Khamenei Adopts a Wait and See Attitude to Obama;
"If You Change Your Attitude, We Will Change Ours"
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Saturday, "Of course, we have no prior experience of the new president of the American republic and of the government, and therefore we shall make our judgment based on his actions."
The US corporate media mysteriously interpreted Khamenei's words as a rebuff to Obama, but in light of the phrase I just quoted, I can't understand how they reached that conclusion. Certainly, he did say repeatedly that Iran has had a pretty horrible experience with the United States, and that it would take more than some nice words to change Iranian minds about Washington. You could say that this was a grumpy old man response to Obama's call for engagement. But you can't call it a rebuff, since Khamenei explicitly says that he has no basis for making a judgment about the Obama administration as yet, and will respond to its actual concrete policies.
Interestingly, the French news agency, Agence France Presse, got the story right, entitling their article, "Iran ready to change if US leads way: Khamenei."
And, the Iranian PressTV had an even more enthusiastic headline: "Iran vows response to real US change."
He said that the Iranian public would be offended if anyone addressed it with a discourse of carrots or sticks. That was when he immediately excused Obama from any such charge, saying the latter had a clean slate.
Elsewhere in the address he pledged, in AFP's translation, "If you change your attitude, we will change our attitude."
Iran's leader pointed out that the name of the US in the world at large is mud because of offensive US policies (he is probably thinking of wars of aggression, torture, etc.). He counsels that the US should change its behavior so that gradually its would gain the esteem of the world.
Khamenei did specify the practical steps the US might take to show it was in earnest.
1. He implied that the US was behind Sunni terrorism against the regime in Iranian Baluchistan near the the Pakistani border (Baluch are Sunnis and tribal and dislike the Persian, Shiite government in Tehran. Some observers have accused the US of fomenting terrorism among such minorities, and Khamenei appears to accept the theory).
2. He implicitly complained about continued US support for and use of the Iranian terrorist group, the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), whose base in Iraq (given them by Saddam to harass Iran) the US continues to maintain and guard despite the Iraqi government's desire to close it down and expel the Mojahedin. The US State Department has declared the MEK a terrorist organization, but the Pentagon is said to still deploy its members for covert ops inside Iran. In these two points, which are allusive in the speech, he is essentially accusing the US of being a major sponsor of terrorism.
3. He complained that the US continued to accuse Iran of sponsoring terrorism.
4. He complained that the US continues to accuse Iran of trying to build a nuclear bomb. (Khamenei and all Iranian government officials strongly deny that charge, saying they only have a civilian research program for energy purposes; US intelligence assessments back Khamenei up on all this, but the Washington politicians still routinely speak of taking strong measures stopping Iran from getting the bomb. Khamenei views such talk as a threat of aggression and sees the nuclear issue as a mere pretext for US neo-imperialism. The US dominated Iran during and after WW II and made a pro-monarchy coup in 1953, saddling the country with a megalomaniac shah who was subservient to US interests, until the 1979 Islamic Revolution).
5. He complained of continued US economic sanctions and boycotts.
6. He complained of US support for Israel.
This speech laid out the initial Iranian bargaining position. It has everything but the kitchen sink, and maybe it even has the kitchen sink. It is like in a US department store when the salesman tells you the refrigerator is $1200 but in fact you can bargain him down to $1050.
Khamenei also warned Obama to listen directly to Khamenei's own words: "Contemplate carefully my words. You must under no circumstances give them to Zionists to translate. Rather, consult with righteous persons." Well, the crack about Zionists is unfair, but Khamenei is obviously correct that his speech will be distorted by the Neoconservatives who desperately want the US to go to war against Iran.
I hope Obama will in fact get a good translation and analysis of the speech, which is far more welcoming of a potential change in Washington, and shows far more willingness to negotiate, than the corporate media in the US are reporting.
Daniel Brumberg points to Iranian desires for a concrete set of achievable proposals and impatience with a vague "process" of open-ended talks. It should be remembered that the would be a domestic cost for hardliners to pay if they opened to the US, and the cost would be perhaps unbearable if they brought nothing back from the negotiations in the end.
End/ (Not Continued)
posted by Juan Cole @ 3/22/2009 12:51:00 AM
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17 Comments:
"The US dominated Iran during and after WW II and made a pro-monarchy coup in 1953, saddling the country with a megalomaniac shah who was subservient to US interests, until the 1979 Islamic Revolution."
I think this is a bit of a misrepresentation. During WWII Britain and Russia (who had been dominating Iranian affairs for decades, if not a century) who forced Reza Shah to abdicate. I also think calling US pressure to dismiss Mossadegh a coup that saddled Iran with Mohammad Reza Shah (who was in power before the "coup) is a bit much, as is saying that Mohammad Reza Shah was subservient to US interests (he who established relations with the USSR, worked to raise the price of oil, and laughed at the US president when he was asked to help lower the price).
Israel is constantly talking about bombing Iran. Israel cannot sneeze without America running to get it a tissue. How can Iran think the US is serious about changing its violent history against the Iranian people when America is still kneeling to Israel? Yes, Iran is right - it will take more than words to prove the US wants to walk down a road of peace and dialogue.
Are you sure about the status of Camp Ashraf ? It has been reported that control has reverted to the Iraqi authorities and that the (former ?) terrorists have been given 2 months to leave.
Why is the crack about Zionists unfair?
Every one of Khamenei's points is just. Obama's tone has changed, to an extent, but he still spoke of 'terror and destruction' as if it is Iran that invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, and attacked Lebanon and Gaza, not the US and its Zionist friend.
Profesor Cole,
America owes you a debt of gratitude for simply supplying an accurate translation. Headlines about Iran's supposed slap-down of Obama's video have been nonstop and pervasive. One would expect without doubt that the President of the US would demand and receive accurate translations of national leaders' speeches, would not rely on a single translator, and would actively seek out linguistic nuances in those missives. But the reign of boy king George proved that not only were accurate translations unimportant to that president, but that the goal of the US government in supplying translationas and interpretations of non-English speeches was not to inform Americans, but to direct US public opinion to conform to a radical and internationally divisive Bush ideology.
How useful this can be is demonstrated by the misinterpretation, which you accurately clarified at the time, but which has been endlessly repeated--I saw it just last week-- that the Iranian president had called for Israel to be swept off the face of the earth. (Your clarification, as I recall, was more that Israel's government would fall from its own rotten weight, not that any external force, military or otherwise, would be involved.) The value of this single mis-interpretation toward inflaming Christians against Iran is inestimable, and the absolute dearth of public clarity and accurate translation proves that this framing is intentional.
I disagree with your statement that the "crack about the Zionists" is unfair. The issue of the genocidal occupation of Palestinians by Israel has and is successfully being framed by radical Zionists. Despite your determined efforts to accurately portray Mid East realities, even you have contributed to that framing effort by the continued use of the words "settlers" (as if Palestinian owned lands were wild, waiting-to-be-tamed, and free for the taking), "villages" (used for Palestinian cities, when every Israeli town is called a city), and "terrorist" or "insurgent" applied to anyone who happens to find themselves in front of the Israeli military steamroller. "Innocent until proven guilty", which used to be an American ideal, does not apply to occupied Palestinians, rather, "guilty until dead", and then still guilty.
I find Khamenei's points quite logical, and even restrained, given that an entire US naval fleet has been provocatively camped on the Iranian doorstep for nearly two years, and that Bush had implemented secret military action inside of Iran that, via multiple reports, has employed armed US military forces operating inside Iran, assassination, funding of terrorist groups, and surveillance and targeting. One need only imagine what might be the US reaction if reports were made public that Iran was funding terrorists inside the US, assassinating people inside the US, and smuggling arms, mercenaries, and Iranian commandos over the Mexican or Canadian border. Such a perspective makes the Khamenei statement quite restrained. If I were him, I'd wait and see too.
Fortunately, due to George's excesses, there are a lot of actions Obama could take to further engage Iran, notably relocating the fleet, backchannel messages indicating the cessation of covert US actions to destablize Iran, further diplomatic engagement with Arab countries, some kind of public indication that that are some Israeli actions that the US will not tolerate, and public pressure and action toward a solution to Israel's occupation of the Palestinians. Obama invoked Truman the other day. Well, in the Mid East, the US buck stops in (and usually stays and supports) Israel. The stability of the entire Mid East pivots there. A future nuclear Iran would not be fraction of the problem nuclear Israel currently is. Obama's fate is not tied to a confrontatin with Iran, but a confrontation with Israel.
Yeah, the Shah hated the US, which is why he worked feverishly to get in here when he left Iran, and why Rockefeller worked feverishly to get him in.
Look, we need to be blunt about this. The US media hates it when we get what we SAY we want, which is actual dialogue. We say we want dialogue, but what we actually want is obeisance. Khameini actually seems to have done a good job of putting a solid list of concerns on the table. But it would be more than a little embarrassing for Obama to recognize those concerns, so chances are he will echoe the US media in blowing off the very dialogue he has claimed to want.
"Of course, we have no prior experience of the new president of the American republic and of the government, and therefore we shall make our judgment based on his actions."
They do have experience with members of his cabinent, Biden and Clinton being among the most hawkish Democrats. Biden was the co-sponsor on the bill to declare the Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization and Clinton the only one among the Democrat Presidential-candidates in the senate to vote for it.
The primary economic considerations regarding Iran are focused on natural gas and uranium - Iran having some of the world's biggest deposits for both.
The natural gas issue is a bit simpler - India wants access to Iranian natural gas, but Pakistan is in between. The U.S. blocked this deal, and instead made nuclear reactors available to India, under an agreement that violates the Non-Proliferation Treaty (toilet paper), since India's military reactors will be off-limits to IAEA inspectors under the deal (88 U.S. Senators voted for it). However, now it looks like the gas pipeline will move ahead - assuming relations with Iran improve.
The uranium issue is far thornier. Iran wants to exploit its vast uranium deposits, enrich fuel to reactor grade (3% LEU) and sell it on the world market. The international community has had two responses: flat rejection (the U.S. and Israel) or offers to run the entire process (Russia). There are two basic issues involved - one is, can Iran make HEU, >90% U235? and the other is, can Iran reprocess spent fuel to recover plutonium for weapons?
With the price of uranium having increased ten-fold over the past few years, Iran is eager to make money - but the Israelis, well aware of their own secret nuclear weapon program run out of Dimona, think that Iran is doing the same thing.
While it may be true that these economic factors are not the sole motivating forces driving the actions of the ayatollahs of Iran (and of Western politicians), they are definitely fundamental, and we ignore them at our peril.
It was CIA (yes, them) who toppled Iran's democrtic and secular government and installed Shah (UK asked for it but USA got the most out of it). Shah was as much USA tool as Pinochet or other such "allies" of USA. So, prof. Cole is right here, and this whitewasher of USA imperialst cimes is ...a whitewasher
Khamenei is right to warn about Zionist translators. How many times have we heard the "wipe Israel off the map" quote, which is a mistranslation? Or that Ajmadinejad is a Holocaust denier? In fact Ahmadinejad asked 1) "Why do we keep hearing about 6 million Jews when 60 million people died during WWII?" and 2) "Why are the Palestinians being made to pay for Europe's crimes against Jews?"
In Mike Wallace's 60-minutes interview, Ahmadinejad explicitly said he was for a one-state solution, whose character was to be determined by a plebiscite of all the people living in Israel and the Occupied Territories. But CBS cut that part of his answer.
The American people are being manipulated into hatred of Iran. Cui bono?
I wasn't around at the time, but every Iranian I have ever talked to about this has called the ouster of Mossadegh a coup. This event is very important on the Iranian side, even if most Americans know nothing of it.
Col. Pat Lang of Sic Semper Tyrannis blog also writing on this situation (he references reading your piece, Professor Cole, in the comments.
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2009/03/iran-obama-aig-and-britt-hume.html#comments
One can hardly blame the Persians for being less than smitten with Obama and his "Let's get re-acquainted" video as it was released shortly after this profound gesture of good will:
Obama Extends Iran Sanctions One More Year
13 March 2009
U.S. sanctions on Iran will continue for another year, U.S. President Barack Obama said on Thursday. The decision was made as Washington believes Iran still poses a national security threat.
Full piece Here.
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"I think this is a bit of a misrepresentation. During WWII Britain and Russia (who had been dominating Iranian affairs for decades, if not a century) who forced Reza Shah to abdicate. I also think calling US pressure to dismiss Mossadegh a coup that saddled Iran with Mohammad Reza Shah (who was in power before the "coup) is a bit much, as is saying that Mohammad Reza Shah was subservient to US interests (he who established relations with the USSR, worked to raise the price of oil, and laughed at the US president when he was asked to help lower the price)." Excuse me, why is this misrepresentation, even a bit. You surely are aware of the coup masterminded by our CIA in 1953 and Kermit Roosevelt's part in making that happen, right? The Shah may have made noise about flirting with the Russians but his predecessor was going to give money from Iranian oil to Iranians, a concept that the US would not allow, just as they would not allow the income from copper in Chile to go to the Chileans, in 1973. Please explain yourself.
Re your comment: "Well, the crack about Zionists is unfair...".
I am mystified. It was indeed you, yourself (as a result of your accurate translation) who brought to your reader's attention the mis-translation (or lie) perpetarted by MEMRI about the "wiping of Israel off the face of the earth" and which lie was then re- broadcast around the world and then quoted by Presidents, Prime Ministers (including the indomitable Tony Blair), stalwart Congressmen, BBC interviewers and interviewees, Israelis of all sorts and even on Al Jazeera.
Is your memory failing you?
I am VERY confident that a "deal" can be achieved. Both sides are engaging in "terrorism" against the interests of the other. Both sides have been, to some extent, slightly pulling their punches in their harassment of each others interests.
A "deal" could include a 100% verification program on Iran's legitimate nuclear program that would guarantee that the US would not allow the Saudis to acquire nuclear weapons. A Shia state with nuclear weapons is a natural enemy of a Sunni state with nuclear weapons. Saudi Iranian tensions could actually surpass Israeli Iranian tensions.
Both the States and Iran have MUCH to gain from the "Egyptification" (is there such a word?) of Iran as it enters the world community as a "normal" global participant.
A win win is forseeable - lets hope I'm not the only one that sees it!
Iran's government survives only on threat of severe punishment of those who dare oppose it. The Iranian citizens are some of the most restricted citizens on earth. Bahaii's are persecuted, arrested, put through trials that are a mockery of justice, and summarily sentenced to death, that is if they are not must killed, merely for having a different religious belief system. How oppressed are the people of Iran? Yet there are many people who take great pride in thumping their chest against the "American Republic". I wish people would get a new hobby. Its wonderful to rail against all the wrongs of western society, and yet western society, with all of its pervasive flaws, has still offered the most liberated society on earth. Flaws? Tons! And yet our US is able to confront the flaws of our society, freely! Open the paper any day, and find criticism anfgter criticism of the governmnet, even the president and the congress and the senate. Its a free world, we say. Our words, its a free world, are indicative of how much we believe in and celebrate free choice. Try to exercise your free choice in Iran? We have a free press, not under government control. We speak freely. We have millions of political and religious opinions in one society. We have political, social, moral and economic problems, as does every culture, and thse problems are significant, but these problems are nothing in comparison to Iran. They can't even be compared. I get tired of hearing about the "Zionists" and the Americans who are in bed with Israel. Israel is the only place in the middle east where you can expect the same freedoms as you have in the US. Perhaps there is a reason why the US stands with Israel. Furthermore, the Palestinian conflict could have been resolved in the days of Arafat, and yet it was predicted that Arafat really didn't benefit from peace, and thus would not find a way to reach peace. Israel gave up much to achieve peace with their leader at the time. They rejected it. How can you explain it? The explanation is that Iran and Syria, who prop up the Palestinian factions, supporting Hamas radical terrorists with weapons, training and money, didn't want to reach peace, as they preferred to continue using the Palestinians as an irritant to Israel, the Zionists, in order to cause civilian loss of life and thus generate heart tugging media. This is a media war, number 1, that the Palestinians, Syria and Iran play. Unfortunately, they are winning the media war, thanks to people who don't acknowledge the role of oppression, the history of the use of Palestinians as suicide bombers blowing up Israels public transportation system with people nb the buses the bombs in cafe's, at Passover, in temples, in malls, at youth night clubs...
I think people have to get real, and look at reality, 7 countries that wanted to continue holding Israel lands could not win via physical combat when all 7 attacked this little nation on this little plot of land, so they continue the offensive, with rocket, suicide bombs, capturing soldiers, and inciting children by using Barnet characters on tv programs to develop I hate Israel attitudes in small children. This is a long war, been going on over 50 years. Israel has created offers of peace, which have always been rejected.They have been ut into a situation, a media war, where they can't defend their country against rocket attacks, against suicide bombers, etc, without being the villain. If they defend, then they are likened to Nazi germany, and if they don't defend, then they encourage more attacks. Who is to criticize them with what they are dealing with?
Remember, Israel is so free a society that there are citizens in ISrael who are able to sue the government for its policies. Show me another country where that is allowed? If we don't protect ISrael, then what are we protecting?
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