian nuclear sites—were delivered to Israel in 2009, just several months after Obama took office.

The military sale was arranged behind the scenes as Obama’s demands for Israel to stop building settlements in disputed territories were fraying political relations between the two countries in public.

The Lawyers, guns and money blog asks some interesting questions about this as to whether the shipments were military or political.

The military logic is that the Obama administration believes that Israel should be better equipped to strike hardened Iranian nuclear facilities. That’s it; these are the only targets Israel might consider attacking in the near to medium term that would require such ordnance. One way to read this is that the administration thinks that an Israeli strike on Iran would be a good idea. This may be possible, but the administration doesn’t appear to have been doing much else in order to push Israel into an attack.

So that leaves political.  Maybe Obama was looking for a policy result from Israel but,

Bibi has consistently given Obama the finger on policy, and has made his support ofObama’s GOP opponents about as clear as possible. Obama has no leverage; no GOP President will reduce the level of military aid sent to Israel, and Bibi finds a Republican administration preferable for a variety of reasons.

So

This leaves the impact on Iran, and on Israel’s domestic supporters. To borrow another phrase, the whole point of politicized arms shipments to Israel is lost if you keep it a secret. Even if we accept the premise that Israel’s US constituency could in some sense be satisfied by bunker buster shipments, it’s hard to see how secretshipments help solve the problem. Perhaps the logic was that since someone had to know, elite level signalling would serve to insulate Obama from attacks. This again means that, effectively, Obama was dependent on Bibi’s goodwill for the plan to work. Good luck with that. The Iran problem is essentially the same; Iran can only be intimidated by things it knows about. It’s possible that some US negotiator somewhere showed some Iranian diplomat a packing slip for the bombs, but that strategy works whether or not the US actually ships the weapons.

And so we’re left with the question that has too often characterized the Obama administration: For this bad policy executed incompetently, what’s the balance between bad and incompetent? On the upside, at least Eli Lake has been uncovered as the administration shill he’s always been.

Simple ineptitude? Can that really explain the policies of the most powerful state on the planet?

On the false choices imposed by a Left that could use some antidepressant (or faith)

"More than a hundred of people have been killed, thousands of people have been imprisoned, hundreds of people have been tortured, executions occur daily. Why do some in West worry about the murder of an amed Basiji without even investigating the accuracy of the news? Some Western commentators treat Basijis as Zionist media would treat Israeli soldiers, and Iranian protesters as Zionist media would treat Palestinians. The accusations of violence among Iranian protesters is largely fabricated by the Iranian state media. Some commentators think the movement is pro-capitalism and US imperialism because they believe the protesters to be mostly students or members of the middle class, and rarely poor. I once asked such a commentator to consider an analogous situation in which university students in the US protested, say, the Vietnam war. If the students' protests are oppressed by primarily working class police, it does not imply that the students' cause is pro-capitalism and imperialism or it doesn't mean that the war with Vietnam is a good thing. Alternatively, consider the gay rights movement, which is mostly supported by the middle class, but is not pro-imperialism, Zionism, interventionism, or capitalism and doesn't mean that their cause is not important....thinks that people in the Middle East are capable of bringing two kinds of government to their societies: reactionary hardliners who will be on the US bad guys' list or dictators who are submissive to US-Israel*. I think people are capable of shattering this false dichotomy and through their struggle they will come up with more socialist secular progressive institutions. Better to rebel than to submit to tyranny, regardless of the outcome. Don't you agree? *Each one of these governments people in Middle East have, are warned of the danger of the other one. If your country is run by US-Israel puppets, you will be warned of hardliners. If the country is run by reactionary hardliners, you are warned of the danger of a government that submits to US-Israel. Thus Middle Eastern people are asked to do nothing." (Angry Reader responds to Angry Arab)

Israel the illegal murderous zionist regime

Here's a strange thing from the Guardian. It's an article about how Iran's Ahmadinejad has said that America will have to end its support for the racist war criminals of the State of Israel if it wants to have friendly relations with Iran. But see this:

"Obama should take big decisions and changes. He can't collect the support of the illegal murderous Zionist regime [Israel] and the countries of the region as well. Earning friendship of the countries in the region is not compatible with the Zionist regime's friendship. I know that dropping the Zionist regime is a difficult choice and task. [But] he should confront the Zionists and obviously the changes would not take place unless big choices happen."

Did the Guardian really need to tell its readers that by reference to the "illegal murderous zionist regime" Ahmadinejad actually meant Israel? Which other illegal murderous zionist regimes are there?

The war vultures train for the next big war (Iran)

Senior Administration officials and Congressional leaders will address hundreds of leaders of national Jewish organizations and Jewish communities from across the nation at the National Jewish Leadership Advocacy Day on Iran on Thursday, September 10.

The National Jewish Leadership Advocacy Day is organized by the Inter-Agency Task Force on Iran, which includes UJC/The Jewish Federations of North America, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, and NCSJ: Advocates on behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States & Eurasia, as well as numerous national Jewish organizations and friends of the community.

Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-MD), House Majority Leader; Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-CA), Chairman, House Foreign Affairs Committee; Rep. John A. Boehner (R-OH), House Republican Leader; Rep. Eric I. Cantor (R-VA), House Republican Whip; Rep. Nita M. Lowey (D-NY), Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee Chair; and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Republican Ranking Member, House Foreign Affairs Committee, have already confirmed their participation.

Reflecting support for President Obama’s position that Iran’s acquisition of nuclear arms capacity is “unacceptable,” this Advocacy Day is intended to urge implementation of strong economic and diplomatic measures directed at the Iranian regime and the expeditious adoption of key legislative initiatives now before Congress, including the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act.

National and community leaders are meeting with members of Congress because of the grave threat that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose to fundamental U.S. national security interests and to world peace. They will encourage the Administration to take full advantage of the tools provided by the proposed legislation in order to advance the international effort to prevent Iran from gaining a nuclear arms capability.

According to the organizers of the Advocacy Day, a government that has so little regard for human life, truth, and human rights – as does the current Iranian regime – must not be entrusted to possess the most powerful weapons known to humankind.

Participating delegations represent most major metropolitan areas from across the country, including Los Angeles and San Diego, Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, Boston, Baltimore, the Greater New York City area, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Dallas and the Greater Washington D.C. area. (UJC Press release)

Martyrs persecuted beyond death

Death doesn't end the persecution by the state.

The Iranian authorities have ordered the family of Neda Agha Soltan out of their Tehran home after shocking images of her death were circulated around the world.

Neighbours said that her family no longer lives in the four-floor apartment building on Meshkini Street, in eastern Tehran, having been forced to move since she was killed. The police did not hand the body back to her family, her funeral was cancelled, she was buried without letting her family know and the government banned mourning ceremonies at mosques, the neighbours said.

"We just know that they [the family] were forced to leave their flat," a neighbour said. The Guardian was unable to contact the family directly to confirm if they had been forced to leave.

The government is also accusing protesters of killing Soltan, describing her as a martyr of the Basij militia. Javan, a pro-government newspaper, has gone so far as to blame the recently expelled BBC correspondent, Jon Leyne, of hiring "thugs" to shoot her so he could make a documentary film. ...

In accordance with Persian tradition, the family had put up a mourning announcement and attached a black banner to the building.

But the police took them down, refusing to allow the family to show any signs of mourning. The next day they were ordered to move out. Since then, neighbours have received suspicious calls warning them not to discuss her death with anyone and not to make any protest. (The Guardian)

To readers of JSF all this should sound awfully familiar, the persecution of the families of martyrs, the disruption of funerals, and of course the fabrications, all standard operating procedures of the IDF. Let's refresh our memories with just a few stories. Click on the links to read the full account. Of course these stories would never get the amount of publicity that oppression in Iran gets.

First a recent one from Bil'in

Hundreds of mourners, including several Palestinian leaders, clergy and political activists, left the Ramallah hospital with Yosef A'qel Srur's body. They took to the streets to accompany the man, who was shot in the chest with a live bullet by Israeli soldiers on Friday, to his grave.

The procession chanted slogans affirming their belief in non-violent resistance and dedication to the struggle against the wall....

When the funeral procession arrived to the entrance to the village, four Israeli military checkpoints were set up. Mourners were forced out of their vehicles and walked the rest of the way to the village, said Salah Al-Khawaja, coordinator of the Popular Committee Against the Wall in Ni'lin. (IMEU)

And an old one from the first intifada:

At 10 pm the word spreads that the army has finally brought Salem's body back. We follow Firas' fiery but warm-hearted mother through the dark streets to the church where the funeral is to be held. There, soldiers block the entrance to prevent anyone, even relatives, from entering. Since only 30 persons are allowed in, and they are all coming by bus, everyone else must go home. With our foreign identity still protected by darkness, we hurry to join the dozens of other young men defying the army by hiding in the cemetery. "It is not Israel's right to tell me I can't bury my cousin," Issa Musleh says angrily, as men stand around waiting for the body to be handed over.(WRMEA)

And this one from Gaza recently, also the parents not even notified of the murder of their child.

If you watch the video below, which was taken by an ISM Gaza, you will notice that despite the soldiers knowing that we are UNARMED CIVILIANS and “searching for a body,” they shot at us directly and close, particularly once the body was found. They went out of their jeeps and hummers, thus, knowing that we pose not threat to them, shooting was whimsical. They shoot according to their moods and whims. “They [Israelis] knew that they shot an unarmed boy. They knew they killed him. They said no word of it!” (Intifada Palestine)

As for the lies and the horrible stories invented about the victims and how they died, there are legion: remember James Miller, Muhammad al-Dura, Rachel Corrie, Tom Hurndall ... (click on these links only on an empty stomach)

The Khameini regime is happy to flatter itself with its defense of Palestine and everybody notes that is one of the pillars of its legitimity. But they behave in the same despiccable way when their power is questioned. Power has its own built in universality. Not only do thugs and their masters learn from each other, but they also often come to the same "solutions" to their problems independently.

Of course, most of the hypocrites who are so shocked with the behavior of the Iranian government during this crisis don't even blink at the fact that this is normal behavior in Israel for decades. Obama criticized Palestinians in Cairo for not following the ways of Martin Luther King, but passed in silence Israel's routine murder of protesters like Martin Luther King. Those Iranians who justifiably resent the Western politicians' and media hypocritical attention need only carry signs "Free Palestine" to their next protest to see Gordon Brown and the BBC losing all their feigned sympathy.

Mayhem in front of the Iranian Parliament

(image from neo-resistance)

Statement of support for the people of Iran from Venezuela

Statement of support for the people of Iran from the NPA (New Anticapitalist Party -- France) This statement of support from the first European left party that endorses B.D.S. against Israel is particularly noteworthy. Nobody should be sacrificeable.

Death on camera

Attention: disturbing content ahead

The following video, which probably half the world has seen, captures the death on camera of young Iranian woman killed while non-violently protesting for her rights. CNN broadcasted it. It a "symbol."

The video on the other hand, is of the death on camera of Bassem Abu Rameh, a young Palestinian non-violent protester, near the apartheid wall that cuts into Bil'in. It wasn't broadcast on CNN. It is not a "symbol."

We even have a picture of the alleged murderer of Bassem, probably posted on Israeli indymedia by eye-witnesses. (on top is the word 'murderer' in Hebrew). CNN can probably solve a murder case of a protester and bring the criminal to justice without spending more than a $100 of investigative journalism. Why don't they do it?

Shame on CNN for caring about the death of non-violent protesters according to the interests of U.S. foreign domination. The love these journalists professes for Neda is just as racist as the their indifference towards Bassem. Indeed, it is the same racism.

Broadcast the death of Bassem!

How to help Iran

As can be seen in some of the comments to the last Iran entry, we have a few readers who cannot walk and chew gum at the same time, metaphorically speaking. Or, if one has to relay the same image through mathematics, they cannot count beyond two: Islam, West... infinity. Hence the idea that one could express concern for the safety of the protesters in Iran and support for their demand for greater civil and political rights without at the same time helping Western imperialism strikes them as utterly incomprehensible.

In fact, doing just that is less difficult than it sounds, because the Islamophobic language of much of the Western press and the authoritarian language of Khameini (and Petras) are mirror image of each other. Both seek to portray the protests as 'Western' and foreign as opposed to Islam, albeit from opposing ends. Hence opposing both is quite doable, provided one approaches the task with decency and not just seeking to paint a fist on a wall with other peoples' blood. The way to go seems to me primarily to help the real voice of Iranians be heard. Thankfully, quite a few Iranian bloggers offer free advice on how to do it effectively.

Here is one:

Tell your elected representatives, especially the American ones, Republican or Democrat, Liberal or Conservative to "SHUT THE HELL UP!"

Obama's handled this PERFECTLY well so far!

Make him know that on behalf of your Iranian friend, Naj.

The slightest American meddling will throw all that spilled blood out of the window! Let us accomplish our own deed. Then, all we ask of your government, is to respect whatever government becomes official in Iran, even if it may be Ahmadinejad. (Naj, neo-resistance)

Got that last line?

And here are some hard and bitter words from Pedestrian:

The left sounds as out of touch with Iran right now as does the right. With the difference that one group is genuinely worried and the other just can’t wait to have those chains around our necks. But I DESPISE the Craig Roberts who writes of “the westernized youth of Tehran”. EVERYTHING is about the West. We can’t demand a fair election without being Westernized. We can’t demand decency or tolerance without being Westernized. Ahmadinejad and his followers cannot be the evil, corrupt, deceitful thugs they are because they just aren’t “Westernized.” (Pedestrian, Lonely Soldiers)

And another advice, about showing up to a solidarity vigil:

A VIGIL IS IS NOT A FUCKING BIRTHDAY PARTY WITH A BLACK AND GREEN DRESS CODE!!!!

While I realize that people of ALL WALKS OF LIFE should be allowed to voice their concerns, we also need to be very careful and diligent right now. Especially with the “velvet revolution” accusations being hurled at the demonstrators in Iran, the last thing this movement needs right now is a picture of snotty Westernized teenagers with smug smiles and questionable wardrobes rallying as its supporters. (Pedestrian, Abide the Code)

Now I don't for a moment pretend that these two somehow "represent" the protest movement in Iran or Iran as whole. I have no idea. These are just two bloggers brought to my attention by regulars on this site. But "representation" is perhaps exactly what is most harmful right now. We have enough, too much, attempts to capture what this movement is and to reduce it to some preconceived usefulness to this or that agenda. What we need is recognition of (and forcing this recognition on our journalists and politicians) its diversity, complexity and unfolding as it is. Because to recognize the people of Iran as voice, as subjectivity worthy in its own right and having the right to determine itself is precisely to recognize it as unfolding and indeterminate, neither an extension of the West nor its fantasmagoric inversion.

Iran, Gucci anti-imperialism and movement anti-intellectuals

We know what a movement intellectual is, but perhaps we need a new category for James Petras, a movement anti-intellectual.


Here is how Petras describes the social-economic dynamics behind the split in Iranian society:

The great majority of voters for the incumbent probably felt that national security interests, the integrity of the country and the social welfare system, with all of its faults and excesses, could be better defended and improved with Ahmadinejad than with upper-class technocrats supported by Western-oriented privileged youth who prize individual life styles over community values and solidarity.

The demography of voting reveals a real class polarization pitting high income, free market oriented, capitalist individualists against working class, low income, community based supporters of a ‘moral economy’ in which usury and profiteering are limited by religious precepts. The open attacks by opposition economists of the government welfare spending, easy credit and heavy subsidies of basic food staples did little to ingratiate them with the majority of Iranians benefiting from those programs. The state was seen as the protector and benefactor of the poor workers against the ‘market’, which represented wealth, power, privilege and corruption. The Opposition’s attack on the regime’s ‘intransigent’ foreign policy and positions ‘alienating’ the West only resonated with the liberal university students and import-export business groups. To many Iranians, the regime’s military buildup was seen as having prevented a US or Israeli attack. (James Petras, Global Research --was Ziopedia)

Now maybe some of it is correct. It makes some sense. There is certainly a class split in Iran as there is everywhere else. But the class composition and the class content of the latest Iranian intifada is very difficult to discern, and the claim that all these oppositions, market vs. community, high income vs. low income, city vs. country side, align neatly behind two candidates from two factions of the same authoritarian ruling class is stretching credulity. The way class plays itself out in Iranian politics is a hotly debated issue. Petras, as far as I know, does not read Persian, and doesn't have any special expertise of Iran. His knowledge is second hand, based on choosing sources from available translated material and English speaking informants. He may be smarter than the Western journalists he derides, but he is in the same position they are and I am with regards to information. That position calls for a certain humility in putting forward broad theories about what is happening in Iran. Instead, we get an airtight encompassing know-it-all theory, without any attribution of any of the contentious facts, any recognition of the difficulties of getting or interpreting information, and any wrestling with alternative or discordant data. This discursive style is pseudo-intellectual. While formally argumentative and rational and sprinkled with sociological categories and apparent deductions, it boils down to a single command to the reader: "trust my wisdom".

Here is Richard Seymour summarizing what he knows about class and the current intifada in Iran:

The electoral coalition around Mousavi, by contrast, was seen to be middle-class, based disproportionately among professionals and students, with the loot provided by ruling class interests. (As one dyspeptic analyst called it, the "Gucci crowd" in alliance with Iranian capitalists). Mousavi was pushing an austerity agenda, with privatization and counter-inflationary measures at its core. To broaden his appeal, therefore, he touched on the progressive concerns of a layer of the population which has had enough of the Basij militias and the media clampdowns and the political prisoners...

Some liberal analysts disputed the idea that Ahmadinejad had decisively won the working class vote. Robert Dreyfuss, reporting from Tehran, claimed that it was almost impossible to find a supporter of Ahmadinejad even in the poorer areas. Juan Cole, disputing the primacy of class in interpreting Iranian elections, pointed out that neoliberal reformers such as Khatami had won 70% of the vote in 1997, and then over 78% in 2001. Khatami obviously had to win support far beyond his business supporters. This did not prove that the reformers had a majority in 2009, of course - we aren't going to get proof, whatever the truth of the matter is - but it does mean that caution is called for in the assumptions that we make. Reza Fiyouzat makes what seems to be to be a far more compelling point, though: "The most class-conscious, the most politically active of the Iranian working classes, are by far the most anti-government. How do we know this? We know this because they invariably end up in jail." Well, quite.

...And we have seen the riots spread chaotically to working class areas of Isfahan (see also), where the protesters drove out the police, and the southern city of Yazd. The protests have spread to workers' districts in southern Tehran. Reports of working class turnout are appearing, albeit infrequently, in some of the English-language press. (Leninology)

What is the difference? Seymour links to no less than four discussions of class politics in Iran by people who have more knowledge than he does and who together produce a complex and sometimes contradictory image. This is not because he isn't smart enough to provide a clean-shaven Marxist analysis a-la Petras, but because he is smart enough to know when it isn't enough to be smart.

In the final analysis Petras doesn't provide an analysis. He provides marching orders based on his supposed intellectual authority rather than an appeal to the reader to exercise her own intellect in order to understand social reality and to move to action based on that understanding. That kind of demagoguery, despite the intellectual accoutrement it is shrouded it, is both anti-intellectual and anti-democratic. And to the extent that there is a link between theory and practice, that perhaps explains why he is so solidly supportive of Khameini.

That is so far as style, which is quite important. But here a few more substantial questions.

Let us begin with "the Gucci crowd" of North Teheran. (This is a digression, since Petras mercifully doesn't use the phrase, but he supports the sentiment behind it.) That dismissive phrase was perhaps legitimate when Bhadrakumar coined it on the 16th. At that time, the people were largely absent from the scene and it was quite reasonable to read the events soley through the prism of elite manoevring between Rafsanjani and Khameini. To use this phrase today against millions of working people who have marched for days facing state violence and even live ammunition is deeply offensive, and those who use that phrase, however much they take issue with the politics of the marchers, should be ashamed of themselves. Besides, it sounds very much the camel does not see the crookedness of his own neck. Those who have used this phrase probably own more iPhones than the people about whom this phrased was used. Perhaps we need to talk about Gucci anti-imperialism first.

Second, Petras uses class language that is emptied of its emancipatory content. To the extent that the class relations in Iran matter, the first question is how they matter to the future history of Iran, not how they explain elections. One uses class to identify the forces that can propel the interest of the working class moving forward. That is hardly discovered by simply noting whomever a majority of low income workers voted for in an electoral conjecture with a binary choice between two elite candidates (assuming it is true, and I think we simply do not know whether it is true, that Ahmadinejad won that support). In the U.S. low income voters were more enthused about Palin than about Obama. In Israel, Avigdor Liberman is a working class hero, a recent immigrant from Russia who rose from being a night club bouncer to the post of Foreign Minister. Shouldn't we all welcome the wisdom of the voters who elected him? All over the world, low income majorities often vote for lousy candidates, not because they are ignorant, although that does happen, but primarily because a vote is not a vision statement but a context-bound decision within a scope limited by material conditions, institutional constraints and social horizons. It is crucial to understand popular electoral preferences, but if the goal of the radical left is to rally behind whoever wins the vote than how come we are we not rallying behind the ruling parties in our own countries? But for Petras the future advances of Iranian people seems at best a secondary concern. The current economic arrangement, with a sclerotic capitalist economy owned by a clique of security services and clerical families and mitigated by a "moral economy" that does little besides an inadequate safety net with a few bones thrown to the masses must be defended at all cost against an impressively brave and popular nascent civil rights movement. Why? As we get to the end of Petras's article we see that what matters to Petras is not the future of the Iranian working class but the future of Zionism in the U.S. It is the fact that the Iranian protesters provide fodder for the Zionists in Obama's administration that warrants making little of the protesters. They crashed his party.

When people demonstrated in the U.S. against George Bush, not against capitalism, but often just against the oversexed unaccountability of the Bush administration, its so-called "excesses," it was the Ann Coulter variety of fascist bufoons who criticized those protests for "giving comfort to the enemy". You didn't have to be a radical anarchist to understand that Americans have the right to demand greater transparency and accountability of their state regardless of whether that makes Osama bin Laden smile. It is a shame that in the name of anti-imperialism one would deny Iranians the same basic right. When the "Supreme Leader" of Iran accuses a million protesters in the streets of serving Zionism, he is making the Ann Coulter argument. This is no perfect analogy because the threat of interference in Iran is more substantial. But it is not that far off either. There hasn't been a wretched regime on Earth that hasn't used national security and patriotism to justify its wretchedness. Relaxing the clutches of the Iranian power structure requires no subservience to the West. That is especially true if indeed Ahmadinejad won. But to claim that clerical authoritarian control is needed to defend Iranian independence is an insult to Iranians. Using "treason" as a cudgel against dissent is just too easy and it doesn't take a lot of perceptiveness to notice that the Iranian ruling class is excessively liberal with this tactic. Moreover, a great deal of the ease with which this argument is accepted abroad is about illegitimate projection and appropriation by non-Iranians like Petras. As long as Ahmadinejad makes the right noises on Palestine (and whether he does that is at least debatable), as long as Khamenei supports Hizbullah, that kind of "anti-imperialist" message means that Iranians who reject the repressive political system imposed on them can drop dead, because getting agitated might, God forbid, cheer Tzipi Livni. The Iranian regime is apparently too valuable for that anti-imperialist cause to allow the Iranians people much say in how it is run. But may I ask who appointed any of us to decide on the right order in which people should queue up to reclaim their freedom? Who decides that the status quo in Iran is just too important for letting the mere aspirations of Iranians shake it? A further frightening aspect of these preposterous accusations is that they can become self-fulfilling. People tend to seek the friendship of their enemies' enemies, and the conservative clerics' tendency to see imaginary Zionists behind every stone can make way to many Iranians feel unwarrantedly charitable towards Zionism. Add to that a dose of historical anti-Arab racism that could be easily exploited and the "anti-imperialist" infatuation with the Islamic Republic has the potential to explode in our faces in ways we will come to rue.

It is one thing to defend the Iranian state from outside assault and interference, all necessary and laudable, one thing to recognize the occasional political usefulness of the Iranian state on the world's stage, which is real enough if often exaggerated, one thing to admit that the replacement of the Shah's kingdom of thieves with the Islamic Republic was a positive historical development with real material gains for the Iranian working class, and quite another thing to cheer the crackdown on dissent and to root for state violence against a mass movement of people demanding basic civil and political rights, especially rights that our Gucci anti-imperialists enjoy in their safe(r) abodes. Furthermore, in so far as divide-and-rule is the lifeblood of imperialism, the pitting against each other of different forms of oppression, the demand that we chose exclusively, whether one is pro-Palestinian OR pro-civil rights in Iran, but not both, whether one is against Islamophobia OR for womens' rights, but not both, and so forth, in short, imposing whichever struggle we fancy to be more important on others and demanding that they put their demands for liberation on hold, is not anti-imperialist. On the contrary, it deepens the divisions on the basis of which imperialism flourishes.

As outside observers it is not our role to decide between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi. Nor it is our role to certify or decertify the elections or solve the legitimation crisis of the Iranian state. It is reasonably clear that much of the popular support behind Ahmadinejad is based on legitimate concerns and claims, including fears that Mousawi wished to deepen exploitation and collaborate with the West. It should be equally clear that the millions of working people who are now braving state violence in the streets also have legitimate concerns and claims, including true self-determination, which is not only freedom from U.S. imperialism, but also freedom from state violence and basic civil rights, including the right to form independent trade unions and parties that militate for real economic transformation and not just palliative populism.

As outside observers, we have two obligations now. First, we need to keep our own states from using the events in Iran to advance imperialist stratagems. But we also need to show solidarity with the struggle for greater freedom in Iran. And not much is demanded from us. All that is asked for is, as Hamid Dabashi phrases it,

the active solidarity of ordinary people around the globe to be a witness to their struggles and demand from their media an accurate and comprehensive representation of their movement (Hamid Dabashi)

All we are asked for is to respect the Iranian people, all of them, both those who voted for Ahmadinejad and those who didn't, and not to confuse their voice and their interests with that of either their unelected ruling clique or the foreign "support" that seek to exploit them.

Is that too much to ask from the radical left?

(images collected by the WPI)

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UPDATE: The link to Petras's article is stale, so I changed it to where the article was apparently originally published. Perhaps Petras ask them to remove the article. Just to be clear, I wouldn't have changed it to appease the dishonest islamophobic alliance that complained about the link. Their "criticism" is beneath contempt.

The people of Iran

I don't know what is going on in Iran. The liberal bull#*it about the supposedly pro-Western reformist Moussavi supposedly pulling an upset victory over the supposedly retrograde Ahmedinejad doesn't make much sense. But regardless of what is going on among the clerical circles and the nomenklatura, the people have seized on the moment to express their expectations and hopes. I am inspired by this picture. These people show courage facing an armed and willing to kill repressive state apparatus and they are making history. They are blessed.



Watch and practice at home!

Israel might provoke a war with iran

Aluf Benn, Haaretz analyst, understands the latest statements of Netanyahu and Obama and raising the probability that Israel will attack or provoke a war with Iran.

Netanyahu reiterated that he has come to an understanding with U.S. President Barack Obama on preventing Iran from acquiring a military nuclear capability. Unlike the dispute between Netanyahu and the United States on the Palestinian question, the Americans have not denied his statements on understandings reached on Iran.
...
There are other possibilities to consider: a war in the north that drags Iran in, or a strike against a valuable target for the Iranian regime, which leads Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Ahmadinejad to take action against "the Zionist regime." If Iran attacks Israel first, the element of surprise will be lost, but then Israel's strike against the nuclear installations will be considered self-defense.
...
It's hard to imagine that Obama will order the interception of Israeli aircraft on the way to Natanz if all other ways of stopping the centrifuges have failed. Clearly the administration will have to chastise Israel, and let's not forget the statements by CIA chief Leon Panetta, who warned against any operation not coordinated with the United States. But no one knows how Obama will behave in the moment of truth. He told Newsweek that he will not tell Israelis what their defense requirements are. Netanyahu liked this very much. (Haaretz, June 26, 2009)

Ahmadinjed got something right...almost

That's true. Anyone can state the obvious, you don't have to be the president of a state to get something right. And of course when you get so much wrong it's easy for listeners to cop a deaf'un when you do get something right. Anyway, see this letter in today's Independent:

The Iranian government is wrong on many things. They've beaten Iranians, tortured them, jailed them without fair trial and murdered them. And President Ahmadinejad is wrong in doubting the Holocaust happened, but he's right about one thing: Israel's treatment of Israeli and Palestinian Arabs is racist.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu and UN special rapporteur Professor John Dugard both visited Israel and the Israeli occupied Palestinian territories. Both compared it to the apartheid system they'd lived under.

When an Arab Knesset member proposed a binational state, with citizenship for Jews and Arabs, the Defence Minister Ehud Barak portrayed Israeli Arabs as a "fifth column"' inside the "Jewish state".

Duncan McFarlane

Carluke, South Lanarkshire

Hmm, that "Israel does naughty stuff" type argument doesn't quite do it for me really. What's this guy saying? There's an occupation and some high profiles have ticked Israel off about it. Further the most "left wing" member of the current Israeli government has incited racial hatred against the remnant of what was the Arab majority in that part of Palestine that fell to zionist occupation in 1948.

Now that reminds of what I heard the translator say when Ahmadinejad made his speech. He made a reference to a "racist government" or maybe "regime". Obviously Israel has a racist government and a racist regime but constitutionally it can't have anything else and reference to its government, the regime, the occupation, the racism of this or that politician all miss the point that Israel is a full-blown racist state. But as far as he went Ahmadinejad got something right and lost a chunk of audience for it.

I must say that it is nice to see so many letters in the Independent criticising Israel these days. It doesn't quite make up for the pro-zionist position of Comment is free over at the Guardian but it does show that the anti-zionist word is being spread and people shouldn't be too disheartened about the deterioration at Comment is free. It is much worse under Matt Seaton than it was under Georgina Henry but the Guardian has never been as critical of Israel as has been made out by zionists.

So, anything else in the Indie? Yes, a letter from Rosalind Preston OBE, Co-chair, Jewish Human Rights Coalition UK, Place des Nations, Geneva complaining that Ahmadinejad didn't mention the holocaust, at least I think she said that, and she applauded the people that walked out on account of Ahmadinejad's "genocidal mindset".

Finally there's a letter from my friend Ben Counsell exposing yet more published zionist dishonesty:

In his attempt to defend Zionism, Dr Jacob Amir asserts that the West Bank barrier is a "security barrier between Israel and the West Bank" (Letters, 17 April). The barrier does not run "between" Israel and the West Bank, but cuts deep into the West Bank.

The Israeli President, Shimon Peres, has said of the barrier: "The line is following a certain vision of the future. When that happens, it stops being a security fence and becomes a political fence. Nobody will admit that it is being built for these [political] reasons; nobody will admit that it is a political line."

Well thank goodness for an Israeli president with Shimon Peres's integrity. This covert openness repeats and repeats among zionist leaders. You get the absurd situation where some zionist leader says to a public audience, "we should do this, that or the other, but we should not say so publicly". And a supine western media has played along. But since Gaza some cracks are now appearing in the hasbara edifice and the widest of them appears to be at the Independent.

Authority upholds complaint against AJC

I posted some time ago about how the so-called American Jewish Committee was inciting war against Iran by way of full page ads in newspapers around the world. Well according to the Guardian the Advertising Standards Authority has upheld a complaint from the Iranian embassy against the advert. Here's the article:

The advertising watchdog has upheld a complaint from the Iranian embassy about a campaign by the American Jewish Committee that showed the projected range of possible missile attacks on neighbouring countries.

The US pressure group's campaign, which ran in the Financial Times, prompted 62 complaints from members of the public as well as the Iranian embassy.

The advert, which asked the question, "Can anyone within range of Iran's missiles feel safe?", featured a political map of Eurasia and Africa, centred on Iran, which was in the middle of two concentric circles that indicated the current and projected range of Iran's missile capability.

Below the map text stated: "Suppose Iran one day gives nuclear devices to terrorists. Could anyone anywhere feel safe?"

The complainants said the ad was "scaremongering" and appealed to people's fears of terrorist attacks; that it was "irresponsible" and likely to incite violence and hatred against Muslims and Iranians in particular; and was misleading because it implied that Iran would use nuclear weapons to launch attacks on any countries in the range of the circles.

The AJC did not respond to the Advertising Standards Authority's inquiries.

The FT said the ad was clearly labelled and represented the views of a well-known advocacy group, and pointed out that they had taken legal advice before publishing the ad.

The edition of the FT in which the ad appeared had a prominent article about Iran's nuclear programme.

And the newspaper pointed out that the text of the ad posed a question, not a statement of fact. It also defended the content as acceptable because of the "calibre" of the FT's readership.

The ASA dismissed all the complaints except those relating to the claims on the estimated and projected missile ranges.

The AJC, which is a New York-based pressure group whose aim is "combating anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry", was told not to repeat the claims.

In other words, the AJC was exaggerating about the existence, range and efficacy of Iranian weapons. Now where has that happened before?

Thanks to Lordb.