Nothing But Politics

[eaglesurvivor]

Iran Behind the Veil
by William F. Jasper
October 16, 2006

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is being falsely cast as conciliatory and cooperative by U.S. elites, which will likely lead to a disastrous appeasement strategy.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's controversial visit to New York City to address the United Nations on September 19 has highlighted the Tehran regime's new center-stage role in world affairs. Thousands of demonstrators gathered outside the UN headquarters to protest the volatile Ahmadinejad's previous statements calling for the State of Israel to be "wiped off the map," as well as his support for Hezbollah and other terrorist groups, and Iran's ongoing programs to develop nuclear weapons.

However, inside the UN, most of the delegates of the 191-member General Assembly warmly welcomed and applauded the Iranian firebrand. In fact, the UN confab was virtually a replay of the 118-nation Non-Aligned Movement summit in Havana, Cuba, four days before, where Ahmadinejad received hugs from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and was ecstatically cheered by the likes of Cuba's Raoul Castro (standing in for ailing brother Fidel), Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Bolivia's Evo Morales, Sudan's Omar al-Bashir, Syria's Bashar al-Assad, and Kim Yong-nam representing North Korea's Kim Jong-il — tyrants all.

The Iranian president's UN speech was pointedly critical of President George Bush and efforts by the United States and other Western nations to halt Iran's nuclear fuel enrichment program. However, it was clearly less incendiary than usual. It was obviously crafted to present a softer, kinder image of Iran and to position Ahmadinejad before the world and the American public as the advocate of peace and reconciliation.

"In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful." So began President Ahmadinejad's global address. "Whether we like it or not," declared the Iranian leader, "justice, peace and virtue will sooner or later prevail in the world with the will of Almighty God.... I emphatically declare that today's world, more than ever before, longs for just and righteous people with love for all humanity."

A man of peace? To the casual, uninformed observer, Ahmadinejad might look and sound like a Persian version of a 1960s flower child. However, continuing the policies of his predecessors, Ahmadinejad's regime is sponsoring terrorism around the world and destabilizing the entire Middle East.

"Iran remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism," the U.S. State Department said in the 2005 edition of its annual Country Reports on Terrorism. "Its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) were directly involved in the planning and support of terrorist acts and continued to exhort a variety of groups, especially Palestinian groups with leadership cadres in Syria and Lebanese Hizballah, to use terrorism in pursuit of their goals," the report said. "In addition, the IRGC was increasingly involved in supplying lethal assistance to Iraqi militant groups, which destabilizes Iraq," it noted.

Since that State Department report was written, Iran's Hezbollah terrorist proxies have turned Lebanon into an inferno. Tehran continues to provide funding, training, logistical support, and direction not only to Hezbollah, but also to Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda, Al-Aqsa Martyrs, and over two dozen other terrorist organizations.

On August 1, only a few weeks before his UN appearance, Ahmadinejad, the "man of peace," delivered a scathing attack on America to a large Tehran mob that was repeatedly punctuated by the unified chant: "Death to America! Death to America!" Although he is the elected president of Iran, he serves at the pleasure of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has been the official "Supreme Leader" since 1990, when he assumed that title upon the death of Ayatollah Khomeini. Like his mentor, Ayatollah Khomeini, Ali Khamenei also is known for denouncing America as the "Great Satan." Khamenei also has hosted and presided over, in Tehran, some of the most important global terrorist summits of the past two decades.

Ahmadinejad and Khamenei have been close comrades and have been in the thick of Iranian politics ever since the 1979 revolution that overthrew the Shah of Iran. Ahmadinejad's claim that "every problem we [Iranians] have will be solved by global Islamic rule," and his militant exhortations that Muslims "must prepare ourselves to rule the world," are a reflection of the Khomeini/Khamenei influence upon him. He has also continued the Khomeini/Khamenei program of acquiring nuclear weapons technology as well as missile delivery systems.

Nevertheless, during his recent outing to the UN, President Ahmadinejad found himself the eagerly sought man of the hour. CNN, NBC, Time magazine, and other media organizations were tripping over each other in the rush for "exclusive" interviews with the new celebrity. The media-savvy Ahmadinejad undoubtedly views all of his U.S.-tour coverage as a raging success. He was allowed to present himself as a reasonable man to American audiences, and just as important, to increase his (and Iran's) world stature by presenting to a global audience the confident image of a government unafraid to challenge the American colossus.

Meeting the Establishment

Perhaps Ahmadinejad's biggest coup was his closed-door tête-à-tête on September 20 with a select group of America's private foreign-policy establishment from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Participants in the exclusive conclave included the organization's chairman emeritus David Rockefeller, current chairman Peter G. Peterson, CFR President Richard Haass, and prominent CFR members such as Newsweek editor/columnist Fareed Zakaria, former national security advisor Brent Scowcroft, New York Times reporter David Sanger, and former White House adviser Robert Blackwill.

The CFR's website described the event as a sparring match, reporting that "the Iranian leader engaged in a protracted punch and counterpunch with the [CFR] panel." The outcome of that meeting is likely to have profound implications for U.S. policy vis-à-vis Iran. Washington Post ombudsman Richard Harwood once referred to the CFR as "the American ruling class," a description that is quite apropos. Other Washington insiders have noted that it is the council that draws up most of the plans that eventually become official U.S. government policy. And it is a fact that hundreds of council members have held top positions in one White House administration after another, a feat unmatched by any other organization.

Shiite "Stability"

So, what is the council's "line" on Iran? What "advice" is it likely to push as official policy for the Bush administration? It would appear that we are going to see a great reversal. For the past year, prominent CFR members and many of the major media organs in the CFR orbit of influence have been beating the war drums, giving the appearance that war with Iran was imminent and unavoidable. But the message to come out after the Ahmadinejad meeting would seem to signal that we will be moving toward a period of "constructive engagement" with Tehran.

Richard Haass, the council's president and a former senior U.S. State Department official under Bush, told the Reuters news service, following the meeting: "My sense was that, in principle, he [Ahmadinejad] was open to a relationship [with the United States] but that he wanted the United States to take the initiative to bring it about."

While some of the CFR's leading experts continue to rattle sabers and appear to be beating war drums, the dominant strain in the council's media chorus is sounding the siren song of "new thinking" concerning our relationship with Tehran. And the Bush administration has already signaled that it is adopting this line, issuing conciliatory statements about adopting a "diplomatic" rather than military approach to a regime Bush once called part of the "axis of evil."

One of the main pieces setting this CFR theme is an article that was penned several months before the Ahmadinejad meeting, by CFR Adjunct Senior Fellow Vali Nasr. Published in the July-August 2006 issue of the council's journal, Foreign Affairs, it is entitled, "When the Shiites Rise." According to Professor Nasr, the terror regime represented by Ahmadinejad and Khamenei, and their whipping up of Shia Islam to serve their revolutionary purpose, is actually "constructive" and positive. "The emerging Shiite revival [in Iraq and throughout the Middle East] need not be a source of concern for the United States, even though it has rattled some U.S. allies in the Middle East," Nasr claimed. "In fact, it presents Washington with new opportunities to pursue its interests in the region."

How so? "Building bridges with the region's Shiites could become the one clear achievement of Washington's tortured involvement in Iraq," argues Nasr. "Succeeding at that task, however, would mean engaging Iran, the country with the world's largest Shiite population and a growing regional power, which has a vast and intricate network of influence among the Shiites across the Middle East, most notably in Iraq."

Incredibly, the CFR's Iran expert Nasr asserts that the Tehran regime actually should be considered a vital security ally who can help assure that Iraqi factions do not "spin out of control, destabilize southern Iraq, and erode government authority in Baghdad." But are we truly supposed to believe that the best course of action is to support "stability" in Iraq under Shiite fanatics backed by Iran? The same Shiite militants who are already killing U.S. troops in Iraq? Apparently so. According to Nasr, "Iranian cooperation is crucial" to achieving U.S. goals in Iraq. In fact, he fantastically asserts that "Iran's cooperation would help address Iraq's security and reconstruction needs, as well as buttress the central government in Baghdad."

As absurd as this all is, it appears to have been adopted by the Bush administration, which seems to happily accept Tehran's new Iraqi influence on the one hand, even as it rhetorically swats Iranian terrorism with the other hand. And when Iraq's Tehran-allied Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani becomes the new Ayatollah Khomeini of Baghdad, issuing "Great Satan" declamations against the United States and sending terrorist cells to attack us, what then?

Professor Nasr has been retailing this same pro-Tehran message for the CFR in other articles, speeches, and media interviews. But he is not alone. Other CFR "experts" have been delivering the same message in higher academic and political circles, and now it is making its way into the popular press. Some of these enlightened intelligentsia are now even suggesting that we may need to negotiate something similar to the arrangement that President Clinton came up with for North Korea: i.e., win the hearts of Iran's mullahs by providing them with peaceful nuclear power plants and whatever else they need to show that we mean them no harm. Of course, North Korea has rewarded our largesse by becoming even more belligerent and developing even more threatening weapons of mass destruction.

Architects of Catastrophe

On September 20, the same day that Presidents Bush and Ahmadinejad addressed the UN, the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler, in an analysis piece entitled, "U.S. Policy on Iran Evolves Toward Diplomacy," reported that behind the scenes the Bush administration was moving from a confrontational mode with Iran to a "diplomatic solution."

This is supposed to make us all so relieved that we are not going to war that we uncritically embrace the new "diplomatic option" as a godsend. But as has so often been the case in U.S. foreign policy "options" scripted by the CFR "wise men" (as they refer to themselves in their in-house literature), we are being presented with false alternatives. War and diplomacy are both legitimate functions of the State; but the history of our world has shown that both have been deceitfully abused by rulers to advance their own schemes for power.

Either option exercised by the CFR power elite who dominate the Bush administration is bound to be a prescription for disaster. If it's war, we can expect our already stretched-thin military forces to be bogged down not only in Iran, but in an ever-expanding war against inflamed world Islam. Meanwhile, our still unprotected borders will invite more terrorism at home.

On the other hand, a CFR-led diplomatic solution would no doubt follow the pattern of past initiatives that have ended up strengthening America's enemies: think North Korea, China — and Iran — to name a few.

It should not be forgotten that it was the same academic, media, and political elites — led by the Council on Foreign Relations — that set the disastrous diplomatic course that has brought us to our current dilemma. It was President Jimmy Carter and his entourage — Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, Ambassador William Sullivan, Adviser George Ball, Ambassador to the UN Andrew Young, National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, General Robert Huyser (CFR "wise men" all, to name but a few) — who combined the power of the U.S. government with that of the CFR's opinion cartel to topple America's most important ally in the region, anti-communist Shah Reza Pahlavi of Iran. The Soviets wanted him out desperately. The Carter administration's CFR brain trust could not have been more helpful to Moscow in realizing that objective.

Under pressure from Carter, the Shah released from prison hundreds of terrorists and criminals whom Carter and the media had designated "political prisoners" and "human rights activists." When these same individuals began stirring up violent demonstrations and engaging in criminal acts, the Shah, under pressure from the Carter administration, ordered his military and police to back off. As the situation predictably worsened, Carter stepped up the pressure, including threats to cut off Iran's military supplies unless the Shah left his country. Finally, the Shah did that and Ayatollah Khomeini was installed as the new grand vizier of the Persian Gulf.

All should have been wonderful; after all, didn't President Jimmy Carter refer to Khomeini as "a man of God," and didn't his UN Ambassador Andrew Young identify him as a "Twentieth-century saint"? The truth, of course, is that the overthrow of the Shah and his replacement with Khomeini set in motion a tectonic shift of incredible magnitude, and the aftershocks have been rocking the world ever since. Shah Pahlavi's dynasty may not have been perfect, but it was a positive force for modernization and moderation of Persia's Islamic society, as well as for human rights progress, and security against both Soviet domination of the area and the growing threat of Soviet-sponsored terrorism. The overthrow of the Shah's leadership, enlightened by Middle East standards, planted a virulent regime in Tehran, that, with support from Russia, Communist China, and North Korea, has been transformed into a global terror axis.

What Now?

Tehran's danger to the United States and other nations now extends beyond the threat posed by its terrorist networks. Iran now exercises tremendous economic and political influence through its oil production, its control of the Persian Gulf's strategic Straits of Hormuz, and its growing influence in OPEC, the UN, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Economic Cooperation Organization, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the World Islamic Council.

Every step of the way leading toward this dilemma, the CFR policy elites in both Democrat and Republican administrations have failed to take any beneficial actions, most notably, not only failing to make credible efforts to pressure Moscow and Beijing to stop building Iran's terror potential, but actually rewarding both Russia and China with financial and technological assistance in spite of their support for terror. Another round of that kind of diplomacy could be catastrophic for America.

So how should the United States respond to Iran — diplomacy or war? The short answer is that we do not need to do either. We certainly should not agree to make any accommodations with a terror state such as Iran. Any agreements that are made with such a regime — the transfer of technological assistance in exchange for a promise not to develop nuclear weapons, for instance — would be broken as soon as it is in the interest of that regime to do so. Nor should we go to war against Iran, unless of course we have absolutely no other choice because of Iranian aggression against us.

Instead, we should safeguard our country against treachery, including drastically increasing our own border security. We should also stop giving financial and material aid to governments such as China and Russia that support Iran. We cannot now undo the damage that was done when our policy elites supported the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in the 1970s. But we can — and must — stop helping unsavory regimes or the sponsors of those regimes.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/artman/publish/article_4240.shtml