US and Iran: Breaking up is hard to undo

I dont care how hard it is just do it

Thank God they are at least trying.

The people of Iran seem to want improved relations with the US. Much of the government does not. I do not claim Iran is a true democracy, but they do vote and it has some (limited) impact. The US should court the people of Iran and let them know if they can get a moderate in power, the US will reward them.

That could have worked with Khatami (sp?).

Congress has a bill before it right now to force Bush to seek approval from Congress before attacking Iran. Your reps could stand to hear from you. They already have from me.

The problem is, after the crap GW has pulled against Iran in the past year it'd be a miracle if they were willing to talk at all!

Meanwhile Washington may be seeking to destabilise Iran from within. ....Threat escalation also serves to pressure others to join US efforts to strangle Iran economically, with predictable success in Europe. Another predictable consequence, presumably intended, is to induce the Iranian leadership to be as repressive as possible, fomenting disorder while undermining reformers.

It is also necessary to demonise the leadership. In the west, any wild statement by President Ahmadinejad is circulated in headlines, dubiously translated. But Ahmadinejad has no control over foreign policy, which is in the hands of his superior, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. ....there is silence when Khamenei says that Iran supports the Arab League position on Israel-Palestine, calling for normalisation of relations with Israel if it accepts the international consensus of a two-state settlement....

In 2003, Iran offered negotiations on all outstanding issues, including nuclear policies and Israel-Palestine relations. Washington's response was to censure the Swiss diplomat who brought the offer. The following year, the EU and Iran reached an agreement that Iran would suspend enriching uranium; in return the EU would provide "firm guarantees on security issues" - code for US-Israeli threats to bomb Iran.

Apparently under US pressure, Europe did not live up to the bargain. Iran then resumed uranium enrichment. A genuine interest in preventing the development of nuclear weapons in Iran would lead Washington to implement the EU bargain, agree to meaningful negotiations and join with others to move toward integrating Iran into the international economic system.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2030015,00.html

Clarke,

I fail to see the rainbow love fest that is often thought to exist in the minds of the left and spouted about by the leftest media. The USA should have done something about Iran back in the early 80's but we lacked the leadership with a real pair, all it did was threw good mens lives away trying to fly choppers in the desert without the proper filters. Yes who else but X-Press Carter, you know the one running around telling everyone he has all the answers, just where were the answers when he was in office? Iran is behind the biggest terror groups in the world and its not to play nice with the world with, they want a fight with us just not one from Iraq. They are trying to pick the time and place for this fight and don't want us in Iraq because their defense is not set up for that fight. Iran is full of nuts and mad men bent on wiping us off the map! So I'm sorry for all the touchy-feely talk about Iran they want to kill us! I just hope that we clean their clock before they pick the time and place!

Philip B.,
You are misinformed. The US had a terrorist bomb their leadership in 1981, killing 80 of them - Rafsanjani had stepped out of the meeting a few minutes before the bomb exploded.Then we supported Saddam's invasion and their 8 year war, during which we used our military to attack Iran's oil rigs and ships in the Gulf, shot down their civilian airline killing over 200. We are doing the same things today, covertly, besides using the issue of their nuclear program and warmongering about being a threat to Israel and supporting the civil war in Iraq.

The US government and Israel lied before the UN, claiming Iran's President had threatened to attack Israel. PM Olmert has repeated the same lie to Congress and elsewhere. (See "Lost in Translation" on gather.) Quoting Khomeini's predictions in 1981 that the Soviet Union and Israel - the regimes - would "vanish from the pages of history," which is what Ahmadinejad,said ( not "wipe off the map") is not threatening to attack. Why did Iran offer to recognize Israel and support the Arab 2002 offer ,too?

Iran is not considered a sponsor of terrorism by other nations. It's relations are normalized with others. Hizbollah in Lebanon is not a puppet of Iran, and not considered a terrorist group by most nations (and the UN and the EU) for a decade. (PM Olmert has now admitted the invasion of Lebanon was planned many months before, and was not because of any provocation by Hizbollah.)

The US wants to control the oil in the region, and doesn't want to accept Iran's status as a regional power.

My Man Clarke,
America has a love affair with Iran. But there has never been a love affair between America and the Islamic Republic of Iran. The old, suave, debonaire Iran was the guy in The White Hat, that Lady Liberty had the hots for, when The Shah's White Revolution was spending billions on bombs, planes, and pompous King of King shindigs. To hell with the fact that the son of a bitch was murdering his own people to the tune of 30 thousand a year over a ten year period by the Irani count and 10 thousand a year by American CIA reckoning. She dug him any old way.

We the people had best divorce ourselves from this semi fascist corporate bottom line foreign policy philosophy, and start to realize that we are not alone on this planet. Just because we don't like the Inquisitional form of theocracy that ruled Europe, and still rules our allies in Saudi Arabia, that doesn't mean that a democratic republican based on religious principles is a bad thing. People have a right to choose their own form of government.

We are not alone and we are not that significant. The Cosmic Clock is ticking. And Lady Liberty had best learn the difference between liberty and libertinism on the political International Level at least. If not, she's liable to mistake arrogance for Justice just one time too many. If she keeps letting that snaky devil have his way with her, she's liable to conceive another Rose Mary's Baby that's even worse than this present bastard Neo Con concept. God forbid!

Clarke,

I had no idea, But you sound as if your in the know, of what I can't really tell. I wasn't just born yesterday!

I lived threw those years and have seen these nuts that claim leadership over Iran. Iran try to take over more than just the American embassy as the English made threats and their people were set free, the USSR shot them as they came over the walls and stopped them from taking anyone. I saw first hand just what these nut jobs did.

Its a matter of fact that I joined the army and went threw Ranger training just so I could be part of the first wave sent over there to kick butt. I remember it so well as it was the first time I ever felt hate for anything.

I don't know but you sound just like your speaking from the heart of one of those pork lovers. For you to say that what Iran did didn't cause hatred from around the world opening the door for all to do them in is as backwards as the leaders of Iran. If the USA would have done such a thing they would have used a bigger bomb killing all of them. Joking aside, Iran did the unthinkable by pissing the whole world off at the same time free and non-free countries around the world sought to end the madness. For you to say that the USA was the only ones that even thought of bombing them is just lies in its self. Yes the old saying of the enemy of my enemy is my friend comes to mind with the USA backing Iraq and yes the USSR was also backing them at the same time. I remember the day that I herd that the USA and the USSR were both backing Iraq against Iran and I have to say that I smiled that whole day. The USA did defend shipping which Iran sought to stop all shipping at that time.

As far as Israel, you sound like the words that Iran used didn't get on TV for all to hear. If there is any lies over this matter its that the words didn't come from this nut job. The words support of Israel have never been use by anyone in Iran unless you count the support of Israel's down fall.

Iran not supporting Terrorist groups, Hizbollah not being Terrorist, I think you have made my points for me.

The United States of America has no claim to control anything we are a free market system that allows open and free trade threw out the worlds.

Philp B.,

I appreciate your thoughtful reply. I don't want to come off as thinking I know how to deal with Iran, Iraq , the Middle East. However, I have had a lot of experience in the Middle East, working for the United States government and also teaching here - since the 60's. I've worked or lived in most of the countries, know the languages, and experienced such delights as the 1967 War and subsequent wars and revolutions at first hand. I also have lost a lot of friends to revolutions and wars, especially in Iran. When I am critical of United States policy it is not because I am anti-American or pro anyone else. I advised Congress, the Pentagon, the State Department, and intelligence agencies about Iran in the 60's and 70's, and I know how policy gets made. I think we have one really qualified Iran specialist in the State Department today, and he is in his 70's. I saw many highly qualified Foreign service and State people take early retirement during the time of Nixon and Kissinger because they were frustrated by the pressure to not only play nice but to shut up - I don't mean to go public or anything like that. I am not an insider now.

The Cheney bureaucratic operation - his large personal staff of "Dead Enders" and his plants in Pentagon and State who can make life (and careers) difficult for those who oppose Cheney - is a powerhouse. Rumsfeld is gone but Cheney who was once called Rumsfeld's lackey during the Nixon and Ford administrations , like Rumsfeld both sought the Presidency. They crave power, and they serve powerful interests. Cheney's main aim since he served under Nixon has been to establish a dominant Executive, and make the other branches subservient to it.

The War on Terror and Homeland Security and the demonizing of Islam were perhaps as much about establishing a "strong Executive" as following the neocon ideology of conquering the Middle East and making the United States the sole superpower (which was the dominant policy of the US since 1991, although the radical version of it is what has characterized the Bush administration policy and still does as it pertains to Africa, South America, Central Asia and other regions) . Having a figure like bin Laden to demonize was a gift from heaven to the Bush administration. Creating more terrorists, as they have by their actions , served their agenda. For some, their actions are based on ideology,not reason or reality; for others it is simply about gaining power and wealth. In broader terms, it is to establish a new "Cold War" situation, except it it perceived as pursuing perpetual wars and gaining military "dominance" through control of space and so on.

Zbigniew Brzezinski's "Second Chance" does a good job. His February 1, 2007 testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (and his comments to reporters after it) is focused on Iraq, but quite informative. Also, Chalmers Johnson's "Nemesis" offers a wider historical view of the United States situation in the world today.

You mis-state my comments on Hizbollah, as well as about Iran supporting terrorists, because you interpret them from what you think are facts. I was accurate, I think, in the statements I made. If you don't agree, than we understand history, and the current situation differently .

I have done a lot of research and I try to be objective in reaching an understanding. When I have had the responsibility of advising our government, I made my best effort to be objective. I don't have the inside sources of information now that I did before, but I do have some expertise in evaluating the information that is available to me. I interpret critically whatever I hear, whether from Chalmers or Ziggy, what people what work for think-tanks say, politicians say et al.

To understand Iran is a complex issue, as is the rise of Islamist parties in different countries, the policies of the Israelis, Saudis and the United States et al. governments. Casting it "religiously" is not realistic.
Most of that is talk is hype or ignorant and based on misunderstanding of the values of other people, who have a much longer experience of human nature and government than the West, which has a record of killing each other in the 20th century which must seem insane to normal human beings. Destroying and impoverishing prosperous cultures in the name of "civilizing" them is a characteristic of the Western ethic, and it no longer has a future in the 21st century. The West has lost touch with reality, but the East has not. This century will be dominated by the East and the West has to learn what it has forgot about being human beings. The United States no longer understands the wisdom of those who wrote its Constitution ( who were not "religious") and has become a society addicted to materia[ values.

All governments lie in order to advance agendas they they choose to follow. If you have to represent publically the position or policy of your government, no matter what you think, you have to say what they tell you to say. You may choose to hang in there and work with the system to try to change it or get out. The military has a code of honor which is very clear in this regard.

I think the Bush administration is dangerous for our country and the world. But it is a more radical expression ("hubristic" is an adjective) of US policy in relation to the crisis facing the United States domestically and globally, which neither party have addressed and probably only will due to events to come. Some Americans understand this, but most do not. Relative to citizens of other countries, Americans are poorly informed. The unfortunate truth is the United States could be leading the world in a positive direction and it is not.

All nations view history differently. The perception of the Soviets of the US and vice versa were very subjective.

For example, the hostage crisis is not perceived by most Americans realistically. You refer to it as though you understood it but you don't really. The US embassy had been taken over several times by students, months before the well-known one - a few calls to the Iranian government by the US Ambassador and they were told to leave. In the meantime many CIA people at desks in DC wanted to see a revolution at first hand and tried to get two month assignments in Tehran. Of course the CIA main station had been shifted form Athens to Tehran years before, and Helms the CIA head had been sent to Iran as our Ambassador. The students who took over embassy had no intention of staying. What happened was the clerical faction in the new Iranian government saw a chance to gain power and purge the democratic and pro-Western intellectuals and other leaders in their government - which they eventually did. There was also the justified fear that the US was working to arrange a coup to overthrow the Iranian government. There were plenty of CIA "spy stuff" documents around in the US Embassy to find to support this fear. The students in the embassy became, not as they had foreseen when took over the Embassy , the tools of the clerics. The paranoia about the US government' aims - and Iranians are not anti-American - was not unfounded. Exploiting this by the clerics was a golden opportunity to increase their power. The US bungled in dealing with it big time, just as they had in undermining the Shah and supporting the revolution. Would it have been possible to end the hostage situation at the beginning, that is very early on? I think there were ways to do that, without involving violence, that were not tried. There were buttons to press to do so.

You don't accept that the Iranian government has demonstrated a pragmatic policy for the last decade, as most nations have. To label them as sponsors of terrorism for the past decade is not quite right, as it is not accepted as the case with Hizbollah in Lebanon. That is the United States official view, not what is a valid one. Note that the 2003 Iranian offer to recognize Israel and support the 2002 Arab peace offer to settle the Israeli - Palestinian situation included not only specific concessions regarding their nuclear program but also regarding their support for Hizbollah and Hamas. They put it all on the table to gain negotiations that could work toward establishing normal relations with the US.

The current regime in Iran has to develop its economy and it wants security from being attacked. For most Iranians, the Israel-Palestinian conflict is not their concern. It is the Arabs' concern, and Iranians don't like Arabs . The Iranians don't like the dominance of the clerics either, but any pressure for the US for regime change will strengthen the power of the clerics. Ahmadinejad is not a fanatic, but he is a populist and against the corruption of the rich clerics - but they supported him in order to surpress the reformists. Their survival depends on meeting the demands for economic development and the support of the powerful business interests. They don't want a Franz Fanon revolutionary messing up their game. He is too much like Hugo Chavez for them. Basically, he doesn't call the shots, notably when it comes to negotiating with Iran by the US.

The US policy of pushing for regime change in , trying to stir up hostility between our allies the Saudis and Iran, funding the sending of terrorist Sunni jihadis (bin Laden variety) to Lebanon, with the support of Israelis and the Saudis, to oppose the Hizbollah faction of that government and make Lebanon a puppet state like Jordan, Egypt and others may bring further instability to the region, and lead to more wars involving many others, Turkey nearby, but increased intervention from China and Russia. It may also bring about a split from Europe and the end of NATO.

The effect on our economy will tend toward dissolution of the United States into civil conflict and its breakup into different regions, perhaps 5 or so (which a mentor of mine George Kennan, who created our Cold War policy of containment of the Soviets in 1947, predicted since the the 1980's if we continued our then policy, which we have.) The handwriting on the wall is much clearer now than it was just a few years ago. Events will determine the future, but the leaders aren't dealing with the obvious issues. Climate change , arms proliferation, the impending worldwide shortage of water - the current administration has been irresponsible in its failure to take positive action. The UN has been used by the US to pursue its own agenda, like a pimp, a prostitute. It is ineffective because the rich nations make the rules. That it is corrupt is not surprising.

Your perception that we support free trade is wrong. It would take a long comment on how the IMF , the World Bank and the international monetary system work. The fact that we became a debtor nation for the first time in our history during the Reagan administration would be a good starting point in explaining how our economy has become virtually the sacred bull of China, and soon India which will surpass it in wealth and population along with other nations, for they hold the reins. The corporations are transferring their wealth abroad, and,like Halliburton, are going to move their headquarters abroad, too.

The Gov. in California, who has no political goals, has demonstrated leadership. Communities can do so. The politicians of the two major parties won't. Those who talk of issues are mostly playing roles, and perpetuating the illusion of being serious. they know the rules of the game. Some know better but they dare not say so. The Iraq Study Group led by Baker did its job: it provided political cover for the the current administration to continue business as usual.

Abu,
The image of lovers has seemed to me to fit the relations between many Iranians and Americans. I'm not thinking of the governments' relations, pre or post -revolution. Iranians have a fascination with American popular culture and also its methods of education (especially in areas like medicine, mathematics, engineering and the sciences - many Iranians go into those fields). Americans are fascinated with Iranians sophistication, charm and and love of family and nature.

It's like the Americans are young, naive and uncultured and Iranians are the opposite.

Have you been to Beverly Hills? It about a quarter Iranians . I think the mayor is an Iranian now.

Clarke,
I really appreciate your 'opening up' here as you have done, especially in light of some of the criticism received, which one such as I would ignorantly respond in kind, or worse.

Maybe someday, probably in the 'far' future, the right and the left will find more 'common' ground. It is not like it does not exist, it just gets ignored due to ego investments of rooting for the chosen 'team' it seems. If everyone could get past their ego 'fortress' mentality of polarized conflict, just maybe this country can survive, even prosper for all, after all ... but it does not look very good right now when the larger picture that you have referred to is brought into focus.

Meanwhile I had better read up on George Kennan, I do not look forward to getting caught in a 'red' area like I am now living in.

Clarke,
As the world shrinks more and more, and waxes and wanes towards unity and diversity, the notion of a United Islamic Republic becomes more and more doable. Our people (devout Shias) have always loved the ideal of America, because we have always hated the absolute despotism that murdered the Prophets family and misnomered itself "Calif" (Successor of The Prophet).

Our problem as American's as you know better than most , Clarke, is that a government by the people, and for the people has to be maintained by a people whose ideals are constantly moving towards Olympus, not Hades. Our folks, for the most part, are a politically immature nation of easily distracted, ignorance loving "tricks" who've lost their moral compass and are easily mislead, by the FOXy whores two dimensionally lap dancing for them nightly.

The ideal of America is something to love, and the Islamic Revolutionaries based their constitution on ours. But too many of our fellow citizens are just way too stupid to know the difference between an Inquisitional European Roman Catholic, Medieval/Renaissance Indulgence Huckster Cleric, and a Shia Allam who has the rank of Ayatollah, who has the equivalence of three or four PhD's, one of them in Islamic Jurisprudence that covers 1400 years of precedence.

An Allam is not necessarily a priest. The word allam translates literally into scholar, or knower, not cleric. And I would dare say that most of the Allams in The Government of The Islamic Republic are very much more qualified to stay a hell of a lot less corrupt than our poor, pitiful shallowly educated easily bought public servants. It would be hard as hell for an American populist to get elected as mayor of a major city. Forget about a masses pleasing Ahmadi Nejad becoming Secretary of State. The Corporations would liable to have him assassinated if a GrassRoots movement could pull it off.

I know quite a few of our people (shias.. some of them are still Zoroastrians though) from Iran in Beverly Hills. And I have admonished the ones who come to the masjid for running away rather than hammering out compromises as loyal Iranis. Yeah, I can understand how these folks would love The US. They can do damned near anything they want to here, and they do, fiscally and culturally. But it pains me to see my democratic Country take the side of a tyrannical KING over highly principled republican revolutionaries. And it hurts even worse to see my people too stupid to know the difference.

Abu,

Iranians have the tendency to live in two worlds at once, and they often end up seeing things upside down. Whether Iranians act like hedonists or not they are still Iranians. The same Iranian character can be seen in Ahmadinejad, Montazeri, Khamenei and Rafsanjani (as it was in Khomeini and Behesti). Will Shiism ever change the nature of Iranians? I don't think so. It may accentute the expression of certain aspects of their nature, yet they always have the other aspects assert themselves, often in contradictary ways. So Shiism has negative and positive effects.

We have totally screwed over the general public in Iran in past years...I don't know why, but I have to assume it was some greedy reason to benefit our leaders at the time. We as a nation are totally pissed off because we lost 3000 in 9/11, but we supported regimes in Iraq that murdered ten times that. Our foreign policy has lead to attacks like 9/11. I'm all for us having a decently strong military, but we need to take ten stepps backwards with our foreign policy, and ten steps forward with homeland security.

That means, kiss and make up with all our enemies, and apologize for past mistakes, but close our borders to any immigration from states that support terrorists. Definitely close our southern border since we already have enough uneducated poor folks here.