The CIA and the Iran Caper

How Petraeus Fueled the Plot
The CIA and the Iran Caper
by RAY McGOVERN; was an Army officer and CIA analyst for almost 30 year.
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, in his accustomed role as unofficial surrogate CIA spokesman, has thrown light on how the CIA under its new director, David Petraeus, helped craft the screenplay for this week’s White House spy feature: the Iranian-American-used-car-salesman-Mexican-drug-cartel plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S.
In Thursday’s column, Ignatius notes that, initially, White House and Justice Department officials found the story “implausible.” It was. But the Petraeus team soon leapt to the rescue, reflecting the four-star-general-turned-intelligence-chief’s deep-seated animus toward Iran.
Before Ignatius’s article, I had seen no one allude to the fact that much about this crime-stopper tale had come from the CIA. In public, the FBI had taken the lead role, presumably because the key informant inside a Mexican drug cartel worked for U.S. law enforcement via the Drug Enforcement Administration.
However, according to Ignatius, “One big reason [top U.S. officials became convinced the plot was real] is that CIA and other intelligence agencies gathered information corroborating the informant’s juicy allegations and showing that the plot had support from the top leadership of the elite Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps,         the covert action arm of the Iranian government.”
Ignatius adds that, “It was this intelligence collected in Iran” that swung the balance, but he offers no example of what that intelligence was. He only mentions a recorded telephone call on Oct. 4 between Iranian-American cars salesman Mansour Arbabsiar and his supposed contact in Iran, Gholam Shakuri, allegedly an official in Iran’s Quds spy agency.
The call is recounted in the FBI affidavit submitted in support of the criminal charges against Arbabsiar, who is now in U.S. custody, and Shakuri, who is not. But the snippets of that conversation are unclear, discussing what on the surface appears to be a “Chevrolet” car purchase, but which the FBI asserts is code for killing the Saudi ambassador.
Without explaining what other evidence the CIA might have, Ignatius tries to further strengthen the case by knocking down some of the obvious problems with the allegations, such as “why the Iranians would undertake such a risky operation, and with such embarrassingly poor tradecraft.”
“But why the use of Mexican drug cartels?” asks Ignatius rhetorically, before adding dutifully: “U.S. officials say that isn’t as implausible as it sounds.”
But it IS as implausible as it sounds, says every professional intelligence officer I have talked with since the “plot” was somberly announced on Tuesday.
The Old CIA Pros
There used to be real pros in the CIA’s operations directorate. One — Ray Close, a longtime CIA Arab specialist and former Chief of Station in Saudi Arabia — told me on Wednesday that we ought to ask ourselves a very simple question:
“If you were an Iranian undercover operative who was under instructions to hire a killer to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador in Washington, D.C., why in HELL would you consider it necessary to explain to a presumed Mexican [expletive deleted] that this murder was planned and would be paid for by a secret organization in Iran?
“Whoever concocted this tale wanted the ‘plot’ exposed … to precipitate a major crisis in relations between Iran and the United States. Which other government in the Middle East would like nothing better than to see those relations take a big step toward military confrontation?”
If you hesitate in answering, you have not been paying attention. Many have addressed this issue. My last stab at throwing light on the Israel/Iran/U.S. nexus appeared ten days ago in “Israel’s Window to Bomb Iran.”
Another point on the implausibility meter is: What are the odds that Iran’s Quds force would plan an unprecedented attack in the United States, that this crack intelligence agency would trust the operation to a used-car salesman with little or no training in spycraft, that he would turn to his one contact in a Mexican drug cartel who happens to be a DEA informant, and that upon capture the car salesman would immediately confess and implicate senior Iranian officials?
Wouldn’t it make more sense to suspect that Arbabsiar might be a double-agent, recruited by some third-party intelligence agency to arrange some shady business deal regarding black-market automobiles, get some ambiguous comments over the phone from an Iranian operative, and then hand the plot to the U.S. government on a silver platter – as a way to heighten tensions between Washington and Teheran?
That said, there are times when even professional spy agencies behave like amateurs. And there’s no doubt that the Iranians – like the Israelis, the Saudis and the Americans – can and do carry out assassinations and kidnappings in this brave new world of ours.
Remember, for instance, the case of Islamic cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, who was abducted off the streets of Milan, Italy, on Feb. 17, 2003, and then flown from a U.S. air base to Egypt where he was imprisoned and tortured for a year.
In 2009, Italian prosecutors convicted 23 Americans, mostly CIA operatives, in absentia for the kidnapping after reconstructing the disappearance through their unencrypted cell phone records and their credit card bills at luxury hotels in Milan.
Then, there was the suspected Mossad assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh at a hotel in Dubai on Jan. 19, 2010, with the hit men seen on hotel video cameras strolling around in tennis outfits and creating an international furor over their use of forged Irish, British, German and French passports.
So one cannot completely rule out that there may conceivably be some substance to the alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador.
And beyond the regional animosities between Saudi Arabia and Iran, there could be a motive – although it has been absent from American press accounts – i.e. retaliation for the assassinations of senior Iranian nuclear scientists and generals over the last couple of years within Iran itself.
But there has been close to zero real evidence coming from the main source of information — officials of the Justice Department, which like the rest of the U.S. government has long since forfeited much claim to credibility.
Petraeus’s ‘Intelligence’ on Iran
The public record also shows that former Gen. Petraeus has long been eager to please the neoconservatives in Washington and their friends in Israel by creating “intelligence” to portray Iran and other target countries in the worst light.
One strange but instructive example comes to mind, a studied, if disingenuous, effort to blame all the troubles in southern Iraq on the “malignant” influence of Iran.
On April 25, 2008, Joint Chiefs Chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, told reporters that Gen. Petraeus in Baghdad would give a briefing “in the next couple of weeks” providing detailed evidence of “just how far Iran is reaching into Iraq to foment instability.” Petraeus’s staff alerted U.S. media to a major news event in which captured Iranian arms in Karbala would be displayed and then destroyed.
Oops. Small problem. When American munitions experts went to Karbala to inspect the alleged cache of Iranian weapons, they found nothing that could be credibly linked to Iran.
At that point, adding insult to injury, the Iraqis announced that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had formed his own Cabinet committee to investigate the U.S. claims and attempt to “find tangible information and not information based on speculation.” Ouch!
The Teflon-clad Petraeus escaped embarrassment, as the David Ignatiuses of the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) conveniently forgot all about the promised-then-canceled briefing. U.S. media suppression of this telling episode is just one example of how difficult it is to get unbiased, accurate information on touchy subjects like Iran into the FCM.
As for Attorney General Eric Holder and President Barack Obama, some adult adviser should tell them to quit giving hypocrisy a bad name with their righteous indignation over the thought that no civilized nation would conduct cross-border assassinations.
The Obama administration, like its predecessor, has been dispatching armed drones to distant corners of the globe to kill Islamic militants, including recently U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki for the alleged crime of encouraging violence against Americans.
Holder and Obama have refused to release the Justice Department’s legal justification for the targeted murder of al-Awlaki whose “due process” amounted to the President putting al-Awlaki’s name on a secret “kill-or-capture” list.
Holder and Obama have also refused to take meaningful action to hold officials of the Bush administration accountable for war crimes even though President George W. Bush has publicly acknowledged authorizing waterboarding and other brutal techniques long regarded as acts of torture.
Who can take at face value the sanctimonious words of an attorney general like Holder who has acquiesced in condoning egregious violations of the Bill of Rights, the U.S. criminal code, and international law — like the International Convention Against Torture?
Were shame not in such short supply in Official Washington these days, one would be amazed that Holder could keep a straight face, accusing these alleged Iranian perpetrators of “violating an international convention.”
America’s Founders would hold in contempt the Holders and the faux-legal types doing his bidding. The behavior of the past two administrations has been more reminiscent of George III and his sycophants than of James Madison, George Mason, John Jay and George Washington, who gave us the rich legacy of a Constitution, which created a system based on laws not men.
That Constitution and its Bill of Rights have become endangered species at the hands of the craven poachers at “Justice.” No less craven are the functionaries leading today’s CIA.
What to Watch For
If Petraeus finds it useful politically to conjure up more “evidence” of nefarious Iranian behavior in Iraq and/or Afghanistan, Lebanon or Syria, he will. And if he claims to see signs of ominous Iranian intentions regarding nuclear weapons, watch out.
Honest CIA analysts, like the ones who concluded that Iran had stopped working on a nuclear weapon in late 2003 and had not resumed that work, are in short supply, and most have families to support and mortgages to pay.
Petraeus is quite capable of marginalizing them, or even forcing them to quit. I have watched this happen to a number of intelligence officials under a few of Petraeus’s predecessors.
More malleable careerists can be found in any organization, and promoted, so long as they are willing to tell more ominous — if disingenuous — stories that may make more sense to the average American than the latest tale of the         Iraninan-American-used-car-salesman-Mexican-drug-cartel-plot.
This can get very dangerous in a hurry. Israel’s leaders would require but the flimsiest of nihil obstat to encourage them to provoke hostilities with Iran. Netanyahu and his colleagues would expect the Obamas, Holders, and Petraeuses of this world to be willing to “fix the intelligence and facts” (a la Iraq) to “justify” such an attack.
The Israeli leaders would risk sucking the United States into the kind of war with Iran that, short of a massive commitment of resources or a few tactical nuclear weapons, the U.S. and Israel could almost surely not win. It would be the kind of war that would make Iraq and Afghanistan look like minor skirmishes.
Ray McGovern was an Army officer and CIA analyst for almost 30 year. He now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He is a contributor to Imperial Crusades: Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair (Verso). He can be reached at: rrmcgovern@gmail.com.
A version of this article first appeared on Consortiumnews.com.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/10/14/the-cia-and-the-iran-caper/#.TppWTwp-F0o.gmail

Porter--FBI Account of "Terror Plot" Suggests Sting Operation

FBI Account of "Terror Plot" Suggests Sting Operation 

Porter--FBI Account of "Terror Plot" Suggests Sting Operation 
Analysis by Gareth Porter*





Commentary by William O. Beeman: The alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador in Washington becomes increasingly tangled and shady. Gareth Porter examines the actual FBI documents leading to the arrest of Mr. Arbabsiar, the supposed perpetrator of the plot. Note: nothing happened! No explosives were purchased, no explosions or killings took place, and Mr. Arbabsiar has not even been indicted. This has everyone puzzled. The possibility that this was an FBI sting operation is a more than reasonable theory. 

WASHINGTON, Oct 13, 2011 (IPS) - While the administration of Barack Obama vows to hold the Iranian government "accountable" for the alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, the legal document describing evidence in the case provides multiple indications that it was mainly the result of an FBI "sting" operation.

Although the legal document, called an amended criminal complaint, implicates Iranian-American Manssor Arbabsiar and his cousin Ali Gholam Shakuri, an officer in the Iranian Quds Force, in a plan to assassinate Saudi Arabian Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir, it also suggests that the idea originated with and was strongly pushed by a undercover DEA informant, at the direction of the FBI. 

On May 24, when Arbabsiar first met with the DEA informant he thought was part of a Mexican drug cartel, it was not to hire a hit squad to kill the ambassador. Rather, there is reason to believe that the main purpose was to arrange a deal to sell large amounts of opium from Afghanistan. 

In the complaint, the closest to a semblance of evidence that Arbabsiar sought help during that first meeting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador is the allegation, attributed to the DEA informant, that Arbabsiar said he was "interested in, among other things, attacking an embassy of Saudi Arabia". 

Among the "other things" was almost certainly a deal on heroin controlled by officers in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Three Bloomberg reporters, citing a "federal law enforcement official", wrote that Arbabsiar told the DEA informant he represented Iranians who "controlled drug smuggling and could provide tons of opium". 

Because of opium entering Iran from Afghanistan, Iranian authorities hold 85 percent of the world's opium seizures, according to Iran's Fars News Agency. Iranian security personnel, including those in the IRGC and its Quds Force, then have the opportunity to sell the opium to traffickers in the Middle East, Europe and now Mexico. 

Mexican drug cartels have begun connecting with Middle Eastern drug traffickers, in many cases stationing operatives in Middle East locations to facilitate heroin production and sales, according to a report last January in Borderland Beat. 

But the FBI account of the contacts between Arbabsiar and the DEA informant does not reference any discussions of drugs. 

The criminal complaint refers to an unspecified number of meetings between Arbabsiar and the DEA informant in late June and the first two weeks of July. 

What transpired in those meetings remains the central mystery surrounding the case. 

The official account of the investigation cites the testimony of the informant (referred to in the document as "CS-1") in stating, "Over the course of a series of meetings, ARBABSIAR explained to CS-1 that his associates in Iran had discussed a number of violent missions for CS-1 and CIS-1's purported criminal associates to perform." 

The account claims that the mission discussed included murdering the ambassador. But no specific statement proposing or agreeing to the act is attributed to Arbabsiar. "Prior to the July 14 meeting, CS- 1 had reported that he and Arbabsiar had discussed the possibility of attacks on a number of other targets," the account states. 

The targets are described as involving "foreign government facilities associated with Saudi Arabia and with another country…located either in or outside the United States", without mentioning any discussion of the Saudi ambassador. 

Both that language and the absence of any statement attributed to Arbabsiar imply that the Iranian- American said nothing about assassinating the Saudi ambassador except in response to suggestions by the informant, who was already part of an FBI undercover operation. 

The DEA informant, as the FBI account acknowledges in a footnote, had previously been charged with a narcotics offence by a state in the U.S. and had been cooperating in narcotics investigations – apparently posing as a drug cartel operative – in return for dropping the charges. The document is notably silent on whether the conversation was recorded. 

A former FBI official familiar with procedures in such cases, who spoke to IPS anonymously, said the FBI would normally have recorded all such conversations touching on the possibility of terrorism. 

The absence of quotes from any of those meetings suggests that they do not support the case being made by the FBI and the Obama administration. 

The account is quite explicit, on the other hand, that the Jul. 14 and Jul. 17 meetings were recorded at FBI direction. Statements quoted from those transcripts show the DEA informant trying to induce Arbabsiar to indicate agreement to assassinating the Saudi ambassador. 

The informant is quoted as saying he would need "at least four guys" and would "take the one point five for the Saudi Arabia". He declared that he "go ahead and work on the Saudi Arabia, get all the information we can". 

At one point the informant says, "You just want the, the main guy." And at the end of the meeting, he declares, "[W]e're gonna start doing the guy". 

The fact that not a single quote from Arbabsiar shows that he agreed to assassinating the ambassador, much less proposed it, suggests that he was either non-committal or linking the issue to something else, such as the prospect of a major drug deal with the cartel. 

Arbabsiar's quotes from a Sep. 2 phone conversation referring to the cartel as "having the number for the safe" and "once you open the door that's it" could refer to a drug transaction that had been discussed, while the FBI account suggest those quotes refer to the assassination and "other projects" with the Iranian group. 

At the Jul. 17 meeting, the DEA informant presented a plan to blow up a restaurant to kill the ambassador, with the possible deaths of 100-150 people, eliciting a lack of concern on the part of Arbabsiar about such deaths. 

During a visit to Iran in August, Arbabsiar wired two equal payments totalling $100,000 to a bank account in New York. But he was still under the impression that he was about to cash in on a deal with the cartel. 

The Washington Post reported Thursday that Arbabsiar had told an Iranian-American friend from Corpus Christie, Texas, "I'm going to make good money." 

There is also circumstantial evidence that Arbabsiar may have even been brought into the sting operation to help further implicate his cousin Gholam Shakuri in the terrorist plot. 

Arbabsiar met with his cousin Shakuri in late September and told him that the cartel was demanding that he, Arbabsiar, go to Mexico personally to guarantee payment. That demand from the DEA was an obvious device by the FBI to get Shakuri and his associates in Tehran to demonstrate their commitment to the assassination. 

The FBI account indicates that Shakuri told Arbabsiar that he was responsible for himself if he went to Mexico. That statement would have been a warning sign for Arbabsiar, if he still believed he was dealing with one of the most murderous drug cartels in Mexico, that he would be risking his own life for a group that was no longer taking responsibility for him. 

Yet Arbabsiar flew to Mexico as if unconcerned about that risk. 

After his arrest on Sep. 29 Arbabsiar waived the right to a lawyer and proceeded to provide a complete confession. A few days later, he placed a phone call to Shakuri which was recorded "at the direction of federal enforcement agents", according to the FBI. 

*Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in 2006. 

(END) 

William O. Beeman--U.S. Overreach in Tying Assassination Plot to Iran

http://newamericamedia.org/2011/10/us-overreach-in-tying-assassination-plot-to-iran.php
William O. Beeman--U.S. Overreach in Tying Assassination Plot to Iran (New America Media)

U.S. Overreach in Tying Assassination Plot to Iran

New America Media, News Report, William Beeman, Posted: Oct 12, 2011

The alleged plot on the part of an Iranian-American businessman in Texas to assassinate the Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and blow up embassies in Washington and Argentina has created a paroxysm of vituperative condemnation of Iran.

Mansour Arbabsiar’s “plot” would be a minor story in the news — just another crazy plot to blow up buildings and eliminate people the would-be assassins have some grudge against, except for the desire of the U.S. government to tie this to the central authorities in Iran, which they have tried to do immediately and perhaps precipitously.

It is notable that figures such as Secretary of State Hilary Clinton were ready to condemn not the alleged perpetrators of the plot, but the government of Iran itself. "This really, in the minds of many diplomats and government officials, crosses a line that Iran needs to be held to account for," Clinton said. Attorney General Eric Holder declared, "The United States is committed to holding Iran responsible for its actions."

These condemnations started even before Arbabsiar, who is an American citizen, has been indicted. His lawyer has already announced that if that happens, he will plead not guilty.

The government claims that Arbabsiar and another individual, Gholam Shakuri, contacted people they supposed were assassins from a Mexican drug cartel, Los Zetas, to carry out the plots. The connection to the “assassins” was exposed by a federal-paid drug informant. In fact, nothing actually happened beyond the alleged contacts. No explosives were purchased or placed, and no one was hurt. Moreover, from the information we have at present, the entire case rests on the statement of that one paid drug informant.

The mechanism to make the connection to the Iranian central government is the only one that the United States has ever been able to use to implicate Iranian central authorities in acts they consider anti-American — by tying the incident to the Qods force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Qods force is a shadowy division of the Guard operating with only loose governmental control. They have allegedly been responsible for many killings of anti-government plotters both inside and outside of Iran. Allegedly — because direct evidence for their actions against the United States has never been proven in any definitive way.

In this case, the Obama administration claims to have clear proof of a connection between Arabsiar and Qods Force members. The evidence has not been released, however the government has asserted that Shakuri, now at large, was a member of the Qods force himself.

Most Iranian experts find this story to be far-fetched — at least the part that claims that Iran’s highest leaders either planned or approved such a mission. Such an adventure makes little sense in terms of Iran’s foreign policy, and in terms of rational politics. Virtually all observers of Iran agree that the country’s leaders, whatever rhetoric they might use in public, are exceptionally pragmatic and sober in their political actions. Iran’s leaders are not fools. They know that a violent plot on U.S. soil would be seen as tantamount to war. Moreover, Iran has studiously avoided any direct threat to the United States for decades.

Given the illogic of the U.S. accusations, it is not surprising that Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations and its Foreign Ministry both issued strong condemnations of the allegations put forward by the Department of Justice and Secretary Clinton.

Context is very important in assessing this event. There is currently a bill before Congress calling for increased sanctions against Iran called the Iran Threat Reduction Act. It seems that the timing of these accusations was designed to ensure favorable passage of the bill.

There is great danger for U.S. officials in a situation like this. The accusations against Arbabsiar may prove entirely specious. As a U.S. Citizen, if he is indicted, he will have the right to a full trial, and can question the government on its sources of information. This is not going to be a military tribunal as held in Guantanamo. The potential for embarrassment of the government is very great.

Whatever the truth of this matter, there is no question that the accusations against the Iranian government are overkill. Certainly if Arbabsiar was involved in an assassination plot, and sufficient evidence to indict him can be found, he should be put on trial, but we should certainly be sober and measured before indicting the Iranian government itself for what appears to be a very silly, very idiosyncratic plot.

William O. Beeman--9/11 Raised Unrealized Hopes in US-Iran Relations

9/11 Raised Unrealized Hopes in US-Iran Relations 
New America Media,
Commentary, William O. Beeman,
Posted: Sep 11, 2011


As the United States remembers the events of September 11, 2001 on their tenth anniversary, it is important to remember that the tragedy was commemorated around the world, not just in America. And one of the nations that expressed the most profound and sincere grief over the loss of life was Iran. 

Candlelight vigils were held throughout Iran and professions of sorrow and sympathy for the United States citizens who lost family and friends were ubiquitous. This was even more impressive when one notes that these were not government organized events, but were the spontaneous outpouring of Iranian citizens. On an official level, many Iranian religious leaders condemned the attacks, despite their differences with the United States administration. It was also noteworthy that no Iranian was involved in any way with the 9/11 attacks. 

The 9/11 tragedy also resulted in a brief thaw in U.S.-Iran relations as Iran offered its air space and landing fields to the United States in its attacks on al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. It created increased positive feeling on the part of ordinary Iranian citizens for the United States and its people.

It is a secondary tragedy that this brief halcyon period in U.S.-Iran relations did not last. 

President George W. Bush inexplicably made Iran one of the targets of vituperative rhetoric in his now infamous State of the Union address in January, 2002: 
“States like [Iran, Iraq and North Korea], and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.”

In effect, President Bush was associating Iran with the September 11 attacks, either explicitly or implicitly. 

The effect of these words in Iran was electric and immediate. Iranians who were sympathetic to the United States were chagrinned and puzzled by the “axis of evil” epithet, and stung by what they saw as unjustified accusations. They were especially confused by what they saw as a repudiation of the positive developments in the immediate post-9/11 period. 

From this point on, the already poor relations between Iran and the United States deteriorated sharply.

Today, Iran’s relations with the United States could not be worse. The Bush administration went on from the 2002 verbal attack on Iran to, in 2003, accusing Iran of fomenting a nuclear weapons program, assisting al-Qaeda and the Taliban and attacking U.S. troops in post-Saddam Iraq.

None of these accusations have proved to be supported by credible evidence. Many Iranians and some Americans saw these attacks as the basis for creating an acceptable justification in advance to overthrow the Iranian government either directly or by proxy, or to attack Iran militarily. 

Iran became the United States’ chief international bogeyman, replacing Libya in the 1980’s and Iraq in that regard.

What course would history have taken if President Bush had not made this fateful reference to Iran in his State of the Union "axis of evil" speech? No one can know for sure, but it is certain that the post-9/11 reservoir of good feeling on the part of Iran could have been the basis on which to build trust rather than enmity. 

Were relations with Iran normalized following 9/11 rather than destroyed through the exercise of strategic ideology-based attacks, we might be seeing stability in the Middle East today—paradoxically an improvement in relations between the United States and the Middle East rather than the quagmires in which the United States is stuck today.

It is to be hoped that the commemoration of the events of 9/11 will not only mark the sober tragedy of those times, but also serve as an important look-back to re-evaluate America’s actions and attitudes toward the region—first and foremost with regard to our relations with Iran. 

The GOP's fever for war will destroy any hope of shrinking government Will Iran Nuke the Tea Party? (Charleston SC City Paper)

August 31, 2011 NEWS+OPINION » JACK HUNTER

The GOP's fever for war will destroy any hope of shrinking government
Will Iran Nuke the Tea Party?

by Jack Hunter

Comments by William O. Beeman: I don't agree with Ron Paul on much of his campaign, but he is dead right about Iran. It is refreshing to find a writer who has the courage to speak the truth about the insane American obsession with Iran. However, the obsession is not so much real as it is opportunistic. Most American politicians know that attacking Iran is a political "gimmie." It costs absolutely nothing, since everyone attacks Iran--both Democrats and Republicans--and it means nothing. The only thing it does is to make the candidate look "tough" against an "enemy" that is no enemy at all. Iran is the ultimate straw man in American electoral politics. The American public should be calling every cheap shot on Iran for what it is: political chicanery.


Why is it that during the last decade, when Republicans controlled all three branches of government, the national debt still exploded? Why is it that the last time a real conservative sat in the White House — Ronald Reagan — government grew astronomically?

If you asked the average conservative during the Bush years why government continued to grow so rapidly, the typical answer would have been that we were fighting two wars. When conservatives are asked why Reagan did not fulfill his promise to scale back the federal government during his tenure, they typically give one of two answers: either that the Democrats did not follow through on their pledge to cut spending or that we were in the middle of the Cold War.

"Wars cost money," Franklin Roosevelt once said, and no doubt any nation would pay virtually any cost to protect itself against a real threat. Conservatives almost unanimously supported Reagan's defense build-up because they believed the Soviet Union was a serious threat to our safety. Most conservatives gave Bush a pass on his profligate spending because they believed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were priorities. However, when it comes to today, are there any actual threats on the horizon that warrant what we currently spend on our military adventures?

Iran is certainly no such threat. To say that Iran may get a nuclear weapon and become a potential threat to its neighbors is one thing; to say that it is a threat to the United States is another. Yet too many conservatives continue to confuse the two, or as the former head of the U.S. Central Command retired Army General John Abizaid explained in 2007: "I believe the United States, with our great military power, can contain Iran ... Let's face it: We lived with a nuclear Soviet Union, we've lived with a nuclear China, and we're living with nuclear powers as well."

Gen. Abizaid then put the notion of a potential nuclear Iran into even clearer context: "[The U.S.] can deliver clear messages to the Iranians that makes it clear to them that while they may develop one or two nuclear weapons, they'll never be able to compete with us in our true military might and power."

Abizaid makes an important and glaring point: No nation on earth can currently compete with America's military might. Iran is even near the bottom of the list. Foreign Policy's Stephen Walt explains: "One of the more remarkable features about the endless drumbeat of alarm about Iran is that it pays virtually no attention to Iran's actual capabilities and rests on all sorts of worst-case assumptions about Iranian behavior."

Walt then points out that the U.S. spends $692 billion on defense, while Iran spends only $9.6 billion, before noting that currently America has 2,702 nuclear weapons in deployment and 6,000 in reserve, while Iran has zero. "By any objective measure ... Iran isn't even on the same page with the United States in terms of latent power, deployed capabilities, or the willingness to use them," Walt says. "Iran has no powerful allies, scant power-projection capability, and little ideological appeal. Despite what some alarmists think, Iran is not the reincarnation of Nazi Germany and not about to unleash some new Holocaust against anyone."

Walt adds, "The more one thinks about it, the odder our obsession with Iran appears."

Odd indeed. There is a debate within the GOP right now between Tea Party members who recognize the need to cut government spending across the board and Republicans, like Sen. Lindsey Graham and Rep. Tim Scott, who are willing to cut everything but the military. The problem is that second only to entitlements, you can't even begin to substantively balance the budget or reduce the national debt without addressing the black hole that is Pentagon spending.

There is no reason America can't have the strongest military on earth while still being fiscally responsible. Part of this balance necessarily means favoring foreign policy sobriety over constant hyperbole. It also means recognizing practical security realities.

The reality is that Iran is not a threat to the United States. Not even close. To the degree that conservatives actually believe that Iran is some great "threat" takes the Right straight back to the Bush era, when a zeal for spending cuts took a backseat to war fever. That some in the Tea Party are occasionally the loudest in desiring U.S. action against Iran makes the prospects for smaller government even dimmer.

Wanting to limit government and police the world simultaneously is a maddening yet enduring contradiction conservatives simply can no longer afford. Neither — quite literally — can this country.

Jack Hunter is the official campaign blogger for GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul, and he co-wrote Rand Paul's The Tea Party Goes to Washington.

Tags: Iran, Tea Party, General John Abizaid

William O. Beeman--Hikers in Iran--Caught in Web of International Politics

Hikers In Iran - Caught in Web of International Poltics

New America Media, Commentary, William O. Beeman, Posted: Aug 03, 2011

Editor’s Note: Two young American hikers have been held as “spies” longer than other foreign nationals there. Will Ramadhan help free them from the perfect web of politics?

American Journalist Shane Bauer and his traveling companion Josh Fattal have been incarcerated in Iran for two years—longer than any other international detainee in the Islamic Republic. There is some hope that they may be released soon.

The month of fasting and prayer—Ramadhan—is now upon us. It is also traditionally a time for forgiveness and clemency, providing a suitable occasion for the Iranian judiciary to let them return home.

Unprecedented Incarceration

The length of their detainment without trial is unprecedented for foreign nationals in Iran, and it has been a puzzle for many as to why they have been held so long.

Past detainees have been held for a few months, sometimes made to “confess” their crimes and released in a show of mercy after all propaganda value had been drained from their cases. Although no answer can be definitive in Bauer and Fattal’s situation, a good guess is that they have been the victims of both internal and international politics.

The two men along with their companion, Sarah Shourd, who was released last year on compassionate medical grounds, were charged with crossing the Iranian border from Iraq without proper documentation. Subsequently they were accused of spying for the United States. Americans have found these charges to lack credibility. However, to take the accusations at face value is to miss the point of their issuance.

Iranian officials know absolutely that there are American operatives in Iran, as well as operatives from Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service. If they didn’t know it, they can only look to the public statements of President George W. Bush, who declared as much. Iranian nuclear scientists have been murdered in Iran; most recently Dariush Rezai, was shot to death on a Tehran street on July 23.
Moreover, Iranians know that the border in Kurdistan over which Bauer, Fattal and Shourd traveled--a popular tourists’ trek—has also been a route for infiltration of spies since the U.S. occupation of Iraq in 2003. They also know that Israel has been courting the Kurds for many years. Iranian Jews, residents in Israel with perfect language and cultural skills, are perfect spies.

“Spies” Like--Some

Thus, the message Iran is trying to send the United States and the world is not that Bauer, Fattal and Shourd are spies, but rather that Iran knows spies are in their country, that these spies are supported by the United States and Israel, and that the spies have entered the country via the route the three hikers took. A show trial is a way to point up these basic facts.

The Iranians were probably also hoping that the three Americans might serve as coins to use in its negotiation with the United States to release a number of Iranians, who had been arrested in Europe for violating trade sanctions--and who seem to be held in secret under U.S. authority.

Such a trial might have taken place in 2009, when the three friends were first detained. However, Iran exploded in political turmoil that year. The presidential election that July turned into a gigantic public protest against President Ahmadinejad and Spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i. In the face of this political upheaval, conducting a show trial of American citizens was not only inconvenient, it threatened to make the government look even worse in the eyes of the world.

Since the government was blaming the United States for the political uprising, to release the hikers would have been seen as capitulating to the forces that Ahmadinejad and Khamene’i claimed were trying to overthrow them.

Internal Iranian politics got worse over the following year. Open rivalry between Ahmadinejad and Khamene’i dominated Iranian politics. The judiciary, under the direction of Khamene’I, may have found it inconvenient to take a line that would seem to be soft on the United States.

Obama Adopts Bush Accusations

Furthermore, in recent months the United States has made things much worse.

The Obama administration has once again returned to three tired accusations that were promulgated by the George W. Bush administration as a way to build support for a possible attack against Iran. These include concerns over Iran’s nuclear program; accusations that Iran was aiding militias in Iraq, who were attacking American troops; and that Iran was aiding al-Qaeda.

All of these claims are very old—and are as insubstantial and specious as they were when first put forward in 2003. One may choose to believe them or not, but it is certain that their reiteration by the Obama administration has not made it any easier for the Iranian government to show clemency toward Bauer and Fattal.

For their sake and the sake of their families and friends one can only hope that the occasion of Ramadhan with its salutary sentiments and message of forgiveness will result in the release of these two young men, who appear not to have deserved their fate.




William O. Beeman is Professor and Chair of Anthropology and specialist in Middle East Studies at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis-St. Paul Minnesota, formerly of Brown University.

Beeman--Review of H.M.S. Pinafore at the Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis, July 24, 2011

H.M.S. Pinafore at the Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis. July 24, 2011. Here is a brief review.

I have no problem with adapting even very sacred stage works. We have Peter Brook's A Magic Flute at the Lincoln Center Festival and his former La Tragedie de Carmen as well as Jeune Lune's Figaro and Don Giovanni. There is also the Hot Mikado, the Jazz Mikado etc., but every one of these doesn't pretend to be the original. This production falls very far from the original, but doesn't bother to change the title or the authorship. It introduces new music (from Princess Ida and Iolanthe), cuts out much other music (the Overture for one), and adds new story lines.

Mostly, however, Andrew Cooke, with the apparent blessing of the producer and director, has given this the Chanhassen Dinner Theater makeover. He has rewritten almost every note of the show in a cross between Andrew Lloyd Weber and Kander and Ebb with Jimmi Hendrix thrown in from time to time. Of course Sullivan's meticulous orchestration is completely gone. Cooke changes time signatures, running pieces written originally in 3/4 in 4/4 fox-trot tempo. Sometimes it works. Buttercup's (Christina Baldwin) numbers in Latin rhythms are amusing. But he also redoes the harmonies, adds measures to the music and cuts out many others. It is not respectful of Sullivan--not that that really matters theatrically, but his changes-for-the-sake-of-change don't really add to the piece. I mean, does Cooke think he can do better word setting than Sullivan? If you know the original you know that he can not. One over-the-top change was to give the full Phantom treatment with ooh and ahh chorus in the background to Captain Corcoran's (a lithe Robert O. Berdahl) second act piece "Fair Moon." Admittedly this often falls flat at the lowest point in the arc of the show, but I expected Bea Arthur to swing down on her crescent-moon prop at the end. It threw the show off balance, as the plot needs to build from this point, not drop.

Ralph Rackstraw (Aleks Knezevich) is a great actor and dancer, but he is not a tenor. Dick Deadeye (Lee Mark Nelson in this performance subbing for Jason Simon) is not a bass. Their "money notes" are taken up or down an octave. Josephine's (Heather Lindell) second act aria, "A Simple Sailor" could be perfect in a pop styling if Cooke had left the harmonic rhythm in place. It sounded rushed and nowhere near a beautiful and affecting as the original, as if Cooke didn't think the audience could listen to five minutes of sustained solo music.

The original show is short--it is often done with a curtain-raiser. The added dance numbers (a tap routine for "He is an Englishman" and other extra music) lengthens it by a half hour. The production team obviously thought people would be bored by a straight production, so they gild the lily and pull out all the stops--stage machinery, mirror balls, balloons, birds, fish, tangos, tap numbers and drop-trou slapstick comedy.

All that said, the cast is outstanding, as is the snappy stage direction. The cast members work their tails off, and if one has no idea at all about the original show, it must certainly be entertaining, but I winced at every silly Broadway mid-number cliche key change and meaningless pop-styling. Innovate, yes, absolutely, but don't innovate just to do it, and for heaven's sake, be true to the musical values of the original.

Beeman--David E. Sanger and William J. Broad once again distort Iran's nuclear program

Once again the intrepid team of David E. Sanger and William J. Broad have printed one of their "Saturday specials" ginning up specious, unsubstantiated information about Iran's nuclear program as they have for many years.

The latest article: "Survivor of Attack Accelerates Iran's Effort to Produce Nuclear Material" Saturday, July 23,
is characteristically full of anonymous quotes: "What concerns [unnamed] inspectors and European and American officials is Iran's announced effort to increase production of uranium enriched to nearly 20% purity." They then go on to hang their story on one substantive quote, that of William Hague, the British foreign minister, which they picked up from The Guardian. Hague is re-quoted as saying "When enough 20 percent enriched uranium is accumulated at the underground facility at Qum . . . it would take only two or three months of additional work to convert this into weapons-grade material."

Let's examine this:

A. Mr. Hague is not a nuclear physics expert by any stretch of imagination. His statement is therefore political, absent any real.
B. Centrifuges have not actually been introduced into the Qum (Fordow) facility. In fact it is only a suspicion that they will be.
C. What does "enough" mean in Mr. Hague's statement? I doubt even he knows, but certainly an imprecise term like "enough" is good enough for Sanger and Broad. Iran's announced plans are to generate a small amount for a research reactor, which would not be enough to make a weapon. Hague (and Sanger and Broad) imply that they will make much,.much more. This is pure paranoid speculation.
D. The "additional work:" Mr. Hague mentions is actually a huge, complicated process using facilities that Iranians have not even put on the drawing boards.


The story ostensibly centers on the work of Fereydoon Abbasi, who has now been put in charge of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization. Sanger and Broad try to imply that Mr. Abbasi is somehow very dangerous, or at least not as sophisticated as his predecessor--"not as skillful--or as comfortable" to quote another of their anonymous sources.

The stinger at the end of the piece is to report that Dr. Abbasi announced in June that Iran would triple production of this concentrated form of uranium. That sounds ominous until you realize that "triple" only depends on how much is being currently produced, which is miniscule.

This story continues the kinds of neo-conservative attacks we have seen against the NIE and the U.S. intelligence community, as well as the IAEA who have consistently, incessantly, insisted that Iran does not have a weapons program, and that no nuclear material has been diverted for military use. Sanger and Broad are dismissive: "Senior Obama administration officials . . . do not sound alarmed."

Nevertheless, the headline on Sanger and Broad's piece will be all that most people read: Iran, accelerate, produce, nuclear material. It is all that the "attack Iran" crowd needs as red meat for their relentless campaign to draw the United States into a debilitating conflict in the Middle East

Bill Beeman
University of Minnesota


--

William O. Beeman--The Afghan Drawdown is Long, Long Overdue

The Afghan Drawdown is Long, Long Overdue

New America Media, Commentary, William O. Beeman, Posted: Jun 22, 2011

President Obama is now doing something politically difficult — drawing down our troops from Afghanistan. However difficult it will be for the president to weather his Washington critics, it is the right decision politically and militarily.

The United States has been fighting in Afghanistan for nearly a decade. It is the longest military conflict in our history, and also the most futile and ineffective. Once Al-Qaeda had been ousted from power and had retreated to Pakistan, there was no longer a reason for an American presence there. When the United States finally killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the lack of need for a continued American military presence became definitive. Our continued presence is overkill; we have long since won our battles there. We know that our erstwhile enemy consists of only a few hundred weakened and leaderless adherents in the region.

The costs of maintaining the American military in Afghanistan are astronomical — a billion dollars a week by some estimates. There would be some justification for this expense if the military were actually accomplishing something of value for the United States or even for the Afghan people, but neither is the case.

Let us be clear. The United States is in a conflict of its own making. It set up this war more than 30 years ago in its support of “freedom fighters” working to oust the Soviet Union from Afghan soil. There was nothing wrong with that support at the time; however the United States lost interest in the Afghans and their external voluntary zealot-supporters from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Morocco the minute the Soviets had withdrawn. These external fighters, who could not return home since they frightened their own governments, were dumped into Pakistan with the United States’ blessing, only to fester in their extreme views, forming the core of Al-Qaeda.

The Taliban ex-Afghan fighters — equally reactionary to Al-Qaeda in their religious philosophy — were first supported by the United States, since they hoped that they would support building a pipeline for Caspian petroleum across Afghan territory. When they were seen to protect Al-Qaeda, they became the U.S. target.

The United States' answer to Taliban rule was to install a corrupt dictator, Hamid Karzai, as president of the nation. Karzai, who had long connections with Washington and U.S. financial interests, stole billions of U.S. dollars and never did anything to counter religious extremism in his country. He certainly never lifted a finger to aid in the containment of Al-Qaeda.

American troops twiddled their thumbs in Afghanistan, half-building useless, flimsy public works that now largely stand empty. They also wasted time trying to eradicate the only cash crop that gave Afghan farmers any income at all — opium poppies — and engaging in random skirmishes with Taliban guerrillas. There was never any concrete goal to the military presence beyond containment of Al-Qaeda. Variously the United States has claimed that it was trying to “stabilize” Afghanistan, to bring democratic government to the nation, to assure human rights, and a hundred other ancillary tasks that were utterly impractical and unsuccessful.

In truth, American military and political leaders never understood Afghan society at all. They called local leaders “warlords” and tried to destroy their power base, when in fact these individuals had formed the core of the traditional political system in the country and were forces for stability. They never appreciated the extraordinary ethnic and cultural diversity of the nation, which made every region virtually a nation within a nation, requiring tailor-made strategies for each, rather than one-size-fits-all broad-brush measures. They failed to understand the system of economic and political patronage that insured some modicum of financial security for peasants. They also were totally puzzled by the religious landscape of the country — sometimes over-the-top in its religious stringency, at other times lax and even agnostic.

The one truly virtuous ideal upheld by Americans was the protection of women and women’s rights. But here too the United States could only pay lip service to this important social dynamic. It couldn’t prevent laws curtailing women’s rights from being passed, nor could it develop a strategy for persuading Afghan leaders to intervene in the most egregious local abuses.

One thing is clear though: The U.S. presence has been an astonishing windfall for U.S. contractors and external advisors who reaped billions of their own with little or no supervision at U.S. taxpayer expense. These war profiteers are first and foremost lobbying to keep the military in place.

What is also clear is that the Afghan people no longer want the United States in their country — just as they have never wanted any foreign presence on their soil. At best, the United States has relieved the Afghan military from its own defense responsibilities. It has enriched its generals and other military personnel, but in no way has it been effective in helping to build an Afghan military.

Critics will say that President Obama has simply given up. But our military leaders gave up long before the president. Virtually everyone in command in Afghanistan, and certainly the preponderance of the rank-and-file military, see absolutely no purpose in maintaining a U.S. presence there any longer. It is time for them to come home and give Afghanistan what it really wants — self determination and a nation free of foreign occupation for the first time in decades.

The traditional leadership systems of Afghanistan should be given time to work and establish political stability once more. This will not be quick or easy. Here, the United States or the United Nations could play a limited role in preventing external influence and curtailing the civil conflict, which will likely ensue. However, the Afghans want to make their own way. It is time to let them.

William O. Beeman--No Evidence of an Iranian Bomb, Yet the Attacks on Iran Continue - New America Media

No Evidence of an Iranian Bomb, Yet the Attacks on Iran Continue - New America Media

New America Media, News Analysis, William O. Beeman, Posted: Jun 03, 2011

Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Seymour Hersh has once again created controversy by stating in a recent New Yorker article, “Iran and the Bomb,” that there is no evidence that Iran is building a nuclear weapon. Hersh is correct, but his statement still provokes debate.

Politico reporter Jennifer Epstein, in a May 31 article, attempts to refute of Hersh’s assertion. Among other charges, she cites criticism of Hersh for using "anonymous sources" in this and other articles. Irony of ironies, Epstein's entire story is based on an anonymous source attacking Hersh. She quotes "a senior administration official" saying: “[A]ll you need to read to be deeply concerned about Iran’s nuclear program is the substantial body of information already in the public domain, including the most recent IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] report."

Since the most recent IAEA Report itself gives no detail whatsoever about this alleged military information, one can only conclude that the information it is talking about was leaked. Indeed, the website ISIS (Institute for Science and International Security) provided what purports to be the evidence for IAEA concern.

The information also appears to have been leaked to the New York Times. Writers David E. Sanger and William J. Broad reported on a series of unrelated “concerns” in Iranian engineering research that when considered together could lead to “triggering” technology for a nuclear weapon. Broad followed up with details in the Science Times section of the newspaper on May 31. He acknowledged that there is no evidence that such a trigger is known to be in development, and several of the elements are consistent with non-military peaceful applications.

In short, the IAEA report and the information leaked to ISIS are totally inconclusive regarding any military use of nuclear technology. If Epstein’s "senior official" wants to claim that this is the smoking gun that proves Iran to be manufacturing nuclear weapons, he or she would be laughed out of the room.

In addition, the Government’s own National Intelligence Estimate of 2011, released in March specifically has dropped language stating that Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions are a future option. Tellingly, the report has been buried by the Obama administration

According to Epstein, the "senior official" goes on to say:

“There is a clear, ongoing pattern of deception, and Iran has repeatedly refused to respond to the IAEA’s questions about the military dimensions of [its] nuclear program, including those about the covert site at Qom,”

This shows once again that "they ain't got nuttin'." Iran's "refusal" to respond to the IAEA questions is limited to a mysterious laptop captured by U.S. Intelligence seven years ago containing "bomb plans" that no one has ever seen. The site at Qom is nothing but an empty hole in the ground with no fissile materials ever introduced--in short, a complete dead horse.

One can ask: Why does the administration continues to flog this non-starter of an issue in the face of its own intelligence on the issue?

Many who have questioned the Bush and Obama administration's tenacity in holding on to this nuclear non-issue have often been accused of "supporting the mullahs" or worse. This is absolutely not the issue. The issue is not support or non-support of the Iranian regime, it is concern over America's own ineffective foreign policy.

It is worth asking whether the United States is going to follow a reasoned and productive policy toward Iran or is going to keep obsessing about this non-existent nuclear issue to the exclusion of every other possible dimension of interacting with the Iranian State?

The United States really cannot afford to let this obstacle dominate our every move toward the most important political entity in the Middle East. The sad part is that the issue isn't even one of ignorance or misinformation. It is one of ideology. To accept the reality that Iran is not the most dangerous nation on the planet is obviously a political third-rail in the United States. It triggers an avalanche of other accusations, Anti-Israeli attitudes or worse, Antisemitism, being among the most common and also the most irrelevant.

Anyone in government or the press, such as Hersh, who questions the utterly unproven postulate that Iran has an active, effective nuclear weapons program risks political disaster. Therefore, otherwise responsible people are willing to embrace a foolish lie that was concocted to serve as a selling point to the American people for Iranian "regime change" during the Bush administration.

Today the specter of the Iranian nuclear bogeyman serves no purpose whatever except to obstruct progress in bringing stability to the region. People embrace the “Iranian bomb myth” not so much because they know it to be true based on hard facts, but rather in order to avoid political attack. Where are our principles? Where is our professionalism?

William O. Beeman Review of "Tehran Rising" by America Abroad Media (Truth Out)

Debunking the Top Seven Myths on Iran's Middle East Policies

by: William O. Beeman,

New America Media

This evening, I listened to the radio program Tehran Rising [5] produced by America Abroad—a program distributed by Public Radio International—and I must say that I was deeply disturbed by the way the program was framed. The program centers on "spreading Iranian influence" in the Middle East.


Frankly, it is somewhat fatuous to try to hang a story about change and unrest in the Middle East on the Iranian bogeyman. Haven't we had enough of this?
Since nations such as Lebanon, Bahrain and Iraq (all covered in the reporting for this piece) are hugely different in their internal and external dynamics, to make this a story about Iran really obscures any nuance whatsoever in the politics of the region, and implies that nothing would be happening if it weren't for Iranian machinations.


There are certainly a few people in Iran who would exult in this misperception, however, here are a few of the myths offered in the program which I would like to debunk.


Myth #1: A "cold war" between Iran and Saudi Arabia.


This is a completely fictional construction. Saudi Arabia has long been wary and disturbed by the Shi'a majority in Hasa, its eastern oil territory. This was true even under the Shah and long before. The fear of the uprising in Bahrain has little or nothing to do with confronting Iran--it is driven by fear that the Bahraini uprising will spread over the causeway to its own province.


Myth #2: Iran’s spurring on of the Bahrain uprising.


The implication in the program was that Iran is doing something to spur on the Bahrain uprising. The program’s own interviewee, Kristin Smith Diwan, denied this.
Moreover, I just participated in a seminar for the U.S. Central Command in Tampa. Two military intelligence agents --fluent in Arabic and Persian – and former students of Middle East experts Ray Motaheddeh and Juan Cole – flatly denied that there was any evidence that Iran had any agents on the ground in Bahrain, based on their own extensive investigations in February and March of this year.


Myth #3: The bulk of Lebanon’s Hezbollah funds come from Iran.


My position on Hezbollah and that of virtually every other observer of Hezbollah is that Iran has no effective control over Hezbollah's political actions today (as opposed to 30 years ago).


The program documented clearly the charitable actions carried out by Hezbollah that were supported by Iran. Iran never denied this. At the same time, the program clearly pointed out the correct statement that the bulk of Lebanon's redevelopment funds came from foreign remittances and from the Gulf States.


The program misleadingly implies that Hezbollah is not receiving funds from the same sources. In fact, the bulk of Hezbollah's funds come from those foreign sources, not from Iran.


Of course the Sunnis such as the one interviewed on the program are opposed to Iran, but look at the welcome President Ahmadinejad got from both Shi'as and Sunnis in his recent trip.


Myth #4: Iranian influence is negative or evil.


This implication that Iranian influence is somehow negative or evil as opposed to being just what nations do was prevalent in the program.


Turkey is trying to increase its influence in Central Asia, but no one complains about that. Iran is being squeezed economically and of course is trying to develop economic and political ties. It’s behaving as nations operate normally.


Myth #5: Iran is exploiting weak democracies.


Ash Jain, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) and former State Department staff member, and all those at the WINEP are dedicated to propagandizing against Iran. The idea that Iran is "exploiting weak democracies" is rather silly. Iran can't exploit anyone unless they are able to promulgate messages and actions that are welcome to the populations of other nations.


In fact, Iran has made little or no headway in any predominately Sunni nation. Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment is quite right about the "self-limiting" nature of Iran's influence. Case in point: Tajikistan. Persian speaking, culturally Iranian, the Tajiks should be susceptible to Iranian influence. Instead, they are extremely wary of Iran because Iranians are Shi'a and Tajiks are Sunni.


Myth #6: Iran has “won” because Hamas has gained power.


Ash Jain of WINEP claims that Iran has "won" because Hamas has stabilized and become a force in the Middle East. For heaven's sake, one would think that the denizens of Hamas have no interest in their own affairs and future.


Does he think that Hamas lives only to fulfill some fantasy foreign policy influence on Iran's part?


Myth #7: All Shi’a leaders agree with Iran.


Let's be clear. No Shi'a religious leaders outside of Iran agree with Iran's form of government or want to emulate it. Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani of Iraq is flatly opposed to Iran's brand of clerical rule, and disagrees with the idea that the Iranian Revolution should be spread abroad. Not that there’s hope of that anyway.
Therefore, the flat answer to the question of Iranian influence is: Some in Iran would like to see Iran have greater influence in the region, but their "success" is largely a figment of the imagination of overwrought Westerners looking about for another "cold war" enemy, to echo the framework of this program.


Much of what is attributed to Iran in this radio program and elsewhere is actually the result of the natural dynamics of the individual communities of the region playing out their own local interests.


The fact that some in Iran may be cheerleading from the sidelines doesn't mean that Iran is in control. Nor does it mean that what Iran is doing is any different than any other nation in the world trying to create favorable relations for itself.


William O. Beeman is Professor and Chair of Anthropology and specialist in Middle East Studies at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis-St. Paul Minnesota, formerly of Brown University.

William O. Beeman Review of "Tehran Rising" by America Abroad Media

I listened to the radio program Tehran Rising produced by America Abroad--a
program distributed by Public Radio International
<http://www.americaabroadmedia.org/programs/view/id/157>
this evening and I must say that I was deeply disturbed by the way the piece was framed.
The program centers on "spreading Iranian influence" in the Middle East.

Frankly it is somewhat fatuous to try to hang a story about
change and unrest in the Middle East on the Iranian bogeyman. Haven't we
had enough of this? Since nations such as Lebanon, Bahrain and Iraq, all
covered in the reporting for this piece,  are hugely different in their internal
and external dynamics, to make this a story about Iran really obscures any
nuance whatever in the politics of the region, and implies that nothing would
be happening if it weren't for Iranian machinations. There are certainly a few
people in Iran who would exult in this misperception--giving Iran far more.
Interested people should listen to the program or read the transcript themselves.
However, here are some of my objections:

1. The piece posits a "cold war" between Iran and  Saudi Arabia. This is a complete 
fictional construction. Saudi Arabia has long been wary and disturbed by 
the Shi'a majority in the Hasa, its eastern oil territory. This was true 
even under the Shah and long before. The fear of the uprising in Bahrain 
has little or nothing to do with confronting Iran--it is driven by fear 
that the Bahraini uprising will spread over the causeway to its own 
province.

2. The implication that Iran is doing something to spur on the Bahrain 
uprising. Your own interviewee, Kristin Smith Diwan, denied this. 
Moreover, I just participated in a seminar for the U.S. Central Command 
in Tampa. Two Military Intelligence agents--fluent in Arabic and 
Persian--former students of Ray Motaheddeh and Juan Cole--flatly denied 
that there was any evidence that Iran had any agents on the ground in 
Bahrain, based on their own extensive investigations in February and March.

3. Hezbullah--I think you know not only my position on Hezbullah but 
that of virtually every other observer of Hezbullah, and that is that 
iran has no effective control over Hezbullah's political actions today 
(as opposed to 30 years ago). You documented clearly the charitable 
actions carried out by Hezbullah that were  supported by Iran. Iran 
never denied this. At the same time, the program clearly pointed out the 
correct statement that the bulk of Lebanon's redevelopment funds came 
from foreign remittances and from the Gulf States. The program 
misleadingly implies that Hezbullah is not receiving funds from the same 
sources. In fact the bulk of Hezbullah's funds come from those sources, 
not from Iran. Of course the Sunni's such as the one interviewed on the 
program are opposed to Iran, but look at the welcome President 
Ahmadinejad got from BOTH Shi'as and Sunnis in his recent trip.

4. The implication that Iranian influence is negative or evil as opposed 
to being just what nations do. Turkey is trying to increase its 
influence in Central Asia, but no one complains about that. Iran is 
being squeezed economically and of course is trying to develop economic 
and political ties.

5. Ash Jain and all those at WINEP are dedicated to propagandizing 
against Iran. The idea that Iran is "exploiting weak democracies" is 
rather silly. Iran can't exploit anyone unless they are able to 
promulgate messages and actions that are welcome to the populations of 
other nations. In fact, Iran has made little or no headway in any 
predominately Sunni nation. Karim Sajjadpour is quite right about the 
"self-limiting" nature of Iran's influence. Case in point: Tajikistan. 
Persian speaking, culturally Iranian, the Tajiks should be susceptible 
to Iranian influence. They are extremely wary of Iran because Iranians 
are Shi'a and Tajiks are Sunni.

5. Ash Jain claims that Iran has "won" because Hamas has stabilized and 
become a force in the Middle East. For heaven's sake, one would think 
that the denizens of Hamas have no interest in their own affairs and 
future. Does he think that Hamas lives only to fulfill some fantasy 
foreign policy influence on Iran's part?

6. Let's be clear. No Shi'a religious leaders outside of Iran 
agree with Iran's form of government or want 
to emulate it. Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani is flatly opposed to Iran's 
brand of clerical rule, and disagrees with the idea that the Iranian 
Revolution should be spread abroad--a vain hope anyway.

7. Therefore the flat answer to the question of Iranian influence is: 
Some in Iran would like to see Iran have greater influence in the 
region, but their "success" is largely a figment of the imagination of 
overwrought Westerners looking about for another "cold war" enemy, to 
echo the framework of this program." Much of what is attributed to Iran 
here is the result of the natural dynamics of the individual communities 
of the region playing out their own local interests. The fact that some 
in Iran may be cheerleading from the sidelines doesn't mean that Iran is 
in control. Nor does it mean that what Iran is doing is any different 
than any other nation in the world trying to create favorable relations 
for itself.

Best,

Bill Beeman
University of Minnesota

 

William O. Beeman--We Killed Osama bin Laden, Now Let’s Kill the Myth - New America Media

We Killed Osama bin Laden, Now Let’s Kill the Myth - New America Media

New America Media,

Commentary, William O. Beeman, Posted: May 03, 2011

The United States is jubilant over the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. However, it will be some time before history catches up with the mythology that arose around him and the al-Qaeda organization in the past 10 years. Osama bin Laden at the end was far from the looming powerful figure he was made out to be. He had outlived his usefulness both as a bogeyman for the West, and as an Islamic responder to the neo-colonialist forces his organization purported to confront.

The principal myth surrounding bin Laden was that his brand of religion represented a mainstream streak of something identified variously as “jihadism” or, in more genteel rhetoric, “political Islam.” This was far from the truth. No doubt, bin Laden justified his actions with questionable theology and bogus fatwas, but his organization’s actions represented an extremist view of religiously justified political action that was embraced by only a fraction of the Islamic world.

Second, bin Laden was seen as promulgating the United States as al-Qaeda’s principal target—a mythology that was certainly reinforced by the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. Actually, the target of bin Laden and the al-Qaeda forces for which he served as leader was the Saudi Arabian Royal Family. He turned to this mission after the Soviet Union was expelled from Afghanistan. Bin Laden viewed the Saudi Royal Family as having defiled the Arabian Peninsula—the Holy Land where the major religious shrines of Islam are located. Not only were the lives of the Saudi rulers seen as venal, they allowed the United States and other nations to establish military operations on Saudi soil. The United States became the target of al-Qaeda when they set up operations to protect and support the Saudi Royal Family.

Third, bin Laden was promoted by the Bush administration as the mastermind of a gigantic apocalyptic global organization under his control. They built the search for him into the Global War on Terror—for which they actually issued GWOT medals. This was a gigantic exaggeration that was largely accepted by the American public without question.

Fourth, exaggerating bin Laden’s powers also served disparate dissident groups in the Islamic world. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, bin Laden’s organization had enormous cachet among political resistance groups—many of whom predated the rise of bin Laden and al-Qaeda by decades. These smaller groups, with their own local grievances against repressive rulers, quickly “branded” themselves with the epithet “al-Qaeda.” It was a franchise operation that gave many small groups from the Philippines to Morocco instant attention and credibility. In fact, bin Laden never had direct control over these groups. They would occasionally come to him directly or indirectly for blessings of their actions, and he would routinely “approve.” This served everyone’s purpose—making bin Laden’s al-Qaeda seem more powerful than it was, and giving the local groups credibility. We now know that over 10 years, bin Laden’s organization had dwindled precipitously. In fact, its numbers were in the low hundreds in the Afghan-Pakistan theater in the end.
Fifth, bin Laden was presented by the United States—particularly the Bush administration—as impossibly clever, wily and able to evade U.S. military operations. This mythology was promulgated by Pakistan as well. In fact, bin Laden was an incredibly useful symbolic bogeyman. His mere existence justified the United States’ presence in Afghanistan, as well as billions of dollars spent supporting the Pakistan military regime without complaint from the American public. It is already apparent that the Pakistanis—and likely some Americans—knew very well where he was. He was not hiding out in a cave somewhere; he was 35 miles from Islamabad in a stable compound in a luxury neighborhood.
Finally, bin Laden has been portrayed with the power to reach beyond the grave. Virtually, the instant that his death was announced, global speculation about “sleeper cells” and attacks by “bin Laden’s followers” filled the airwaves. In fact, no one has ever identified these organizations. This is part of the continued mythology of a unified Islamic global movement organized to confront Western civilization. Such a movement never existed, though there are certainly individuals in both the West and the Islamic world who find it politically useful to promulgate such a fabrication.

As we have seen in the past few months, the dominant focus for political action in the Middle East and elsewhere is not religious-based. Movements in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Bahrain and even Jordan are based in the principle of secular representative government free of Western political and economic control, channeled through repressive rulers. Even in Iran, dissidents seek to lessen the influence of religious doctrinaire control as their political system moves inexorably toward secular rule.

The mythic ideology of Islamic confrontation with the West, inherent in the bin Laden myth, should die with him. Americans, rather than celebrating a triumph over Islam, should instead be looking forward to a new era of cooperation with the progressive peoples throughout the region, who, with bin Laden’s death, have now begun to have the false accusation of Islamic extremism lifted from their shoulders.

William O. Beeman is professor and chair of the department of anthropology, University of Minnesota, Minn. He has lived and worked in the Middle East for more than 30 years, and is past president of the Middle East Section of the American Anthropological Association.

Interview with William O. Beeman--PressTV - 'Yemenis reject any Saudi interference'

Interview with William O. Beeman

PressTV - 'Yemenis reject any Saudi interference'

Press TV has interviewed Professor William Beeman, the chairman of anthropology department of the University of Minnesota, who acknowledges that the people of Yemen are saying "No" to any interference from Saudi Arabia.

Press TV: Regarding the two-week deadline, which has been presented by the Yemeni opposition for President Saleh to leave his post - Do you think he will meet this deadline and step down?

William Beeman: I think that President Saleh has no intention of stepping down voluntarily. He's going to have to be forced out of office. What we find in Sana'a is that we have pro-Saleh demonstrations taking place, but anywhere outside of the centre of Sana'a you have anti-government demonstrations going on. We don't have good information about the northern parts of the country. But I think President Saleh thinks he is going to be able to remain in power.

Press TV: You say that Saleh has no intentions of quitting and he will have to be forced out - Are these protests we are seeing all over Yemen enough to accomplish that? Or are we talking about something bigger that is needed?

William Beeman: It's an interesting question because it's not clear who may be helping the opposition with resources etc. President Saleh has government resources at his beck and call including part of the military that is still supporting him.

As you know, General Ammar has defected to the opposition and we are waiting to get more information about General Ammar and who may have promised him some leadership position perhaps in a newly formed government or what ties he has with resources external to Yemen. The resources for the opposition are not well known right now.

Press TV: Concerning the Saudi-backed initiative that is supposed to take place next week - it has been rejected by the people of Yemen. We were talking to a journalist this week and he said that this proposal is not for the opposition or the people to accept or reject, it's been made directly to Saleh. Considering the influence Saudi Arabia has wielded in the past in Yemen - Do you think Saleh would accept a proposal by them?

William Beeman: The details of such a proposal would be interesting to know. One of the things the Saudi government wants to ensure is that there is stability in Yemen because the Saudis see Yemen and the people in Yemen as potential threats. If Saleh goes they will want assurance that there is going to be a stable pro-Saudi government that takes his place.

And the reason the opposition has expressed a rejection of a plan, whatever it may consist of, is that they don't want the Saudis controlling their government, or their destiny. And that goes for interference from the US as well.

There is a classic mistake that nations make when they are dealing with other nations in the midst of revolution, and we've seen it again and again, is that the people are not interested in outside interference.

Press TV: Can the revolution reach fruition without influence from foreign powers? We see in Egypt where there was a powerful and viable institution, the military, which has a lot of sway politically, but we're not seeing that in Yemen.

William Beeman: That's exactly right; we don't know what military forces they have. Additionally, there are many Yemenis that live outside of Yemen and the possibility of them supplying aid to the opposition is there. The question is - Are they able to transfer funds or supply arms? That's an interesting question, so I would look to the Yemeni community abroad. A number of millions of Yemenis are not in the country at present and they are opposed to the rule of President Saleh. This element needs to be considered by analysts as well as people inside Yemen.

Press TV: With the Saudi mediation efforts - Can we expect Saudi Arabia to be an honest broker considering what it is doing in Bahrain against pro-democracy protesters? And also, would Saudi Arabia take into account its own strategic interests first in ensuring stability over what the people of Yemen want?

William Beeman: Well, Saudi Arabia itself is not in any way a democracy; it doesn't have a constitution and the Saudi royal family rules by decree. So there is no democracy in Saudi Arabia and the idea that they are trying to foster a democratic state in Yemen is strange given that they don't believe in it for their own people.

It is a question of stability. We forget that the family of Osama Bin Laden comes from Yemen. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is based in Yemen - it's not a very big or very important group, but nevertheless it is enough to worry the Saudi royal family because the principal target for al-Qaeda is not the US or Europeans - It's the Saudi royal family. They would like to see the Saudi royal family completely eliminated from Saudi Arabia and the Saudi royal family knows this.

An unstable Yemen is therefore a potential source of real danger for the government of Saudi Arabia and that's why they want to broker a deal that will bring people to power in Yemen that they will have some control over. And they have had through the US control of President Saleh.

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