Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Election of Ahmadinejad Custom-Made for Neocons (from uruknet)


uruknet (Italy)

Election of Ahmadinejad Custom-Made for Neocons

Kurt Nimmo, Another Day in the Empire

original:

<http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m13168&l=i&size=1&hd=0>

June 28, 2005

For the Straussian neocons, the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran is Christmas in June. It firms up their argument that the country is trapped in a mullah-instigated vapor-lock and in order for "democracy" (i.e., neocons and neolib carpet-baggers allowed to make the country Israel-friendly and turn off the oil burglar alarms) to prevail, invasion (or shock and awe) is the only choice, since we all know Iran's mullahs are obsessive-compulsive on the idea of stocking nukes. However, as William O. Beeman <http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=9da0bcd682e7e4b57ad05d619b4a18c3> points out, attacking Iran, as the attack against Iraq, will be no cakewalk. "Ahmadinejad's persona and his message are clearly irresistible to people who see the original ideals of the revolution slipping away through the increasingly Westernized behavior and sensibilities of the salons and boutiques of North Tehran," writes Beeman.

In short, the social forces that brought Ahmadinejad to the presidency are real, broad and clearly very powerful. Any American move to attack Iran, or to try to achieve regime change through the narrow measure of trying to topple [Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei, considered the Supreme Leader of Iran] or any limited group of individuals will fail. The Iranian public supporting Ahmadinejad and what he represents will reject any replacement for the current government, and the rest of the Iranian population will consider anything initiated by the United States to be tainted.

In other words, the neocons are walking the same tight rope they walked a couple years ago with Iraq and the result will be about the same-no, far worse, since Iran has a population of 69,018,924 people, 89% of them Shi'a Muslims (Iraq's population stands at 24,683,313 and only a small number of minority Sunnis are actively resisting, with predictably results for the U.S. military). It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize very few Iranians will assent to the invasion of their country and the imposition of a government hand-picked by the Muslim-hating neocons. As I pointed out in February (If Bush Attacks Iran, there will be Hell to Pay in Iraq: Iran prepares for Asymmetrical Warfare <http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/NIM502B.html> ), the Iranians fully expect Bush to attack in one way or another and they will not sit idly by and allow the United States to undermine their government, as it did when Mohammed Mossadeq was overthrown in a CIA-engineered coup and the dictator Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was installed. Iranians remember this betrayal and will fight tooth and nail to make sure the United States doesn't impose another monarchy or dictatorial regime, selected by a gaggle of Muslim-hating Strausscons.

Beeman makes mention of an editorial by one Ray Takeyh, a "senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations," who claims

that the "counter reform" movement that led to Ahmadinejad's victory at the polls is entirely the doing of Iranian chief jurisprudent Ali Khamene'i. Takeyh's analysis echoes an infamous paper issued by the Committee on the Present Danger-an organization of ex-Cold Warriors that has retooled itself as an anti-terrorist organization. That report, issued Dec. 20, 2004, was entitled "Iran: A New Approach," and was authored by Mark Palmer and George Schultz. Its main point was to paint Khamene'i as a Saddam-style dictator.

It should be noted that the current iteration of the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD) is strictly a neocon deal, fronted by that premier neocon organization (a cabal or war criminals), the American Enterprise Institute. "[CPD] was first founded in 1950 to combat the 'red menace' of communism," writes Tom Regan <http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/mideast/iraq/2293.html> for the Christian Science Monitor. "It came back in the mid-70s for another crack at the Soviet Union. Now a group of lawmakers, academics, and business people has relaunched the Committee on the Present Danger, specifically to fight 'Islamic terrorism.' Honorary chairmen, Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), along with former CIA director James Woolsey, announced the reorganization of the group." Lieberman, of course, is a pro-Likudite dem-neocon, and Woolsey, former spook of spooks at the CIA, has, as of late, gone by the moniker "Mr. World War IV" (World War III, according to the neocons, was in fact the Cold War). Michele Steinberg <http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2004/3126cpd_iii.html> calls the CPD the "Committee To Blow Up the World," beginning with the Muslim Middle East.

"Israel, a nation dependent upon U.S. military aid and unable to withstand detente between the Soviet Union and the U.S. because of its need for U.S. military aid, had built up significant influence in the CPD. The primary contact person was Michael Ledeen who was connected with Oliver North and the Iran-Contra affair," explains Right Web <http://rightweb.irc-online.org/groupwatch/cpd.php> . It should be noted that Ledeen's pet project for some time now has been convincing the United States it must attack Iran and render its mullahs useless (all the problems in the world, according to Ledeen, stem from Iranian mullahs).

So here we have the CFR agreeing with the CPD and its neocon front organizations (including the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, the Coalition for Democracy in Iran, and the Alliance for Democracy in Iran) that Ahmadinejad is a Khamenei puppet and Khamenei is a "Saddam-style dictator" and we know what these guys did to Saddam, or more significantly the Iraqi people in the name of eliminating Saddam.

Get used to war and more war, or I should say more shock and awe and, down the road a piece, American soldiers dying like they now are in Iraq (in fact, if the neocons pull this one off, more soldiers will die in Iraq, since the Shi'a in Iraq will be agitated considerably by any attack on their brother Shi'a in Iran).

The election of Ahmadinejad is Christmas morning for the Strausscons and the Likudites because they really don't want change through the ballet box but through bunker-buster diplomacy. Iranian elections will satisfy the neocons. It's all about bombing the heck out the place-not only taking out the alleged nuke development sites, but, as in Iraq, the civilian infrastructure, pitching the country back into the Dark Ages, as demanded by Operation Chaos and Kill Muslims-and then imposing another Shah or equally sadistic and repressive dictator who will recognize Israel and give Iran's oil back to its rightful owners, the transnational oil corporations.

Of course, this will not work and the Iranians will fight to the death to defend their country, thus necessitating (as "we stay the course" again) a fresh influx of conscripted bullet-stoppers. It remains to be seen if this will nudge the American citizen-consumer out of his or her somnolence or if they will remain anchored on the sofa with the reality shape-shifting remote control in hand.


William O. Beeman
Professor, Anthropology; and Theatre, Speech and Dance
Brown University
Providence, RI 02912
Tel: (401) 863-3251
Academic Papers and Vita: http://www.williambeeman.com
Blog and current Op-ed pieces--Culture and International Affairs http://www.wbeeman.com
(2004-2005 Visiting Professor, Cultural and Social Anthropology,
Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305)

My latest book: The "Great Satan" vs. The "Mad Mullahs": How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other. (Praeger/Greenwood).
More information at: http://www.greenwood.com/books/BookDetail.asp?sku=C8214