The Iranian election is a fraud. Now we have "proof" and that "proof" of fraud is in the open, via Juan Cole. He has not one, but six elements of "proof" listed in his latest article. Let's take a closer look.
1. It is claimed that Ahmadinejad won the city of Tabriz with 57%. His main opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, is an Azeri from Azerbaijan province, of which Tabriz is the capital. Mousavi, according to such polls as exist in Iran and widespread anecdotal evidence, did better in cities and is popular in Azerbaijan. Certainly, his rallies there were very well attended. So for an Azeri urban center to go so heavily for Ahmadinejad just makes no sense. In past elections, Azeris voted disproportionately for even minor presidential candidates who hailed from that province.
What did the polls in Iran really say? Check out here. Basically, the results are all over the place due to the lack of means to poll in depth in such a diverse and large country. But Juan Cole knows better - his polls say that an Azeri must have won. Well, jee, Ali Khamenei is an Azeri and, according to the same Juan Cole, he intensely dislikes Mousavi... just kidding, of course. Mr Cole expects Azeris to vote Azeri, regardless of class or politics. He also seems to ignore that Ahmadinejad recently made an entire speech in Azeri in front of a huge crowd, but he "knows" that this made no difference. How does he know that? "Widespread anecdotal evidence", I kid you not.... So much for proof #1
2. Ahmadinejad is claimed to have taken Tehran by over 50%. Again, he is not popular in the cities, even, as he claims, in the poor neighborhoods, in part because his policies have produced high inflation and high unemployment. That he should have won Tehran is so unlikely as to raise real questions about these numbers. [Ahmadinejad is widely thought only to have won Tehran in 2005 because the pro-reform groups were discouraged and stayed home rather than voting.)
That is a neat one. The proof that Ahmadinejad cheated is that he could not have taken Tehran since he is not popular in Tehran. How do you know that he is not popular in Tehran? Kuz he had to cheat to get Tehran since he is not popular there. QED.
3. It is claimed that cleric Mehdi Karoubi, the other reformist candidate, received 320,000 votes, and that he did poorly in Iran's western provinces, even losing in Luristan. He is a Lur and is popular in the west, including in Kurdistan. Karoubi received 17 percent of the vote in the first round of presidential elections in 2005. While it is possible that his support has substantially declined since then, it is hard to believe that he would get less than one percent of the vote. Moreover, he should have at least done well in the west, which he did not.
Has cleric Mehdi Karoubi made any such claims? Maybe Mr Cole knows something Karoubi does not? After all, Karoubi lost in his own province, something which is clearly evidence of fraud, at least for Mr Cole.
4. Mohsen Rezaie, who polled very badly and seems not to have been at all popular, is alleged to have received 670,000 votes, twice as much as Karoubi.
Rezaee, clearly a "bad guy", is a former Pasdaran commander (which alone should give him something of a constituency). What about the polls? Again, check out for yourself and you will see the kind of "proof" Mr Cole is relying on ("making up" is, I think, the better expression). Next,
5. Ahmadinejad's numbers were fairly standard across Iran's provinces. In past elections there have been substantial ethnic and provincial variations.
That's some rock solid proof for you: past elections were different than today's. Why organize elections to begin with, unless one accepts that trends can change, no?
6. The Electoral Commission is supposed to wait three days before certifying the results of the election, at which point they are to inform Khamenei of the results, and he signs off on the process. The three-day delay is intended to allow charges of irregularities to be adjudicated. In this case, Khamenei immediately approved the alleged results.
That is, finally, in interesting one. What Mr Cole has "overlooked" is the chronology of what actually took place. It was Mousavi who did not wait at all and announced that he had won, and then the Electoral Commission - who had access to the provisional, partial, numbers - said that it appeared that Ahmadenajad had won. That, in turn, begs the question of how Mr Musavi could be so sure of his victory, does it not?
Mr Cole brings on one more argument, though not a "proof":
As the real numbers started coming into the Interior Ministry late on Friday, it became clear that Mousavi was winning. Mousavi's spokesman abroad, filmmaker Mohsen Makhbalbaf, alleges that the ministry even contacted Mousavi's camp and said it would begin preparing the population for this victory. The ministry must have informed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has had a feud with Mousavi for over 30 years, who found this outcome unsupportable.
First, Mr Cole seems to be unaware of the simple fact that if Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had a "feud" with Musawi he could have very simply barred him from running. The Supreme Leader has that power according to the Iranian Constitution. Second, who is he quoting on that? FOX News? No, but an equally credible source: Mousavi's spoksman abroad, Mohsen Makhmalbaf (Cole got his last name wrong).
Now that we are done with all this nonsense, let us look at what we should be looking for:
a) legal actions in Iranian courts alleging voting irregularities and siting concrete examples
b) an explanation, even in general terms, of how the vote was rigged. Roughly TEN MILLION votes should have been somehow "stolen" to make that happen.
c) an explanation of what anybody had to gain by rigging a presidential election in Iran (the President has no real power in this country to begin with).
So far, all we have, is one camp (Mousavi's) making allegations which so far are substantiated by exactly *nothing* and Juan Cole "proofs" which really prove one thing - that there are no real proofs of any kind, at least so far.
I am more than willing to change my mind about all this, but I will need more than this bullshit to take these accusations seriously. Mind you, even serious accusations are in no way proof of anything, but at least they can serve as the basis for an investigation. So far, all we have been shown is hot air, absurd syllogistic conclusions, and outright baloney.
Showing posts with label Juan Cole. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Juan Cole. Show all posts
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Amy Goodman interviews Professor Juan Cole on Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Kurdistan
by Amy Goodman
President Bush has asked Congress for another $46 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The request brings this year's total to more than $196 billion -- by the far the highest amount since the 9/11 attacks. If the trend continues, war funding could top $1 trillion by the time Bush leaves office. By some measures, that amount would exceed the cost of the Korean and Vietnam wars combined.
The record-high request comes as the drumbeat continues for opening a new war in Iran. Vice President Dick Cheney warned Sunday that Iran faces “serious consequences” over its nuclear program and alleged role in Iraq. His comments came days after President Bush spoke for the first time of “World War III” if Iran obtains the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. And the threat has been bipartisan: the three leading Democratic presidential candidates -- Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards -- have all declared that no option is off the table to stop Iran's nuclear program.
(excerpts from the interview - for the full interview and audio, click here)
AMY GOODMAN: President Bush has asked Congress for another $46 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The request brings this year's total to more than $196 billion, by far the highest amount since the 9/11 attacks. If the trend continues, war funding could top $1 trillion by the time Bush leaves office. By some measures, that amount would exceed the cost of the Korean and Vietnam wars combined. The record-high request comes as the drumbeat continues for opening a new war with Iran. Vice President Dick Cheney warned Sunday that Iran faces “serious consequences” over its nuclear program and alleged role in Iraq. His comments came days after President Bush spoke for the first time of “World War III” if Iran obtains the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. And the threat has been bipartisan: the three leading Democratic presidential candidates -- Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards -- have all declared that no option is off the table to stop Iran's nuclear program.
Juan Cole is a professor of history at the University of Michigan. He runs an analytic website called "Informed Comment," where he provides a daily roundup of news and events in Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab world. In his new book, Juan Cole steps back from his widely regarded analysis of contemporary politics to chronicle the first Western invasion of the Middle East since the Crusades. Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East is a history of France's 1798 invasion of Egypt, a conquest the still has repercussions today.
Juan Cole joins us now from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Professor Cole.
JUAN COLE: Thanks so much, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s great to have you with us. Before we go back in time, can you talk about this latest news, the latest threats against Iran? How serious are they? Do you think a US war with Iran is imminent?
JUAN COLE: Well, I think the Cheney camp in the Bush administration very much would like to bomb the nuclear research facilities, which, as far as we know, are civilian facilities near Esfahan. And what has been leaked from their office is that they’ve talked about various stratagems for getting up such an attack and that they have been blocked so far by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and by Secretary of State Condi Rice.
AMY GOODMAN: And what about the shifting rationale? I mean, we saw in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction -- or was it Saddam Hussein was a tyrant? -- that didn’t fly with the US, so they went with WMD, and Saddam Hussein didn’t have WMD. We hear about the nuclear issue, and then we hear about the shifting rationale, that the American people see it as too similar to the missing WMD in Iraq, so that the rationale would be that Iranian soldiers are fighting in Iraq and killing US soldiers.
JUAN COLE: Well, the most disheartening thing for the Cheney war camp must be that a recent poll shows that they’ve actually managed to convince the vast majority of Americans that Iran is trying to get a nuclear bomb and that Iran is actively killing US troops in Iraq. Neither thing is actually in evidence. They’re possible, but it hasn’t been proven. But most Americans have accepted this story. And yet, 78% of Americans say that they don’t want a US attack on Iran. So, so far, all of the rationales that they have trotted out and trumpeted through the media for attacking Iran have not been sufficient to convince the American people that action is necessary.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Cole, I want to ask you about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to the US last month. He spoke at Columbia University in a highly contested address. Many who criticized Columbia for hosting the event later praised Columbia President Lee Bollinger for his harsh introduction to Ahmadinejad.
LEE BOLLINGER: Frankly -- I close with this comment -- frankly and in all candor, Mr. President, I doubt that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions. But your avoiding them will, in itself, be meaningful to us. I do expect you to exhibit the fanatical mindset that characterizes so much of what you say and do.
Fortunately, I am told by experts on your country that this only further undermines your position in Iran, with all the many goodhearted intelligent citizens there. A year ago, I am reliably told, your preposterous and belligerent statements in this country -- was at one of the meetings of the Council on Foreign Relations -- so embarrassed sensible Iranian citizens that this led to your party's defeat in the December mayoral elections. May this do that and more.
I am only a professor -- I am only a professor who is also a university president. And today I feel all the weight of the modern civilized world yearning to express the revulsion at what you stand for. I only wish I could do better. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Columbia University President Lee Bollinger. Professor Cole, your response?
JUAN COLE: Well, my own analysis is that Bollinger solved a problem that he had, which was that his -- one of his deans had invited Ahmadinejad the previous year to speak at Columbia, and Bollinger had shot that down. His faculty were angry at him for suppressing this man’s freedom of speech in the United States. And so, I think he felt he had to extend the invitation this year.
On the other hand, he wants to rebuild the area around Columbia University. He wants to put a new theater district up there. He needs the help of the New York real estate community, many of whom are warm supporters of Israel and who would be offended by Ahmadinejad’s invitation. So I think he solved the problem by inviting Ahmadinejad, and so mollifying his faculty, and then attacking Ahmadinejad, and so mollifying his real estate backers.
AMY GOODMAN: What about Ahmadinejad’s power in Iran?
JUAN COLE: Well, Ahmadinejad is a ceremonial president. He is a little bit more active, has stronger links to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps than his predecessor, Mohammad Khatami, who, by the way -- the previous president of Iran -- has upbraided Ahmadinejad for his comments regarding Holocaust denial. So Ahmadinejad is -- he is not commander-in-chief of the armed forces. He can’t order anybody to kill anybody. He can’t launch a war. He can’t launch missiles. Those powers are vested in the Supreme Jurisprudent, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Ahmadinejad can, you know, cut the ribbons and open bridges and things like that. So the American right’s fascination with him is entirely misplaced, and it’s because he’s a quirky character and he has objectionable views, and so it’s easy to use him to demonize Iran.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you about General Petraeus's report. General Petraeus spoke before Congress last month. He accused Iran of waging a proxy war inside Iraq.
GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS: In the past six months, we have also targeted Shia militia extremists, capturing a number of senior leaders and fighters, as well as the deputy commander of Lebanese Hezbollah Department 2800, the organization created to support the training, arming, funding and, in some cases, direction of the militia extremists by the Iranian Republican Guard Corps Quds Force. These elements have assassinated and kidnapped Iraqi governmental leaders, killed and wounded our soldiers with advanced explosive devices provided by Iran and indiscriminately rocketed civilians in the international zone and elsewhere. It is increasingly apparent to both coalition and Iraqi leaders that Iran, through the use of the Quds Force, seeks to turn the Iraqi special groups into a Hezbollah-like force to serve its interests and fight a proxy war against the Iraqi state and coalition forces in Iraq.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s General Petraeus testifying before Congress. Professor Cole, your response?
JUAN COLE: Well, the whole story doesn't make much sense to me. The main backers of Iran in Iraq are the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which was formed in Iran at the suggestion of Ayatollah Khomeini by Iraqi Shiite expatriates, and has a paramilitary, the Badr Corps, which is trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The Badr Corps and the Supreme Council are America's closest allies among the Shiites of Iraq.
I think this is really a jealous girlfriend story. I think the US wants the fundamentalist Shiite parties and militias for itself, doesn’t want to have to compete with Iran for their affection for clientelage, and so is slamming Iran as a way of driving a wedge between them. All of the Iranian personnel that have been kidnapped by the United States, detained by the United States, have been found in territory of US allies -- Abdul-Aziz Al-Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Council, or up in Irbil among our Kurdish allies. So the idea that the Iranians are building up rogue units of the nativist Mahdi Army, who are slum kids in Iraq, don’t like Iran -- I don’t know -- doesn’t strike me as very likely. And I think that the US military is getting bad intelligence on these things from some of its contacts, including the cult-like terrorist organization, the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, which Saddam used against Iran and which the Pentagon is still using against Iran.
AMY GOODMAN: And the fact that there are more Saudi fighters in Iraq than Iranian, but that is almost never raised, either in the press or by the administration?
JUAN COLE: To my knowledge, the United States has never captured any Iranian with arms. There were 136 foreign detainees, the last we knew. There are 24,000 Iraqi ones. And the 136 contain no Iranians at all. 45% of them, earlier in the summer, were Saudis. I think that proportion has changed, but it’s such a small number. But, in any case, there is no proof of any actual Iranian military activity inside Iraq whatsoever.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, on the issue of Iran, the resignation of the nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, what is the significance of this?
JUAN COLE: Well, it’s very bad news. In many ways, it’s a sign that President Ahmadinejad, who does have the power to appoint ambassadors and some of the diplomatic corps in conjunction with the approval of the Supreme Leader Khamenei, is gradually putting his people into place. Larijani was a very experienced diplomat, well liked among his European interlocutors, and is being replaced by someone of far less experience who, however, is close to Ahmadinejad. So, it’s cronyism. I think it’s a very bad move on Iran's part and probably worsens their posture with regard to these negotiations over their nuclear program.
AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is Professor Juan Cole, professor of history, University of Michigan. He’s joining us from Ann Arbor from the campus. He runs an analytical website called "Informed Comment," and has written a new book called Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East.
Let's go today's top story: tension remaining high on the Turkish-Iraq border, following the killing of seventeen Turkish troops by Kurdish militants over the weekend. How significant is this?
JUAN COLE: Well, it’s extremely significant. I mean, imagine what would happen in this country if a guerrilla group based in a neighboring country came over the border and killed seventeen US troops. That would be a war. And the Kurdish guerrilla movement, the Kurdish Workers Party, based now in Iraq, but originally from Eastern Anatolia, from the Turkish regions, is conducting a guerrilla war against the Turkish military. It is being given safe harbor by Kurdish politicians on the Iraqi side.
And, in essence, the United States has created this situation in which a NATO ally -- people forget Turkey fought alongside the United States in Korea; it’s got troops in Afghanistan -- a NATO ally of the United States is being attacked and its troops killed by a terrorist organization, so designated by the State Department, that essentially has US auspices. The US is responsible for security in Iraq.
AMY GOODMAN: And how connected is the US to the PKK, or is it at all?
JUAN COLE: Well, the United States doesn’t like the PKK and doesn’t have much connection to it, but the United States has allied with the Iraqi Kurdish leaders, who are the most reliable allies of the United States in Iraq: Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani. And Barzani, in particular, it seems to me, just de facto, is giving harbor to, giving haven to, these PKK guerrillas. So the United States needs Barzani and needs his support. He’s doing an oil deal with Hunt Oil, which is close to the Bush administration. His Peshmurga paramilitary is the backbone of the most effective fires of the new Iraqi army. They do security details in other cities like Mosul and Kirkuk. So the US really desperately depends on the Kurdistan Regional Authority and its paramilitary and can’t afford to alienate Barzani. And since Barzani is -- behind the scenes seems to kind of like the PKK and does -- giving them a haven, the US is politically complicit in these attacks.
AMY GOODMAN: What is the deal with Hunt Oil?
JUAN COLE: Well, Hunt Oil, which is, I think, losing its bids in Yemen, is desperate for a new field to develop, and they are exploring a partnership with the Kurdistan Regional Authority in northern Iraq.
AMY GOODMAN: And the issue of the US Congress taking a vote within one of its committees, Foreign Relations Committee, that Turkey was involved in a genocide against the Armenians, the significance of that vote, though it’s expected to fail at a congressional level with the whole Congress voting, and how it has played in Turkey, leading to the parliament vote to invade northern Iraq?
JUAN COLE: Well, I really here would underline that, as a historian, I think it’s important that everybody understand the horrible things that were done to the Armenians during World War I. On the other hand, it’s my duty also to try to understand the Turkish contemporary response, which is that the United States has made enormous trouble for this close ally. Turkey has put itself out over the last decades to help the United States. It was an ally in the Cold War. It was an ally in the Gulf War.
And in return, the United States seems to have told Turkey, “Drop dead,” I mean, they invaded Iraq against Turkish advice. They have unleashed Shiite fundamentalism, Sunni fundamentalism, Kurdish separatism on Turkey's doorstep. There is now a resurgence of the PKK and terrorism against Turkish citizens. And now, on top of all this trouble the United States is making for the Turks, the US Congress was set to condemn the Ottoman government of Turkey, the predecessor government to the present one, for this genocide against the Armenians.
So, the Turks are hurt and confused. In Bill Clinton's last year, 56% of the Turkish public thought well of the United States. That number is down to 9%. So it’s not entirely clear what motive the United States has in so alienating a country that has been a valued and close ally.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you see the war expanding?
JUAN COLE: The Iraq war could expand very easily. I mean, we don’t know, of course, the future, but now we begin to see that the Kurdish separatism in northern Iraq is causing severe tensions and possibly military conflict with Turkey. There’s a possibility of increased Sunni volunteers, if the Shiites were to massacre any large number of Sunni Arabs. It especially seems likely that the US will gradually draw down troops in the next two and three years. If it leaves behind it substantial instability and there are massacres, it could draw in the neighbors. You could have a proxy war. And these things are dangerous to the world economy, because the Persian Gulf is the source of a very substantial amount of the world's energy, and that energy production could be interrupted by such a guerrilla war. So it’s a very, very dangerous situation.
AMY GOODMAN: And the news from Lebanon that a high-ranking leader of Hezbollah has warned the United States not to set up any military bases inside Lebanon, Hezbollah saying it would consider such move a hostile act, and the US increasing their military assistance to Lebanon to $270 million, more than five times the amount they provided a year ago?
JUAN COLE: Well, to tell you the truth, Amy, I think the idea of putting a US military base in Lebanon, which is an unstable country and has a very large Shiite militia, is a brain-dead idea, and I can’t imagine that the Lebanese government itself will be so stupid as to go forward with this. And up until recently, of course, Hezbollah, which opposes this plan and which has a substantial number of deputies in the Lebanese parliament, was part of a national unity government. That’s broken down for the moment. It may come back. It seems to me that the politics of that move would be awfully fraught.
Juan Cole, professor of History at the University of Michigan. He runs an analytical website called "Informed Comment" where he provides a daily roundup of news and events in Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab world. In his new book, Juan Cole steps back from his widely regarded analysis of contemporary politics to chronicle the first Western invasion of the Middle East since the Crusades. “Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East” is a history of France's 1798 invasion of Egypt, a conquest that still has repercussions today.
President Bush has asked Congress for another $46 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The request brings this year's total to more than $196 billion -- by the far the highest amount since the 9/11 attacks. If the trend continues, war funding could top $1 trillion by the time Bush leaves office. By some measures, that amount would exceed the cost of the Korean and Vietnam wars combined.
The record-high request comes as the drumbeat continues for opening a new war in Iran. Vice President Dick Cheney warned Sunday that Iran faces “serious consequences” over its nuclear program and alleged role in Iraq. His comments came days after President Bush spoke for the first time of “World War III” if Iran obtains the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. And the threat has been bipartisan: the three leading Democratic presidential candidates -- Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards -- have all declared that no option is off the table to stop Iran's nuclear program.
(excerpts from the interview - for the full interview and audio, click here)
AMY GOODMAN: President Bush has asked Congress for another $46 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The request brings this year's total to more than $196 billion, by far the highest amount since the 9/11 attacks. If the trend continues, war funding could top $1 trillion by the time Bush leaves office. By some measures, that amount would exceed the cost of the Korean and Vietnam wars combined. The record-high request comes as the drumbeat continues for opening a new war with Iran. Vice President Dick Cheney warned Sunday that Iran faces “serious consequences” over its nuclear program and alleged role in Iraq. His comments came days after President Bush spoke for the first time of “World War III” if Iran obtains the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. And the threat has been bipartisan: the three leading Democratic presidential candidates -- Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards -- have all declared that no option is off the table to stop Iran's nuclear program.
Juan Cole is a professor of history at the University of Michigan. He runs an analytic website called "Informed Comment," where he provides a daily roundup of news and events in Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab world. In his new book, Juan Cole steps back from his widely regarded analysis of contemporary politics to chronicle the first Western invasion of the Middle East since the Crusades. Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East is a history of France's 1798 invasion of Egypt, a conquest the still has repercussions today.
Juan Cole joins us now from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Professor Cole.
JUAN COLE: Thanks so much, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s great to have you with us. Before we go back in time, can you talk about this latest news, the latest threats against Iran? How serious are they? Do you think a US war with Iran is imminent?
JUAN COLE: Well, I think the Cheney camp in the Bush administration very much would like to bomb the nuclear research facilities, which, as far as we know, are civilian facilities near Esfahan. And what has been leaked from their office is that they’ve talked about various stratagems for getting up such an attack and that they have been blocked so far by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and by Secretary of State Condi Rice.
AMY GOODMAN: And what about the shifting rationale? I mean, we saw in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction -- or was it Saddam Hussein was a tyrant? -- that didn’t fly with the US, so they went with WMD, and Saddam Hussein didn’t have WMD. We hear about the nuclear issue, and then we hear about the shifting rationale, that the American people see it as too similar to the missing WMD in Iraq, so that the rationale would be that Iranian soldiers are fighting in Iraq and killing US soldiers.
JUAN COLE: Well, the most disheartening thing for the Cheney war camp must be that a recent poll shows that they’ve actually managed to convince the vast majority of Americans that Iran is trying to get a nuclear bomb and that Iran is actively killing US troops in Iraq. Neither thing is actually in evidence. They’re possible, but it hasn’t been proven. But most Americans have accepted this story. And yet, 78% of Americans say that they don’t want a US attack on Iran. So, so far, all of the rationales that they have trotted out and trumpeted through the media for attacking Iran have not been sufficient to convince the American people that action is necessary.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Cole, I want to ask you about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to the US last month. He spoke at Columbia University in a highly contested address. Many who criticized Columbia for hosting the event later praised Columbia President Lee Bollinger for his harsh introduction to Ahmadinejad.
LEE BOLLINGER: Frankly -- I close with this comment -- frankly and in all candor, Mr. President, I doubt that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions. But your avoiding them will, in itself, be meaningful to us. I do expect you to exhibit the fanatical mindset that characterizes so much of what you say and do.
Fortunately, I am told by experts on your country that this only further undermines your position in Iran, with all the many goodhearted intelligent citizens there. A year ago, I am reliably told, your preposterous and belligerent statements in this country -- was at one of the meetings of the Council on Foreign Relations -- so embarrassed sensible Iranian citizens that this led to your party's defeat in the December mayoral elections. May this do that and more.
I am only a professor -- I am only a professor who is also a university president. And today I feel all the weight of the modern civilized world yearning to express the revulsion at what you stand for. I only wish I could do better. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Columbia University President Lee Bollinger. Professor Cole, your response?
JUAN COLE: Well, my own analysis is that Bollinger solved a problem that he had, which was that his -- one of his deans had invited Ahmadinejad the previous year to speak at Columbia, and Bollinger had shot that down. His faculty were angry at him for suppressing this man’s freedom of speech in the United States. And so, I think he felt he had to extend the invitation this year.
On the other hand, he wants to rebuild the area around Columbia University. He wants to put a new theater district up there. He needs the help of the New York real estate community, many of whom are warm supporters of Israel and who would be offended by Ahmadinejad’s invitation. So I think he solved the problem by inviting Ahmadinejad, and so mollifying his faculty, and then attacking Ahmadinejad, and so mollifying his real estate backers.
AMY GOODMAN: What about Ahmadinejad’s power in Iran?
JUAN COLE: Well, Ahmadinejad is a ceremonial president. He is a little bit more active, has stronger links to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps than his predecessor, Mohammad Khatami, who, by the way -- the previous president of Iran -- has upbraided Ahmadinejad for his comments regarding Holocaust denial. So Ahmadinejad is -- he is not commander-in-chief of the armed forces. He can’t order anybody to kill anybody. He can’t launch a war. He can’t launch missiles. Those powers are vested in the Supreme Jurisprudent, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Ahmadinejad can, you know, cut the ribbons and open bridges and things like that. So the American right’s fascination with him is entirely misplaced, and it’s because he’s a quirky character and he has objectionable views, and so it’s easy to use him to demonize Iran.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you about General Petraeus's report. General Petraeus spoke before Congress last month. He accused Iran of waging a proxy war inside Iraq.
GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS: In the past six months, we have also targeted Shia militia extremists, capturing a number of senior leaders and fighters, as well as the deputy commander of Lebanese Hezbollah Department 2800, the organization created to support the training, arming, funding and, in some cases, direction of the militia extremists by the Iranian Republican Guard Corps Quds Force. These elements have assassinated and kidnapped Iraqi governmental leaders, killed and wounded our soldiers with advanced explosive devices provided by Iran and indiscriminately rocketed civilians in the international zone and elsewhere. It is increasingly apparent to both coalition and Iraqi leaders that Iran, through the use of the Quds Force, seeks to turn the Iraqi special groups into a Hezbollah-like force to serve its interests and fight a proxy war against the Iraqi state and coalition forces in Iraq.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s General Petraeus testifying before Congress. Professor Cole, your response?
JUAN COLE: Well, the whole story doesn't make much sense to me. The main backers of Iran in Iraq are the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which was formed in Iran at the suggestion of Ayatollah Khomeini by Iraqi Shiite expatriates, and has a paramilitary, the Badr Corps, which is trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The Badr Corps and the Supreme Council are America's closest allies among the Shiites of Iraq.I think this is really a jealous girlfriend story. I think the US wants the fundamentalist Shiite parties and militias for itself, doesn’t want to have to compete with Iran for their affection for clientelage, and so is slamming Iran as a way of driving a wedge between them. All of the Iranian personnel that have been kidnapped by the United States, detained by the United States, have been found in territory of US allies -- Abdul-Aziz Al-Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Council, or up in Irbil among our Kurdish allies. So the idea that the Iranians are building up rogue units of the nativist Mahdi Army, who are slum kids in Iraq, don’t like Iran -- I don’t know -- doesn’t strike me as very likely. And I think that the US military is getting bad intelligence on these things from some of its contacts, including the cult-like terrorist organization, the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, which Saddam used against Iran and which the Pentagon is still using against Iran.
AMY GOODMAN: And the fact that there are more Saudi fighters in Iraq than Iranian, but that is almost never raised, either in the press or by the administration?
JUAN COLE: To my knowledge, the United States has never captured any Iranian with arms. There were 136 foreign detainees, the last we knew. There are 24,000 Iraqi ones. And the 136 contain no Iranians at all. 45% of them, earlier in the summer, were Saudis. I think that proportion has changed, but it’s such a small number. But, in any case, there is no proof of any actual Iranian military activity inside Iraq whatsoever.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, on the issue of Iran, the resignation of the nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, what is the significance of this?
JUAN COLE: Well, it’s very bad news. In many ways, it’s a sign that President Ahmadinejad, who does have the power to appoint ambassadors and some of the diplomatic corps in conjunction with the approval of the Supreme Leader Khamenei, is gradually putting his people into place. Larijani was a very experienced diplomat, well liked among his European interlocutors, and is being replaced by someone of far less experience who, however, is close to Ahmadinejad. So, it’s cronyism. I think it’s a very bad move on Iran's part and probably worsens their posture with regard to these negotiations over their nuclear program.
AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is Professor Juan Cole, professor of history, University of Michigan. He’s joining us from Ann Arbor from the campus. He runs an analytical website called "Informed Comment," and has written a new book called Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East.
Let's go today's top story: tension remaining high on the Turkish-Iraq border, following the killing of seventeen Turkish troops by Kurdish militants over the weekend. How significant is this?
JUAN COLE: Well, it’s extremely significant. I mean, imagine what would happen in this country if a guerrilla group based in a neighboring country came over the border and killed seventeen US troops. That would be a war. And the Kurdish guerrilla movement, the Kurdish Workers Party, based now in Iraq, but originally from Eastern Anatolia, from the Turkish regions, is conducting a guerrilla war against the Turkish military. It is being given safe harbor by Kurdish politicians on the Iraqi side.
And, in essence, the United States has created this situation in which a NATO ally -- people forget Turkey fought alongside the United States in Korea; it’s got troops in Afghanistan -- a NATO ally of the United States is being attacked and its troops killed by a terrorist organization, so designated by the State Department, that essentially has US auspices. The US is responsible for security in Iraq.
AMY GOODMAN: And how connected is the US to the PKK, or is it at all?
JUAN COLE: Well, the United States doesn’t like the PKK and doesn’t have much connection to it, but the United States has allied with the Iraqi Kurdish leaders, who are the most reliable allies of the United States in Iraq: Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani. And Barzani, in particular, it seems to me, just de facto, is giving harbor to, giving haven to, these PKK guerrillas. So the United States needs Barzani and needs his support. He’s doing an oil deal with Hunt Oil, which is close to the Bush administration. His Peshmurga paramilitary is the backbone of the most effective fires of the new Iraqi army. They do security details in other cities like Mosul and Kirkuk. So the US really desperately depends on the Kurdistan Regional Authority and its paramilitary and can’t afford to alienate Barzani. And since Barzani is -- behind the scenes seems to kind of like the PKK and does -- giving them a haven, the US is politically complicit in these attacks.
AMY GOODMAN: What is the deal with Hunt Oil?
JUAN COLE: Well, Hunt Oil, which is, I think, losing its bids in Yemen, is desperate for a new field to develop, and they are exploring a partnership with the Kurdistan Regional Authority in northern Iraq.
AMY GOODMAN: And the issue of the US Congress taking a vote within one of its committees, Foreign Relations Committee, that Turkey was involved in a genocide against the Armenians, the significance of that vote, though it’s expected to fail at a congressional level with the whole Congress voting, and how it has played in Turkey, leading to the parliament vote to invade northern Iraq?
JUAN COLE: Well, I really here would underline that, as a historian, I think it’s important that everybody understand the horrible things that were done to the Armenians during World War I. On the other hand, it’s my duty also to try to understand the Turkish contemporary response, which is that the United States has made enormous trouble for this close ally. Turkey has put itself out over the last decades to help the United States. It was an ally in the Cold War. It was an ally in the Gulf War.
And in return, the United States seems to have told Turkey, “Drop dead,” I mean, they invaded Iraq against Turkish advice. They have unleashed Shiite fundamentalism, Sunni fundamentalism, Kurdish separatism on Turkey's doorstep. There is now a resurgence of the PKK and terrorism against Turkish citizens. And now, on top of all this trouble the United States is making for the Turks, the US Congress was set to condemn the Ottoman government of Turkey, the predecessor government to the present one, for this genocide against the Armenians.
So, the Turks are hurt and confused. In Bill Clinton's last year, 56% of the Turkish public thought well of the United States. That number is down to 9%. So it’s not entirely clear what motive the United States has in so alienating a country that has been a valued and close ally.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you see the war expanding?
JUAN COLE: The Iraq war could expand very easily. I mean, we don’t know, of course, the future, but now we begin to see that the Kurdish separatism in northern Iraq is causing severe tensions and possibly military conflict with Turkey. There’s a possibility of increased Sunni volunteers, if the Shiites were to massacre any large number of Sunni Arabs. It especially seems likely that the US will gradually draw down troops in the next two and three years. If it leaves behind it substantial instability and there are massacres, it could draw in the neighbors. You could have a proxy war. And these things are dangerous to the world economy, because the Persian Gulf is the source of a very substantial amount of the world's energy, and that energy production could be interrupted by such a guerrilla war. So it’s a very, very dangerous situation.
AMY GOODMAN: And the news from Lebanon that a high-ranking leader of Hezbollah has warned the United States not to set up any military bases inside Lebanon, Hezbollah saying it would consider such move a hostile act, and the US increasing their military assistance to Lebanon to $270 million, more than five times the amount they provided a year ago?
JUAN COLE: Well, to tell you the truth, Amy, I think the idea of putting a US military base in Lebanon, which is an unstable country and has a very large Shiite militia, is a brain-dead idea, and I can’t imagine that the Lebanese government itself will be so stupid as to go forward with this. And up until recently, of course, Hezbollah, which opposes this plan and which has a substantial number of deputies in the Lebanese parliament, was part of a national unity government. That’s broken down for the moment. It may come back. It seems to me that the politics of that move would be awfully fraught.
Juan Cole, professor of History at the University of Michigan. He runs an analytical website called "Informed Comment" where he provides a daily roundup of news and events in Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab world. In his new book, Juan Cole steps back from his widely regarded analysis of contemporary politics to chronicle the first Western invasion of the Middle East since the Crusades. “Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East” is a history of France's 1798 invasion of Egypt, a conquest that still has repercussions today.
Friday, June 29, 2007
The stupidest words ever uttered by a US president
Bush Turns Iraq into Israel/Palestine; Gaffe endangers US Troops
Bush said in a speech on Thursday that he hopes Iraq will be like Israel, a democracy that faces terrorist violence but manages to retain its democratic character:
These words may be the stupidest ones ever uttered by a US president. Given their likely impact on the US war effort in the Middle East, they are downright criminal.
The US political elite just doesn't get it. Israel is not popular in the Middle East, and it isn't because Middle Easterners are bigots. It is because Israel is coded as the last European colonial presence in the region, an heir to French Algeria, British Egypt, and Dutch Indonesia-- and because the Israelis pugnaciously continue to try to colonize neighboring bits of territory. (This enmity is not inevitable or eternal; in 2002 the Arab League offered full recognition of Israel in return for its going back to 1967 borders, but the Israeli government turned down the offer.) But for the purposes of this analysis it does not really matter why Israel is unpopular. Let us just stipulate that it is. Why would you associate American Iraq with such an unpopular project, if you were trying to do public diplomacy in the region? Bush had just announced a new push to get the American message out to the Muslim world, the day before.
Let's just take the analogy seriously for a moment. Israel proper is a democracy of sorts, though its 1 million Arab citizens are in a second class position. But it rules over several million stateless Palestinians who lack even the pretence of self-rule. It is hard to characterize a country as a democracy when it has millions of disenfranchised subjects. Bush manages to only think about Jewish Israelis in the above analogy, wiping out millions of other residents of geographical Palestine who don't get to participate in 'democracy' or exercise popular sovereignty.
It is true that the Israelis managed to blunt the terror attacks of Islamic Jihad, the Qassam Brigades, and the al-Aqsa Martyrs brigades over the years after the eruption of the 2nd Intifada. But there are still attacks, including by rocket. The reason for those attacks is that the Palestinians had mostly been driven from their homes and off their land, and were militarily, politically and economically subjected to the Israelis. The Israelis reduced the terror attacks by essentially imprisoning millions of stateless Palestinians in the territories, further restricting their movements, destroying their trade and livelihoods. The Israeli government continues to grab Palestinian land and put more colonists on it, even as we speak.
Israel-Palestine is among the world's hottest trouble spots, and the conflict has poisoned politics throughout the Middle East. It was among the motives for Bin Laden's attack on the US on September 11, so it has spilled over on America, too. A second one of those would be a good thing?
So who would play the Palestinians in Bush's analogy? Obviously, it would be the Sunni Arabs, who apparently are meant to be cordoned off from the rest of Iraqis and put behind massive walls and barbed wire, and deprived of political power. That is not a desirable outcome and is not politically or militarily tenable in the long run.
And, let's just stop and think. Even if it were true that an Israel-Palestine sort of denouement were in Bush's mind for Iraq, was it wise for him to make it public?
That sort of scenario is precisely the propaganda message broadcast by the Jihadi websites in Iraq and the Arab world! They say that the US military occupation of Iraq, in alliance with Shiites, has turned the Sunni Arabs into Palestinians! Bush could not have handed the guerrillas a better rhetorical gift. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that DVD's of Bush's comments will be spread around as a recruiting tool for jihadis, and that US troops will certainly be killed as a result of this speech. You could say that the US military presence is already pretty unpopular in the Sunni Arab areas. But what of the progress in al-Anbar Province? Will Bush's speech help or hurt Sunni Arabs who want to ally with the US against the foreign Salafi Jihadis? Hurt, obviously.
If Bush had said something like that in 2002, you could have written it off as inexperience and lack of knowledge of the Middle East. But he has been the sitting president for so many years, and has had so much to do with the Middle East that this faux pas is just inexcusable. I don't know the man and can't judge if he is just not very bright. I can confirm that he says things that are not very bright. And, worse, he says things that are guaranteed to put more US troops into the grave in Diyala, Baghdad, Salahuddin and al-Anbar Provinces.
I don't know whether to sob in grief or tear my hair out in frustration. How much longer do we have to suffer?
Juan Cole
' In Israel, Bush said, "terrorists have taken innocent human life for years in suicide attacks. The difference is that Israel is a functioning democracy and it's not prevented from carrying out its responsibilities. And that's a good indicator of success that we're looking for in Iraq." '
These words may be the stupidest ones ever uttered by a US president. Given their likely impact on the US war effort in the Middle East, they are downright criminal.
The US political elite just doesn't get it. Israel is not popular in the Middle East, and it isn't because Middle Easterners are bigots. It is because Israel is coded as the last European colonial presence in the region, an heir to French Algeria, British Egypt, and Dutch Indonesia-- and because the Israelis pugnaciously continue to try to colonize neighboring bits of territory. (This enmity is not inevitable or eternal; in 2002 the Arab League offered full recognition of Israel in return for its going back to 1967 borders, but the Israeli government turned down the offer.) But for the purposes of this analysis it does not really matter why Israel is unpopular. Let us just stipulate that it is. Why would you associate American Iraq with such an unpopular project, if you were trying to do public diplomacy in the region? Bush had just announced a new push to get the American message out to the Muslim world, the day before.
Let's just take the analogy seriously for a moment. Israel proper is a democracy of sorts, though its 1 million Arab citizens are in a second class position. But it rules over several million stateless Palestinians who lack even the pretence of self-rule. It is hard to characterize a country as a democracy when it has millions of disenfranchised subjects. Bush manages to only think about Jewish Israelis in the above analogy, wiping out millions of other residents of geographical Palestine who don't get to participate in 'democracy' or exercise popular sovereignty.
It is true that the Israelis managed to blunt the terror attacks of Islamic Jihad, the Qassam Brigades, and the al-Aqsa Martyrs brigades over the years after the eruption of the 2nd Intifada. But there are still attacks, including by rocket. The reason for those attacks is that the Palestinians had mostly been driven from their homes and off their land, and were militarily, politically and economically subjected to the Israelis. The Israelis reduced the terror attacks by essentially imprisoning millions of stateless Palestinians in the territories, further restricting their movements, destroying their trade and livelihoods. The Israeli government continues to grab Palestinian land and put more colonists on it, even as we speak.
Israel-Palestine is among the world's hottest trouble spots, and the conflict has poisoned politics throughout the Middle East. It was among the motives for Bin Laden's attack on the US on September 11, so it has spilled over on America, too. A second one of those would be a good thing?
So who would play the Palestinians in Bush's analogy? Obviously, it would be the Sunni Arabs, who apparently are meant to be cordoned off from the rest of Iraqis and put behind massive walls and barbed wire, and deprived of political power. That is not a desirable outcome and is not politically or militarily tenable in the long run.
And, let's just stop and think. Even if it were true that an Israel-Palestine sort of denouement were in Bush's mind for Iraq, was it wise for him to make it public?
That sort of scenario is precisely the propaganda message broadcast by the Jihadi websites in Iraq and the Arab world! They say that the US military occupation of Iraq, in alliance with Shiites, has turned the Sunni Arabs into Palestinians! Bush could not have handed the guerrillas a better rhetorical gift. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that DVD's of Bush's comments will be spread around as a recruiting tool for jihadis, and that US troops will certainly be killed as a result of this speech. You could say that the US military presence is already pretty unpopular in the Sunni Arab areas. But what of the progress in al-Anbar Province? Will Bush's speech help or hurt Sunni Arabs who want to ally with the US against the foreign Salafi Jihadis? Hurt, obviously.
If Bush had said something like that in 2002, you could have written it off as inexperience and lack of knowledge of the Middle East. But he has been the sitting president for so many years, and has had so much to do with the Middle East that this faux pas is just inexcusable. I don't know the man and can't judge if he is just not very bright. I can confirm that he says things that are not very bright. And, worse, he says things that are guaranteed to put more US troops into the grave in Diyala, Baghdad, Salahuddin and al-Anbar Provinces.
I don't know whether to sob in grief or tear my hair out in frustration. How much longer do we have to suffer?
Juan Cole
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