The draft agreement with Iran represents a step away from yet another war in the greater Middle East / Southwest Asia region, but it is being presented and discussed squarely within the same imperial context that has defined our relationship with the Islamic Republic for my entire adult life. It is a little hard to see how Obama can inch this country away from its delusions about Iran without departing from them himself, at least in a small way. He has always been an incrementalist when it comes to human progress. Often, as the drones fly, I feel like we’re moving incrementally in entirely the wrong direction, but even where I agree that we should have this kind of agreement with Iran, it is with the realization that we are still reaching substantially beyond anything that should be considered our legitimate concern.
Before anyone accuses me of it, I am not a fan of the clerical regime in Iran. The Iranian people have, however, been subjected to sustained attack by the United States since we expanded our empire during and after World War II. We have caused them immense suffering, through the overthrow of their democratically elected government in 1953, through the imposition of our close ally, the Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, through our support of Saddam Hussein in his murderous war against Iran, through decades of draconian sanctions. There are many Americans – some friends, even – who will list for me the strikes against Americans attributed to Iran (all in the context of various military adventures on our part), but in all honesty, they pale in comparison to what we have done to them.
It’s a stretch to say that Iran was interested in developing nuclear weapons, but frankly, it wouldn’t come as any surprise. The regional nuclear arms race various American politicians – from Obama to the G.O.P. – have been warning us about is already underway. With an arsenal of hundreds of warheads in Israel and nuclear-capable assets deployed in the region by the U.S., who can blame anyone in Iran’s position for wanting some kind of deterrent, particularly since we have demonstrated in very practical terms our willingness to invade non-nuclear states and our reluctance to attack those who maintain an atom-powered arsenal.
Let’s get past this obsession with our own “great satan” and stop being afraid of this country we’ve been threatening for 35 years. If this agreement is the first step, I’m all for it.
luv u,
jp
Iran Pact. A framework agreement on Iranian nuclear development was arrived at on Thursday. This will be the subject of a great deal of hand-wringing, even garment rending, and some full throated protests from the usual folks. There is a strong impetus in the United States towards war with Iran. It is not a popular option amongst the American people at large, but pundits and politicians appear to savor the idea. None of them would suffer in the event of a war, of course, so their clamoring comes at a very low potential cost.
The mainstream media portray this as a kind of battle royale between the President and Congress, Democrats and Republicans, extreme left and extreme right. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the one-party state we call politics, there is a remarkable consensus on the topic of Iran. Both factions – Democrats and Republicans – consider Iran an outlaw state, both insist that it can have no nuclear technology, both blame it for the abysmal state of relations between our countries, both condemn it as a supporter of international terrorism, both repeat the mantra that “all options are on the table” with respect to Iran (a thinly veiled threat that is in itself a violation of the U.N. charter), etc., etc. What separates the two sides is nothing more than nuance.
So, once again, we are on the verge of creating another catastrophe in Iraq, the predictable consequences of which will be a further radicalization of the Sunni community, just as our 2003 invasion gave rise to Al Qaeda in Iraq, the precursor of ISIS. Same story, over and over again, and we somehow expect a different ending. Our imperial foreign policy is an enemy manufacturing machine, as the past sixty years have amply demonstrated. Quite an efficient system; one generation is caught up with fighting the jihadists spawned by the one that preceded it.
This is a cultivated disconnect, certainly no accident. Every day, the news media hammer away at the threat of Ebola, of ISIS, of Russia, and to a lesser extent North Korea and Iran. In the case of the former, we’re reaching a near hysteria about a virus that has affected only a handful of Americans, and only three cases in the U.S. The public has been worked up into such a lather that politicians are falling over themselves to try to benefit from it, take advantage of it, channel it in some way that is useful to them. One only wishes we could evoke this sort of reaction on actual threats, like our disastrous automotive transportation system that kills over 30,000 of us a year.
bothered to follow the money back from ISIS to their funders in Saudi Arabia, a nation our own John McCain and others have praised to the rafters for funding the Syrian opposition. Once again, we are staring down the barrels of our own guns, scratching our heads in wonder.
Anyway, there was the usual stories about boys choirs singing “Death to America!”, the “Down with Israel” chants, etc. (Probably could hear that in Times Square if you listen hard enough.) 
size one year ago, the party who rules Washington – the tea party-fueled G.O.P. – has decided to drive us over the cliff once again, only this time it’s about ideological, not budgetary, complaints. We must kill Obamacare (and fulfill a long list of other reactionary desires), or the economy gets it.
I think if we’ve learned anything over the last thirty-five years it’s that the United States does not want any detente with the Iranian government, no matter how accommodating they become. We saw this with the Khatami government, which was very moderate and reformist and yet ended up on the “Axis of Evil” shortlist. Frankly, our leaders much prefer it when Iran elects presidents like Amedinejad, who are conveniently cartoon-like, racist, and easy to demonize. It’s the Rouhani’s who give them a belly ache.