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Today's
Stories
April 2, 2008
Harry Browne
Bertie
Ahern Laid Low by Secretary
Col. Dan Smith
The
Militarization of America
Steve Early
A Purple Uprising in Oakland
April 1, 2008
Jeff Leys
Fracturing
the Peace to End the War
Thomas P. Healy
Restoring the Constitution: a Conversation with Daniel Ellsberg
Winslow T. Wheeler
When Pigs Sprout Wings: Mangled Rationales for a Fatter Defense
Budget
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
New Deal Nostalgia
Patrick Irelan
Cocaine, Colombia and the Cartels
Andy Worthington
The Case of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani
John V. Walsh
The Shunning of Ralph Nader
Michael J.
Smith
Woolly Mamet
Robert Weissman
The New Philip Morris--Even Worse Than the Old?
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Defining Moments
Martha Rosenberg
Brain Mist Disease: Boss Hog's Gift to Humanity
Website of
the Day
Support Briana!
March 31, 2008
Mike Whitney
Dead
on Arrival: Paulson's Fixit Plan for Wall Street
Mats Svensson
Walls,
Tunnels and Daily Humiliations
Paul Rockwell
Hillary's
Lies About Outsourcing
Paul Craig Roberts
A Third American War in the Making?
Patrick Cockburn
Sadr
Calls for Ceasefire
Peter Dale Scott
The Showdown
Alfredo Molano
Cultura Mafiosa in Colombia
Peter Morici
Why Paulson's Reform Plan Falls Short
Uri Avnery
Day of the Land, 32 Years Later
Michael Simmons
The American Bard in New Orleans
Betsy Roberts
/ Karen Orr
The Clorox Coup
Phyllis Pollack
First the Sun and Then the Moon: Scorsese Does the Stones
Website of
the Day
Five Years Too Many
March 29 / 30, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
When
They Pick Up the Phone at 3 AM, What Will They Say?
Patrick Cockburn
Iraqi
Police Refuse to Back Maliki's Attacks on Medhi Army
Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Next Big Bail Out Plan
Christopher Brauchli
The Pastor of Armageddon and the Slave Sale: McCain, Lieberman
and Rev. Hagee
William Blum
China, Tibet and the Propaganda Olympics
Robert Fantina
Iraq
Troika: McCain, Obama and Clinton
John Ross
AMLO, the Comeback Kid? Fighting the Privatization of Mexico's
Oil
Allison Kilkenny
Shady Lending Hits Home
Nelson P. Valdés
Cuba, the Beatles and Historical Context
Suzanne Baroud
The Great Lake of Gaza: a New Crisis in the Making
Richard Rhames
Social Security: Throwing Granny from the Gravy Train
Christopher Fons
Transcending the 60s? Obama and the Baby Boomers
Carl Finamore
Misery at 35,000 Feet: Mergers Stall, Fares Soar, Services Slump
and Consumers Sour
Eamonn McCann
Hillary Misremembers Again!
Missy Beattie
Justice and the Monsters of War
Fred Gardner
Jim Thorpe, All-American
Kim Nicolini
Cock Chuggers and Cheese Curls: Richard Kelly's "Southland
Tales"
David Yearsley
"All the World's a Hospital"
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Booked Up
Poets' Basement
Valentine and Ko Un
Website of
the Weekend
Hidden Iraq
March 28, 2008
Saul Landau
Growing
Dread About Iraq
Alan Farago
Other People's Money: the Chop Shop Economy
Peter Morici
Knocking Down False Economic Gods
Andy Worthington
Plight of the Uyghus: a Chinese Muslim's Desperate Plea from
Guantánamo
Felice Pace
Ashes of Lies: Why No One Trusts the US Forest Service
Peter Montague
Sierra Club Cleans House -- With Clorox!
Dave Lindorff
The Mumia Exception
March 27, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
Basra
Erupts
Binoy Kampmark
Free Market Apostates
Joanne Mariner
"Was George Washington a Terrorist?"
Norman Solomon
NPR News: National Pentagon Radio?
William S. Lind
Mars Only Knocks Once: a Prognosis for Iraq
John V. Walsh
Obama's Speech: a Touch of Bigotry?
Robert Weissman
How Things Work
Ron Jacobs
Meeting Charlie Ehlen
Ralph Nader
Put Impeachment Back on the Table
David Macaray
Court Rules Against Grocery Workers
John Borowski
Clearcutting the History of Forest Destruction
Website of
the Day
Going Out for an English
March 26, 2008
Stan Cox
The
Germs Next Door
Sharon Smith
Greed
Pays: Welfare on Wall Street
Anita Sinha / Jill Tauber
Dreams Turned into Rubble in New Orleans
Matt Vidal
So Much for the Self-Regulating Market
William S. Lind
Operation Cassandra
Joe Mowrey
The Audacity of Hypocrisy: Obama's Pandering to Israel
Dave Lindorff
Duck and Cover (Up): Hillary Under Fire
Ray McGovern
Frontline's War: Too Timid, Too Little, Too Late
Justin Smith
Why Race and Gender are Separate Issues
Sam Husseini
The Winter Soldier Hearings and Indy Media
Martha Rosenberg
Blood on Ice: Gentlemen, Pick Up Your Clubs
Michael Dickinson
Politicians as Dogs
Website of the Day
The Wal-Mart Virus: How the Infection Spread
March 25, 2008
Ishmael Reed
The
Crazy Rev. Wright
Corey D. B.
Walker
The Politics of Jeremiah Wright
Linn Washington Jr.
Racism in America and Other Uncomfortable Facts
Alan Farago
The Money Launderers: a Picnic for Wall St. Insiders
Vijay Prashad
A Glimmer of Hope From the Gulf Coast
Joshua Frank
A Silver Lining to the Bush Years?
Ralph Nader
How Public Servants Can Help End This War
David Rovics
If I Can't Dance: Why is the Left So Boring?
Peter Morici
America's Banks are Broken
Dave Zirin
Olympic Flames: China's Crackdown in Tibet
David Krieger
The Crisis in Tibet
Website of
the Day
Memorializing Iraq
March 24, 2008
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Blonde
Ambition: Hillary's Berserker Campaign for 2012
Peter Morici
Digging Out of the Recession
Uri Avnery
Two Americas
Wajahat Ali
First of the Mohicans: an Interview with Rep. Keith Ellison
Paul Craig Roberts
Inside the Shell Game
George Ciccariello-Maher
The Coming War on Venezuela
Stephen Lendman
Sami Al-Arian's Long Ordeal
Christopher
Brauchli
Possessing Someone Else's Country
Cat Woods
A Letter to Mom on Obama
Stacey Warde
Tax Burden
Dave Lindorff
The American Dead Hits 4,000, But Who's Counting?
Website of
the Day
Live from the Longest Walk
March 22 /
23, 2008
Ralph Nader
Bush
Blisters the Truth on Iraq
Nicole Colson
Can You Afford to Feed Your Family?
James Petras
The Cost of Unilateral Humanitarian Initiatives
Laura Carlsen
From Bombs to Markets: The Andean Crisis and the Geopolitics
of Trade
Greg Moses
Tolerance and the American Pulpit
Andy Worthington
Torture Stories Dog Guantánamo Trials
Michael Dickinson
Art on Trial
John Ross
Bush's Surge Hits Mosul
Missy Comley Beattie
Killer Economics
David Michael
Green
Happy Anniversary, America!
Ramzy Baroud
The Coming Uncertain War on Iran
Martha Rosenberg
Easter Egg Shells from Hell
Paul Watson
Evolution is Going to the Dogs in the Galapagos
Isabella Kenfield
Monsanto's
Raid on Brazil
James Murren
Logging v. Water in Honduras
Jacob Hornberger
Sex and the Immigration Officer
Kathlyn Stone
Ben Heine, Master of the Art of Resistance
Seth Sandronsky
Rethinking New Mexico's History
Kim Nicolini
Class, Gender and Abortion in Communist Romania
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Booked Up: What I'm Reading This Week
Poets' Basement
Wilson, Woods, Gibbons and Orloski
Website of
the Weekend
Merci, McCain!
March 21, 2008
Marleen Martin
Land
Behind Bars: the Hidden Casualties of America's "War on
Crime"
Peter Montague
Run
Your Car on Coal? Maybe Not
Saul Landau
Monroe's
Deadly Doctrine
Anis Hamadeh
Merkel in the Knesset
Jacob Hornberger
McCain's Al Qaeda Scare: Slip or Tactic?
Khalil Nakhleh
Al Nakba of 1948: How Long Will It Persist?
Adam Isacson
Colombia, Paramilitary Threats and Assassinations
Kenneth Couesbouc
Money for Nothing
Madis Senner
Will the Feds Underwrite the Stock Market?
Monica Benderman
The Costs of Freedom: What Are You Willing to Pay?
Website of the Day
Stop Foreclosures and Evictions
March 20, 2008
Damien Millet
/
Eric Toussaint
The
Triple Failing of the Big Private Banks
Mike Whitney
Winding
Up Bear
John Ross
What Do We Owe Iraq?
Dave Lindorff
Paying the Piper: the Bodies and Bills are Piling Up
Wajahat Ali
Pakistan on Fire
Jill Nagle
Memo to Sex Workers: Stop Financing Shock Journalism
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Obama and the Psychic Auto-Shrink-Wrapping Called Race in America
Dan La Botz
Obama's Race Speech
Robert Weissman
Alternative Power: Shutting Down the API
Stella Dallas
/
Jennifer Matsui
Apostasy Now! Mamet, Enter Stage Right
Website of the Day
The Angry Monk
March 19, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
A
War of Lies
Robert Fisk
The Little Men and the Inferno
Jeff Taylor
Five Years of War in Iraq
Ed Ruggero
From Pinkville to Iraq: the Dark Anniversary of My Lai
Ron Jacobs
Who'll Stop the Rain?
Christopher
Fons
Obama Takes the Race Bait
Sherwood Ross
In Defense of Rev. Wright
Cynthia McKinney
An Urgent Crisis: Confronting America's Racial Disparities
Joshua Frank
The Kool-Aid That Kills
Robert Weissman
Monsanto's Genetic Food Gamble
Walter Brasch
It's a Welfare State--If You're Rich
Yifat Susskind
Iraqi Women Resist the Occupation
Andrew Wimmer
War Demands Its Due
Website of
the Day
Glimpses of Nature
March 18, 2008
David Price
The
Military "Leveraging" of Cultural Knowledge
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Collapse of American Power
Tim Wise
Of National Lies and Racial America: Jeremiah Wright, Barack
Obama and the Unacceptability of Truth
Patrick Cockburn
One of the Most Disastrous Wars Ever Fought
Conn Hallinan
Afghanistan, a River Running Backward
James T. Phillips
Monsters: Past, Present and Wannabe
Uri Avnery
The Killing in Bethlehem
David Macaray
Could Wal-Mart Revive the Labor Movement?
Marjorie Cohn
Beware an Attack on Iran
Peter Zinn
Obama in New Orleans
Dan La Botz
The Economic Crisis, Labor and the Left
Monica Benderman
Where are We Going?
March 17, 2008
Pam Martens
The
Fed's Wall Street Dilemma
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The US, Iran and the Policy of Dual Containment
Nelson P. Valdés
The Imperial Branding of Simon Bolivar and the Cuban Revolution
Peter Morici
The Corrosive Consequences of the Trade Deficit
Wajahat Ali
Disrobing the Nine: a Conversation with Jeffrey Toobin on the
Supreme Court Since 9/11
Ronnie Cummins
Beyond Progressive Malpractice: Taking Down Big Pharma
Shaun Harkin
Saint Patrick's Day in Fortress America
Ali Khan
No Pardon for Musharraf
Robert Jensen
Beyond Peace
P. Sainath
Oh, What a Lovely Waiver!
Greg Moses
Jeremiah was a Bullhorn
Dr. Susan Block
Advice for Eliot Spitzer
Website of the Day
No Cowboys
March 15 /
16, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
How
to Destroy a Country in Five Years
Mike Whitney
Bearly
Alive: Investment Giant Rushed to ICU by Panicky Fed Chief
Ralph Nader
Of
Laws and Men
Robert Pollin
It's Still the Economy, Stupid
Diane Christian
The Poetics of Perversity: From Boccaccio to Spitzer
Wajahat Ali
Faking the Hood: a Conversation with Ishmael Reed
Tom Wright
/
Therese Saliba
Rachel Corrie's Case for Justice
Alan Farago
Back to Florida: Where Bushtime Began
Greg Moses
Raiding the Family Room in Texas
Michael Hudson
A Grand Global Bargain?
Martha Rosenberg
Why Hillary's Favorite Chicken Company is Eying China
John Goekler
Fourth Generation Warfare in a Fifth Generation Conflict
Uzma Aslam
Khan
A Letter to Barack Obama: Where's the Change, Barack?
Oren Ben-Dor
The Silencing of Gilad Atzmon
David Underhill
Mammon, Morals and the Mobile Tanker Deal
Fred Gardner
The Education of Eliot Spitzer
David Michael
Green
Why Spitzer Should Have Resigned (and Why He Shouldn't Have)
Rev. William E. Alberts
Jesus, Entombed in Heaven
Gail Dines
It's All About the John: Prostitution and Male Power
David Yearsley
Conducting, Anarchy and the Problem of When to Begin
Chris Clarke
Walking with Zeke: the Luckiest of Dogs
Poets' Basement
Anderson, Lodge & Subiet
Website of
the Day
Deviant Art
March 14, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Watching
the Dollar Die
Don Santina
Vichy
Democrats: Pelosi and the Politics of Collaboration
Patrick Cockburn
Iraqi
Mother Vows Revenge on US: How She Lost Her Husband and Her Sons
Tim Rinne
StratCom
Rules! The Next War Will Start in Nebraska
Robert Fantina
In
Torture We Trust
Saul Landau
Letter
to the Presidents-in-Waitings
David Macaray
Common
Myths About Labor Unions
Franklin Lamb
Is
the Bush Administration Switching Horses in Lebanon
Michael Neumann
The
One State Illusion: Reply to My Critics
March 13, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Republicans
and "Free Market" Zealots Bring Disaster to America
Mike Whitney
Meltdown
Looms Larger As Credit Markets Freeze
Assaf Kfoury
"One-State
or Two State?"- Sterile Debate on False Alternatives
Andy Worthington
Afghan
Hero Who Died in Guantánamo: The Background to the Story
Adam Federman
From
Autopia to Autogeddon: Cars Reach the End of the Road
March 12, 2008
Dave Lindorff
Bringing
Down Spitzer: It's the Big Brother Who Should Bother US
R.F. Blader
The
Spitzer Backlash
Yonatan Mendel
How
to be an Israeli Journalist. Never Write "Murder" or
"Palestine"
Jonathan Cook
One
State or Two? Neither. The Issue is Zionism
Bill and Kathy
Christison
Fallon
and Gates -- At Least One Cheer
James J. Brittain
Was
the U.S. Involved in Killing the FARC-EP Leaders
Ron Jacobs
"All
the Money You Make Will Never Buy Back Your Soul"
March 11, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
How
to End the Subprime Crisis
Ed O'Loughlin
How
Israeli Troops Invade Homes in Gaza, Brutalize, Smash and Steal
Ramzy Baroud
'Unwavering
Commitment' to Inequality
Kathy Christison
One
State or Two? The Debate Over Israel and Palestine
China Hand
PRC
Plays it Cool, as U.S. Tries to Amp Up Pressure on Iran
John Joslin
Thank
You, Nafta! Welcome to Weirton, Home of the Discount Cigarette
Mike Averko
Serb
Politics, Kosovo and the Moscow-Washington Divide
Ben Rosenfeld
Gavin
Newsom's Kneejerk Plan
Thierry Paquot
High
Rise, Low Spirits:The Curse of the Tower Block
March 10, 2008
Uri Avnery
"Kill
A Hundred Turks and Rest": The Five-Day War in Gaza
Col. Dan Smith
Scoring
the "Surge" and What Lies Beyond
R.F. Blader
Why
"Lock Them Up and Throw Away the Key" is Losing its
Sheen
Michael Neumann
The
One-State Illusion: More is Less
Bob Fitrakis
and Harvey Wasserman
Did
the Republicans Give Hillary Her Victory in Ohio?
James J. Brittain
Anti-Uribe
Protests in Colombia and the World
Missy Comley
Beattie
The
Passion of John McCain
March 8-9,
2008 Weekend Edition
JoAnn Wypijewski
The
Only Way to Fight the Clintons
Mike Whitney
Sorting
Through the Rubble in Post Bubble America
Peter Morici
Fed
and Treasury Fiddle as Economy Plummets
Ralph Nader
The
Silent Violence of Gaza's Suffering that Candidates Ignore
Jonathan Cook
The
Meaning of Gaza's Shoah
Steve Niva
Behind
the Israeli Escalation in Gaza
Bill and Kathy
Christison
Crisis
over Teheran's Alleged Nuclear Plans Nearing Climax
Hervé
Do Alto and Franck Poupeau
Bolivia:
Morales is Checked
Eric Walberg
To
Leave and Stay at the Same Time: Putin to Medvedev to…?
Scott Johnson
City
of A Thousand Foreclosures
Mark Scaramella
James
Brown's Gate
Bill Clinton
President
Clinton's Remarks on Naming William M. Daley as NAFTA Task Force
Chairman
Poet's Basement
St.
Thomasino, Engel, Davies and Willson
Website of
the Weekend
Hillary
Blackens Barack
March 7, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
Why
Iraq Could Blow-Up in John McCain's Face
Robin Blackburn
Question
for Barrack Obama: Why Afghanistan is the'Right War'?
Saul Landau
The
Stupid Economy
Binoy Kampmark
When
Competition is Good: McCain and the Muddled Democrats
Chris Floyd
Crushing
the Ants: Admiral Fallon and His Empire
Andy Worthington
Spanish
Drop "Inhuman" Extradition Request for Guantánamo
Britons
Will Potter
Before
the Smoke Even Clears in Seattle: Bringing Out the T Word
March 6, 2008
March 6, 2008
Vincent Navarro
The
Next Failure of Health Reform
Forrest Hylton
High Stakes in the Andes: Colombia's Cornered President
Peter Morici
Why the Dollar is So Cheap
George Ciccariello-Maher
Counter-Attack of the Bureaucrats
John Ross
Taxi! Taxi! The Dark Side of the Oscars
Jacob Hornberger
No Standing to Lecture on Justice
Paul Watson
Illegal Japanese Whaling by the Numbers
Dan Bacher
Off the Deep End
Website of the Day
A Katrina Reader Online
March 5, 2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
A
Great Day for John McCain (and Maybe Nader)
Joanne Mariner
After Guantanamo
Fidel Castro
The Raid on Ecuador: Underestimating Rafael Correa
Christopher
Brauchli
The Turkish Invasions
Steven Sherman
Obama and the Prospects for a Renewal of the Left
Dave Lindorff
Busting Bush & Co. in New England
James Murren
Bombing Somalia
Adam Engel
Necropolis Now
Website of Day
Remember Song
March 4, 2008
Wajahat Ali
Mumbo
Jumbo: Naming Names with Ishmael Reed
William Blum
How Could Hillary Have Known?
Bill Quigley
The Cleansing of New Orleans
Ralph Nader
The Prince Harry Solution
Patrick Irelan
Oil and Health in Venezuela
James J. Brittain
/
R. James Sacouman
Uribe's Colombia is Destabilizing a New Latin America
Norman Solomon
The War Election
Jacob Hornberger
Hillary in Waco: the Missing Apology
Andy Worthington
Guantánamo and the European Parliament
Mike Averko
Kosovo and the Press
Website of the Day
Tex-Mex Primary
March 3, 2008
Jennifer Loewenstein
Gazan Holocaust
Alan Farago
American Politics and the Faltering Economy
Richard Gott
Colombian Deaths in Ecuador
Wajahat Ali
Who Speaks for a Billion Muslims? Analyzing the World Gallup
Poll with John Esposito
Paul Craig Roberts
The Mukasey Conspiracy: a Bi-Partisan Attack on the Constitution
Robert Weissman
When Multinationals Say Adieu
Uri Avnery
Good Morning, Hamas
Martha Rosenberg
When Your Meat is a Downer
Eva Liddell
Leave the Next Dance for Bill
Michael Donnelly
Will Ferrell Does Flint
Website of the Day
Muddy Waters: Train Fare Home Blues
|
Apri1
2, 2008
An Interview with
Steven Kinzer
The
Folly of Attacking Iran
By WAJAHAT ALI
According to the White House, Iran and
its controversial and opinionated President Ahmadenijad lead
the next wave of "The Axis of Evil" in spearheading
the nuclear annihilation of The United States. Despite a recent
intelligence report released in December 2007 concluding Iran
stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003, a paranoid fear
still lingers that Iran might acquire such WMD's and use them
first and foremost against America. Iran's global image, undoubtedly
and unfortunately personified by "shoot from the hip"
Ahmadinejad, emerges as a reactionary, Anti-semitic, militant
theocracy strategically organizing a Shia majority power bloc
in the post 9-11 Middle East.
The origin of this constant
barrage of back and forth slanderous accusations and deep rooted
mistrusts that exist between both countries is examined by journalist
Steve Kinzer in his popular and best-selling book All
the Shah's Men. The fast paced and well written,
non fiction history book takes the readers back to the "roots"
of Iranian anger towards U.S. foreign policy: the 1953 CIA led
coup of Iran's democratically elected Prime Minster Muhammad
Mossadegh in favor of a cruel, puppet dictator Muhammad Reza
Shah Pahlavi. Here's an exclusive interview with Mr. Kinzer describing
how the sins from the past inevitably color the quagmire of the
present.
ALI: You have a revised
edition of your best-selling book "All
the Shah's Men" with a new forward essay entitled "The
Folly of Attacking Iran." Many say, "Steve, you're
jumping the gun. No one is talking about attacking Iran
this is just a knee jerk hysteria." What's your reply to
that?
KINZER: I fear that the impulse
to push this issue back on to the back burner the feeling
that there isn't going to be an attack and this is not something
to be worried about - is actually something that will
make an attack more likely. If there is a sense in Washington
that people don't really care about it and really aren't worried
about it, I think there are people in the White House who might
want to go ahead and do it. We have heard President Bush say
that he doesn't think the National Intelligence Estimate [The
report concludes with "high confidence" that "in
fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program" and
currently does not possess a nuclear weapon], which was issued
in December, should have any impact on people's opinion about
Iran.
More recently, we have seen
that Admiral William Fallon, who was the military commander most
outspokenly critical about the idea of attacking Iran, resigned
in a surprise move after just one year as Commander of the U.S.
forces in the Middle East. There are a number of alarming signs
suggesting that sometime between now and next January 20th the
United States might actually carry out this attack. To protest
after it has happened is too late.
ALI: Let's lay a foundation,
which is rarely laid down by American media, and take it to back
nearly 50 years to Mohammad Mossadegh. He was the democratically
elected leader of Iran. Why was his decision to nationalize Iranian
oil such a threat to global superpowers?
KINZER: You have to go back
to that time period in the early 1950's. There had not been any
leader of a poor country who had stood up to challenge the masters
of the world in such a direct and important way. Mossadegh was
essentially saying that the company [Anglo-Iranian Oil company
now known as British Petroleum], that was richest, most lucrative
property owned by Britain anywhere in the world, was actually
not Britain's property at all. He was saying that the oil under
Iran's soil belongs strictly to Iran.
The British responded to this
by complaining that Iranian oil was the private property of a
British company and for Iran to nationalize it would essentially
be theft of that private property. There has never been the leader
of a country who decided to try to nationalize such an important
resource in a way that so outraged not just Americans
but even big countries around the world. What effect that had
in Britain, of course, was obvious.
Oil from Iran had been the
basis for the standard of living the people in Britain enjoyed
all during the 1920's and 1930's and 1940's. Every factory in
Britain was being powered by oil from Iran. Every truck and bus
and car in Britain was running on Iranian oil. The Royal Navy,
which projected British power around the world was fueled 100%
by oil from Iran. But, there were other reasons that alarmed
other countries, particularly the United States. At that time
the Secretary of State was John Foster Dulles who had spent his
career as a lawyer for large multinational corporations. The
idea that foreign and American companies should be allowed to
operate as they wished and use the resources of other countries
as they sought fit was a sacred principle to him. He believed
if Mossadegh and the Iranians could get away with nationalizing
their oil industry this would set a terrible precedent that would
undermine the power and authority of multinational companies
everywhere. This was a huge challenge to the way the world was
run.
ALI: So, Mossadegh, the
democratically elected leader, was later deposed and replaced
by the Shah of Iran. Why did the U.S. decide on a petty, tyrannical
leader like the Shah when a well intentioned, but ineffectual
one like, say Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, could have done?
KINZER: I've had the chance
to study not just the U.S. intervention in Iran in 1953 but a
number of other cases in which the United States had overthrown
foreign governments. My most recent book Overthrow is
a history of all the times that the U.S has done this. When you
study these overthrows together, certain patterns emerge and
this certainly applies in Iran. After we overthrow the person
we don't like, then we have to decide: "Who do we want as
a replacement?"
Usually, we want a person who
fills two qualifications: 1) It should be someone who is popular.
Someone who could rule with popular support and maintain a stable
government. 2) We also want someone who will do what we say.
We didn't overthrow someone we didn't like just to put someone
in who won't do our bidding. Soon after the overthrow we realized
that you couldn't have both. You can't have a leader who is going
to place the interests of the United States first above the interests
of his own country, who will also be popular. That means you
have to choose. Either you're going to choose someone who is
going to be popular, but won't do what the United States wants,
or someone who will do what the United States wants but won't
necessarily be popular. We always choose someone who will do
our bidding. This is what happens in Iran. We knew if we placed
the Shah in power, he would do what we want. Why, we asked ourselves,
would we go from a coup and not place someone like that in power?
ALI: Now we're up to 1979.
We're witnessing one of the largest, most popular revolutions
of the 20th century [Iranian Revolution led by Khomeini in '79.]
Was this a reflection of an entire society's hatred and dislike
of "Westernism" and modernism? How could so many diverse
elements in Iran come together and be unified in their dislike
of the Shah and, one could argue, even the U.S.?
KINZER: When the United States
overthrew the government of Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953, the Americans
thought they had won a great victory. After all, we had gotten
rid of someone we didn't like and replaced them with someone
who would do whatever we wanted. Later on, however, as we look
back from the perspective of history, we can see that the operation
doesn't seem so successful at all. It was the Shah's repression
that produced the explosion of the late 1970's: the Islamic Revolution.
That revolution brought to power a clique of fanatically, anti-American
clerics who spent decades there after acting intensely and sometimes
very violently to undermine American interests all over the world.
That revolution inspired radical fundamentalists in many other
countries including next-door Afghanistan. That revolution also
weakened Iran enough so that Iran's biggest enemy, Saddam Hussein
next door in Iraq, decided to invade Iran. That invasion not
only produced the horrific 8 year long Iran-Iraq war, it brought
the United States into a military alliance with Saddam Hussein.
We supported Saddam with helicopters that he used to drop poison
gas inside Iran and intelligence that allowed him to target and
attack inside Iran. It was our death embrace with Saddam beginning
at that moment that brought us into this downward spiral that
led to the current quagmire in Iraq.
The Islamic Revolution of the
late 1970's terrified the Soviets. They were afraid there would
be a whole series of copycat fundamentalist revolutions around
their Southern flank. That fear led the Soviets to invade Afghanistan.
That invasion in turn brought the United States over to Pakistan
and Afghanistan to sponsor a huge scaled, covert operation where
we trained tens of thousands of jihadis in terror tactics and
encouraged them to go out and kill the infidel. Those jihadis
later became the Taliban, and we Americans became the infidels
they wanted to kill. So, that operation in 1953 set off terrible
consequences that are still shaping the world today and are greatly
undermining the security of the United States
ALI: Let's take it up to
modern times. You mention in the preface of the book that the
new Iraq War is seen as one of the worst strategic disasters
in the history of U.S. Foreign Policy, however you follow that
by saying that attacking Iran would even be more disastrous.
That's a bold claim. How can it be more disastrous than what
we are seeing in this Three Trillion Dollar War?
KINZER: We can easily foresee
some of the terrible consequences of an American attack on Iran.
First of all, Iran is the only country in the Muslim Middle East
where most people are pro-American. That pro-American sentiment
in Iran is a huge strategic asset to the United States. We can
build on that for generations to come. We will liquidate that
asset in 1 hour if we start to attack. We profess to be great
enemies and harsh critics of President Ahmadinejad. He is very
unpopular in Iran. He's likely to lose next year's presidential
elections. He knows this. There is only one way he can become
a hero in Iran and to Muslims all over the world. That is to
be attacked by the United States.
His provocative rhetoric is
kind of calculated to try to bring on this kind of an attack.
If we do bomb Iran, we will be strengthening the very regime
that we claim to be opposed to. An American attack on Iran would
certainly lead Iran to revenge attacks on Israel and on U.S.
targets in the Persian Gulf. That will bring Israel into the
conflict probably with terrible results, such as bombing attacks
on Iran. It would also set off a huge explosion of anti-American
violence in Iraq, probably also in Afghanistan. It would greatly
destabilize Pakistan, which is probably the last country the
U.S. needs to destabilize at this moment. And, if you are afraid
today that nuclear scientists in Iran might share their knowledge
with terrorists or the Anti-American groups, then just bomb their
houses and kill their children and then see how eager they are
to participate in anti-American activities.
However, let me add one other
point. These are just the consequences we can foresee. To me
the greatest lesson of the 1953 intervention is that the worst
consequences of these interventions are ones that no one could
predict. There was nobody alive in 1953 even the most far
sighted analyst who could have possibly predicted the long
term results of that intervention. Nobody could at that time
have said, "If we overthrow Mossadegh, ultimately the radical
clerics are going to take over in Iran and that is going to produce
the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and that's going to lead
the U.S. having an operation that will bring a terrorist group
to Afghanistan that will then later attack American soil."
These were totally unpredictable. So, I think that will happen.
The worst consequences, ones far worse than the one's I've just
listed, would be ones that nobody could even imagine today.
ALI: You make an interesting
point that will surely shock most people in saying that the Iranian
people are pro America. What's the pulse of the Iranian people
and compare it to Ahmadinejad. The latter's rhetoric, as you
know, is all but passive. He talks vehemently against Israel,
Jews, and against America. Lot of times people say he is merely
a foil or front for the velayit-e-faqih,
or the guardianship of the jurists in power. These three characters:
the Iranian people, the jurists, and Ahmadinejad. Who should
we fear? And even if the people are pro American, how come we
don't hear about it? Shouldn't we at least fear Ahmadinejad?
KINZER: Part of the reason
I think for our misconception about Iran is that President Ahmadinejad
has a title that misleads us. As far as we understand, the President
of the country is the most important person, who has been freely
elected and has the power to decide what the government is going
to do. That's not true in Iran. In Iran, there are several circles
of power above the President. This President was elected as an
upset winner, something that could never happen in countries
that are U.S. allies like Egypt or Saudi Arabia. Now, a lot of
people are very unhappy with him because of his mismanagement
of the economy, and also because many Iranians feel very embarrassed
to have such a figure representing them.
Now, why don't we hear about
the pro American sentiment inside Iran? Part of the reason is
that it is so difficult for Iranians and Americans to get to
meet each other. The United States makes it impossible
for most Iranians to come and visit the U.S. This is a very important
policy for Washington to follow because keeping these two people
separated makes it easier to demonize the Iranians. Once it were
to become clear to Americans that there is a huge pro American
sentiment in Iran, then the idea of an American attack would
find far less support here. That's why I'd like to see the United
States reverse this policy and instead of trying to prevent the
Iranians from coming here, we should invite them. We should have
the farmers from Iran having exchange programs with the farmers
from the United States. And the schoolteachers, and the women's
groups and the members of Parliament, there should be a constant
flow of people back and forth so we start to understand each
other. But, if you are promoting the idea of war then you want
to prevent that, because preventing it makes it easy to see the
other side as kind of a caricature and use someone like Ahmadinejad
to give the false impression that everybody in Iran is militantly
anti-Israel, militantly anti-American, and militantly in favor
of theocratic rule.
ALI: Sy Hersh, whom I interviewed
recently, said Ahmadinejad and Iran are doing what they've always
done in helping Shias in the Middle East. He says he doesn't
see anything different about their behavior now then he did in
the past. Perhaps he could be referring to Iran supporting Hezbollah
in Lebanon and even the Shia insurgents in Iraq. Critics say
this help in turn directly affects the United States because
these forces attack U.S. soldiers, posts and allies. So does
this tangible relationship give enough credible evidence to attack
Iran?
KINZER: I'm actually very troubled
by Iranian support for groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. The support
is also very unpopular inside Iran. It is repeatedly cited by
people who complain about the economic shortages inside Iran.
People in Iran don't want to see hundreds of millions of their
dollars going to support these militant groups. I would simply
argue that the more worried you are about Iran's support for
these groups, then the more troubled you are by Iranian nuclear
ambitions. The more outraged you are at the way the Iranian government
represses democratic forces inside Iran, the more urgent the
negotiation option becomes. We are not going to be able to reduce
Iranian support for militant groups in the Middle East, or to
make Iran curb its nuclear ambitions or to change its behavior
in any other way by bombing them! The way to make Iran
calm down and feel like it doesn't need to pursue policies that
are highly destabilizing in the Middle East is to make Iran feel
safe. Israel also needs to be made to feel safe. It's through
a negotiating process in which every country is led to see that
it has a fair place under the Middle Eastern sun, then we can
produce the kind of stability that will make it less necessary,
less urgent, less tempting for Iran to pursue policies that are
highly destabilizing.
ALI: We know on record that
U.S. helped depose Mossadegh in 1953 with the CIA intervention
called Operation Ajax by infiltrating Iranian society in order
to overthrow him. Is there something like that happening now?
Is there going to be an Operation Ajax in the 21st century?
KINZER: The United States has
appropriated $75 million to go to what we call democratic
forces inside Iran. This has been a terribly negative appropriation
from the point of view of those democratic forces in Iran. All
the people in Iran that support what we might call basic American
principles want the United States to stop offering this
money. What it does is it makes every person in Iran working
for democracy look like a traitor. Essentially, the United
States is trying to send money to activists in Iran, and at the
same time the United States is calling for the overthrow of the
Iranian government. That has lead to a hugely brutal and repressive
crack down on people in Iran that are working for democracy and
for a more open society. There is a unanimous agreement in Iran
that U.S. should try to pursue a calmer and more sophisticated
approach to Iran. If you talk to people like the recently released
political person Akbar Gangi or the Nobel prize winner Shirin
Ebadi, they will tell you what all Iranian democrats say, "Let
the United States stop threatening Iran. Let the United States
deal with Iran and see if we can't produce some kind of a new
paradigm."
Now, we don't know whether
some unconditional, comprehensive negotiating process would produce
the results that we hope for. Nonetheless, this is such a low
cost option. It is completely immoral to go to war with a country
before you have truly exhausted all the peaceful options. All
we need to do is make this effort in a serious, good faith way.
If that doesn't work, then we are in a new situation. But it's
not possible or legal or moral or good for the national security
interests of the United States to be thinking about an attack
on Iran without first thinking about other alternatives.
Wajahat Ali is Pakistani Muslim American who is
neither a terrorist nor a saint. He is a playwright, essayist,
humorist, and Attorney at Law, whose work, "The Domestic
Crusaders," (www.domesticcrusaders.com)
is the first major play about Muslim Americans living in a post
9-11 America. His blog is at http://goatmilk.wordpress.com/.
He can be reached at wajahatmali@gmail.com
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