Oh dear, the neocons are at it again, both according to the (conservative) London Telegraph and the fanciful American New Yorker’s Sy Hersh.
The main allegation is that powerful neocons, like Norman Podhoretz, are exerting their Svengali-like influence over Bush and Cheney to inspire a military attack on Iran. The Telegraph’s Tim Shipman nicely summarizes both the tone and the hollowness of the allegations:
American diplomats have been ordered to compile a dossier detailing Iran’s violations of international law that some fear could be used to justify military strikes against the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme.
Whenever you see “some fear could be used,” you know you’re dealing with gossip, not news. Shipman has no evidence that the Bush Administration is planning to launch military strikes against anything in Iran, let alone its nuclear program, indeed all he has, really, is an account of a session at the White House involving the president, the vice president, and Norman Podhoretz, who has called for us to bomb Iran. Podhoretz thinks Bush and Cheney are resolved to do it, but even he has no evidence for this belief, aside from chuckles and body language at the meeting.
Hersh has been announcing the imminent bombing of Iranian nuclear sites for many months, and has now changed the lyrics to that chant. He now says that there’s been a change in program: we’re going to bomb military targets, Revolutionary Guards bases, and so forth. As usual, his sources range from the unnamed to the unreliable. He relies on Vincent Cannistraro, who has lied about me among his other inventions, and on Vali Nasr, who rarely sees anything to criticize in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The quality of Nasr’s analysis emerges in an amazing statement that Hersh quotes with favor:
It’s clear that the United States cannot bring security to Iraq, because it is not doing everything necessary to bring stability. If they did, they would talk to anybody to achieve it—even Iran and Syria,” Nasr said. (Such engagement was a major recommendation of the Iraq Study Group.) “America cannot bring stability in Iraq by fighting Iran in Iraq.
Apparently, despite all the public announcements, press conferences, photo ops, and the like, we really aren’t talking to the mullahs at all.
It’s mysticism, not reporting.
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15 Comments
1. David Thomson:“Oh dear, the neocons are at it again”
This is just another way of saying “the Jews are at it again.” The leftist cultural milieu is comprised of self-hating Westerners. We are supposedly responsible for the rage of the radical Muslims. Everything will be fine if only the “Likud” dominated Israelis cease crapping on the Palestinians. Thus, if Osama bin Ladin and his allies remain angry with the West—-it is obviously the fault of the Jews. Anti-Semitism is likely to dramatically increase. This will be especially true if the self-hating Americans of Democratic Party capture the White House in 2008.
Oct 1, 2007 - 7:15 am 2. Holodeck:Look up neocon in a real dictionary, not wikipedia
ML:
ugh, wikipedia.
Oct 1, 2007 - 4:52 pm 3. Ira Zad:I know Vali Nasr’s family. His father was, and is an Islamist disguised as a “Reformist”, he was placed as the head of University of Aryamehr in Tehran for short time in the 70’s (under the Shah); before he was ambushed and attacked by assassins outside the University gates. He survived the attempt.
Vali, like his father, is an apologist and advocate of teh Iranian Theocracy. He and his father have ties to certain pro-Islamic factions within the British elite (Jack Straw the ex-foreign minister also had a soft spot in his heart for the mullahs of Iran).
Oct 1, 2007 - 9:24 pm 4. rohollah:down with usa
down with death
مرگ بر آمریکا یعنی مرگ بر مرگ
مرگ بر آمریکا یعنی درود بر صلح و عشق
ML:
I must say I prefer the second sentiment to the first…
Oct 2, 2007 - 5:30 am 5. Reza shirazi:Jewish are at it alright, last week 2 laws passes against Iran in congress one came by Joe lieberman for Iranian Revolutionary gaurd and the 2nd by Tom Lantos to sanction Iran and any company who deals with Iran, both introduced by Jewish AIPAC lobby now tell me jewish are not at it again.
ML:
And if you’re right about the power of the Jews, the Islamic Republic is doomed, right?
Oct 2, 2007 - 11:25 am 6. David Thomson:“Look up neocon in a real dictionary, not wikipedia.”
It matters not a whit how a “real dictionary” defines neoconservativism. This is something you can take for granted: whenever someone uses the term in a pejorative manner—they are talking about an alleged Jewish conspiracy. When pushed a little further, they believe that Israel has no right to exist. Sadly, a large number of these people are genetically Jewish and would have been murdered by Hitler had he the opportunity.
Oct 2, 2007 - 12:01 pm 7. Alireza:I did my best to translate this editorial from Voice of Justice that publishes in Iran, and it was posted on emruz.info site, regarding to Ahmadinejad speech at Columbia U.
Few Simple Questions
Mr. Ahmadinejad, during your trip to U.S., did this occur to you as to how and why, despite all the opposition to your speech by high-level U.S. officials, STILL your were able to speak at the university?
Wasn’t it true that among those who objected to your speech at the university, right outside the building, number of U.S. senators and naturally the Jewish lobby representatives and even foreign minister of Israel were outside on the street and protesting your speech there?
But even those, who you say are responsible for many crimes and decision-making in U.S. were not able to stop you talking at the university.
Contrary to that, just security official of a city, governor office, Friday prayer leader, or even some university officials with any political reasons can block and prevent a group to speak or gather for a certain cause in Iran.
So contrary to your claim, Iran has the least of such rights. Even looking at the process of obtaining permission for publishing books or articles is one more bitter reality of Iran. All political sites that are critical of your policies are filtered.
None of these are compatible with your talk about respecting others in Iran.
Dr. Ahmadinejad, U.S. Constitution was established in 1789. Since that time, please investigate how many newspapers the U.S government banned. Have you noticed the hottest news about corruptions by U.S. officials and the sharpest criticism of the U.S. government are all coming from U.S. political parties and their U.S. media?
In your speech, you said there are hundreds of speeches and discussions that take place in Iranian universities. But I don’t understand what do you mean by the types of discussions and speeches. You did not mentioned how many speeches that are not taking place because they were not allowed.
Oct 2, 2007 - 1:10 pm 8. Winston:Seymour M. Hersh is the last person to talk about Iran but his sci-fi stories about Iran and Bush administration like the above article are not bad… Ah not to mention that none of his stories have been proven to be true though and thats why I think he should only write sci-fi stuff.
Oct 2, 2007 - 11:19 pm 9. kourosh:Funny thing happened in Tehran yesterday. Ah-Mad-eenejad was scheduled to speak in Tehran U on the occasion of new school year. A student organization asked him to let one of the representatives of the real student instead of usual rented Basiji crowed to attend and ask questions. The student organization asked: “now that you (Mr. Terrorist-President) claimed you have the best democracy in the world along with free speech in Iran, let real students ask you few questions. Guess what? The whole appearance of Terrorist-President was cancelled. Of course this important event was not mentioned in Oily media which doesn’t care what happens to the Iranian people on daily basis. Instead an irrelevant story like inviting Bush by a terrorist head of University in a city (Mashad) in Iran was the main news.
ML:
Actually I wrote about this a day or two ago on The Corner. But your point is certainly right.
Oct 3, 2007 - 10:28 am 10. kourosh:Basra has become another Tehran. All Khomeinists principles are being applied on human living in Basra.
The gang of backwards (so-called Lebas Shakhsia in Farsi meaning terrorists in civilian cloth) are moving about the city and creating problems and harassing women and young men. It is all about Hejab (A Black Garbage Bag look alike forced upon the women). The same harassment is applied to young men wearing Western cloths. Exactly the same way backwards applied Khomeinists principle on Human. Here is the story:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20071004/wl_mcclatchy/20071004bcusiraqwomen_attn_national_foreign_editors_ytop
Oct 4, 2007 - 9:25 pm 11. Jeanne De Rakhsh:See JeanneDeRakhsh Blogs for more: http://mor2com.blogspot.com/
The term Islamo-fascist is too broad a brush. But Having said that, it is fitting to the Theocracy in Iran.
Condi, the Mistress of Dominatrix outfits, is of the Madeleine Albright school of thought in that she is against military attack on Iran, and pro appeasement of the mullahs, and “sleeping with the enemy” (no pun intended) within the framework of a “Grand Bargain” which will gaurantee that US will not try to overthrow the regime, if and only if Iran stops supporting Islamic terrorists around the world, and also stop its nuclear activities (like THAT’s gonna ever happen, even if the mullahs promise all!). Suffice it to say, Condi is no friend of the Iranian people or a future Iranian democracy, either…
Oct 5, 2007 - 4:46 am 12. Alireza:Reading comments by Jeanne De Rakhsh, indeed makes me wonder how power of saffron and its ability to make people like him/her way into the wonderland.
If you read his comments S L O W L Y, you can just feel the same DNA pattern that exists in Ahmadinejad, Basiji people and basically all PARANOID people of Iran, who always ALWAYS have HUGE amount of hallucination and paranoid feeling about each class and group of people. Even, you can sense the same in my writing, but I’m in 12-step recovery!!LOL…
So, make sure to read his entire comment about his chain reaction that EVERYONE in Iran is connected to another country, mostly in the West,
Attention Think Tank researchers! if you always wanted to analyze and get a clean sample of paranoid Iranian species without being spoiled by outside influences, then you are going to have lots of fun with Jeanne De Rakhsh.
Jeanne, please do me a favor! Please write more like the way you did here. The more dots you connect, the more it reminds me of Daei Jon Napoleon TV series!!! LOL… I’m sure you remember that…LOL keep up the good work my hamvatan!
Oct 5, 2007 - 2:14 pm 13. Disappointed:Oh yes, and the London Telegraph has not been the only British Newspaper to make such allegations. Earlier, another one citing a reputed and successful conservative expert kid, wrote that the Pentagon has a “three-day blitz’ plan for Iran.”
But I let you know that I heartedly, to say the least, stand by your opinion about this issue. For, I am not one of those “conventionalists” traditionally blinded by appearances who, sadly enough, are too eager to largely reward young histrionic “scholars” at the expense of the honest man.
It may hurt!
Oct 6, 2007 - 2:00 am 14. kourosh:Some anti-Western forces in Iran are trying to make a martyr out of the Terrorist-President Ah-Mad-eenejad and elevate him to the human levels. The issue is the so-called ill treatment of the Terrorist-President of IRT (Islamic Republic of Terrorists) by Columbia U.’s President. Let us address the issues here, shall we?
1) No representative of IRT has ever has representative of Iranian people. Therefore, pointing out to the Terrorist-President of what he and his Khomeinists friends have done to Iran, to Iranian people, and to the world at large is not necessary a wrong thing. On the contrary, it is absolutely necessary and something that Iranian people have been waiting and expecting from the West instead of usual economic-based appeasement.
2) The backward forces claim, what happened in Columbia is against standard norm of hospitality. Oh Ya? I guess taking 52 people hostage in their own embassy, which is total violating of all human norms and diplomatic principles, is part of terrorist hospitality and must be accepted by all human just because Khomeinie encouraged it himself.
3) Mr. Terrorist-President have no right to talk about Iranian 2500 years history, in general and Cyrus the Great in particular, since from the get go the whole revolt of 1979 is based on denying 2500 years Iranian history. Moreover, Cyrus must be only mentioned by those who respect human rights, not those whose whole entire entity (Khomeinism, Islamo-Fashism, Mullacracy, Talibanism) is based on human rights violation.
So, Mr. Terrorist-President and friends, please shut-up and don’t complain about your treatment in Columbia U. Those who murder, rape, jail, and abuse their own people under the name of their God or for whatever imaginary reason are not human and as such have no Human Right. Just like terrorists jailed in Guantanamo shouldn’t have any human right.
Oct 6, 2007 - 12:17 pm 15. Jeanne De Rakhsh:Alireza,
This is not a dialogue forum; it is a commentary on the article subject. Do not confuse it with a dialogue between commentators (talkinga bout Iranian traits.)
I would be happy to take yoyu on 1 on 1 with your shallow comments and all.
ML:
go for it! we’re big 1st amendment people here…the only requirement is no personal insults. so long as everyone advances understanding, it’s wide open.
Oct 6, 2007 - 1:19 pm