Through the Looking Glass

Through the Looking Glass
By David Glenn Cox


The only thing we know for sure in Iran is that we know nothing for sure. The United States, through the CIA, has pursued an ongoing, clandestine war against the people of Iran for the last six years. Opposition groups have been funded; covert military strikes carried out until we cannot tell fact from fiction or the Mad Hatter from Alice.

The good news is ignored, and the bad is used to fan the flames of hatred and extremism. The Iranian government has supported millions of refugees from America’s war in Iraq. They’ve fed them, housed them and offered them medical treatment. Not under the auspices of the UN or the international Red Cross, but under the auspices of the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

These same Iraqis are the sons and daughters of the army and air force, which once invaded Iran with US covert support. Yet the Iranian government and populace is able to put that behind them and offer assistance to their former enemies.

Ever since the days of Gamal Nasser, the quickest route to Pan-Arab acclaim has been for a Middle East leader to wag his finger at Israel. Nasser did it, Saddat did it, Saddam did it and Ahmadinejad does it. It is not much different from America’s own Presidents touting their tough stand on communism; it is meaningless propaganda designed for domestic consumption.

The US has had Iran in its cross hairs since the days of the Iranian revolution and the taking of US hostages. The US had supported Saddam with weapons and intelligence, even chemical weapons, in the long bitter war against Iran, a war which Iraq started with US acquiescence. Meanwhile, while thousands of Iranians marched in the streets chanting, “Death to Americans,” its leaders were being enticed by American agents to set up the Iranian arms-for-hostages exchange. Over 500 TOW missiles and 4,000 other missiles were supplied to Iran through Israel and we wonder why they call us the great Satan? We help to foment a war, then we broker arms to both sides.

In 1987 when two Iraqi Exocet missiles struck the USS Stark killing 37 sailors, the US government immediately condemned Iran. Of course we knew better, but we couldn’t let those sailors die in a friendly fire accident, so we blamed it on our enemies. Just as the US blamed Iran for the IED’s killing US servicemen in Iraq, because it was believed that the devices were coming from Iran due to their workmanship. Yet the hypocrisy of the world’s largest arms merchant and occupying foreign power pointing the finger of guilt at anyone is beyond belief.

The US accuses Iran of having aspirations to obtain nuclear weapons and the Iranians deny it. The Iranians are signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and under the terms of the treaty they are lawfully entitled to the peaceful use of nuclear energy. And what’s more, they are also entitled to international assistance in developing nuclear power, none of which has been asked for nor provided. The US instead makes nuclear deals with India, who are not signatories of the non-proliferation treaty. Under the deal the US would have inspection rights to two thirds of Indian nuclear facilities, and just for bonus points guess who gets to choose the facilities to be inspected. (hint, not us)

Why does Iran need nuclear power? Because its primary source of hard currency is from its oil exports, exports that are expected to fall precipitously in the next twenty years. Why does Iran seek the capacity to enrich uranium? That question answers itself. If the goal is for electrical self-sufficiency, having to procure nuclear fuel on the world market leaves Iran with its cojones on the chopping block. So you see, it is our threats and embargoes and sanctions which exacerbate the problem. But to the CIA these are the things that make them smile; the Iranians are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

Who could blame Iran if she did want to become a nuclear power, bordered by a nuclear Pakistan and the US client states of Afghanistan and Iraq, the unstable Republic of Georgia and the NATO-armed Turkey? It would seem Iran lives in a dangerous neighborhood, without even mentioning Russia and China. The hysteria is that somehow a nuclear Iran is a threat to Israel. It is only a threat to Israel’s nuclear hegemony in the region, but the idea that if Iran builds a bomb on Monday it will send it hurting towards Israel on Tuesday is ludicrous.

It is the worst kept military secret in the world that Israel has a stockpile of at least 60 to 80 nuclear weapons, as well as a well-trained air force capable of turning Iran into a glowing cinder. But more than that, living in this violent, bloody and dangerous corner of the world, Iran sits by herself doing for herself. She has attacked no one, she has threatened no one and she has been convicted of nothing. In the court of public opinion, however, and the fantasy world where big is small and small is big, oh, there she is considered a threat to peace.

Mr. Mousavi is portrayed to the American public as some sort of great liberator come to strike down the evil Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, straight out of a Marvel Comic. The Iranian public are seeking social reforms, not any great break in foreign policy. A Link TV special filmed inside of Iran showed the Iranian people as being ready for better relations with the United States; they were overjoyed at the prospect. But to a person they all agreed that the United States needed to knock off its covert campaign against Iran and to treat Iran with the respect and dignity that a sovereign nation deserves.

Did Ahmadinejad steal the election? Who knows? Did Bush steal the election in 2000? Mr. Obama was the guest of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo last week for his lecture on democracy. Mr. Mubarak assumed the office of President in 1981 and has won every election since in a cakewalk. In the last election Mr. Mubarak carried 88% of the popular vote. Are the elections fixed in Egypt? Using the standards applied to Iran it would appear so; Ahmadinejad carried 63% of the vote.

The only thing that we know for sure is that we know nothing for sure. The media have done the opposite of inform. They have propagandized along political, ethnic and religious lines until it is all just a meaningless jumble. A hodgepodge of good guys and bad guys and heroes and villains in an old Western serial shoot 'em up at old Tehran town. The CIA will continue its work unabated, to demonize and undermine the government in Iran leaving only one thing for certain, the most dangerous power in the Middle East is the United States. We should fear where this is going and look closely at the job the CIA has done in Afghanistan, Iraq, Georgia, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Kurdistan, or we may find ourselves through the looking glass, unable to understand what is going on around us.

I could quibble with a couple of details (I'd hardly call Egypts elections "free"), but on the whole he gives one much to consider. This isn't black and white and there are no "good guys" in this one. And don't think that covert forces don't know how to use social networking sites.

either.