. The Victor? New York Book Review, Vol 54, no 15, Oct 11, 2007
Last night I picked up the Treacherous Alliance, The secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the US, written by Trita Parsi and published by The Yale University Press.
After I raved about how hilariously the book was written and how true to reality of the Iranian state of affairs it was, my friend Nunya, the politicky bitch, rushed to buy herself a copy and encouraged me to read this book together.
Coincidentally, Ridwan dropped by and pointed out to a nice link on Rootless Cosmopolitan where Trita Parsi is talking about the research and the motivation behind this book.
Feel free to join in and to share your comments and concerns with us. The book is readily available from Amazon and perhaps in your local bookstore, as that is where Nunya picked it up. You can have it in hard cover, for only $18 and learn, for the first time, about the real nature of Iran/Israel and US conflicts. I hope it will disambiguate anyone who considers this conflict to be about oil or religion. The premise of the book is a very important one, and this line of argument, although well known to many Iranian political scientists, has hardly been given a discursive public attention.
Happy reading!
Be sure to read Tony Karon's Rootless Cosmopolitain.
Addendum:
Here's a a commentary by Doug Bandow , a Washington-based political writer and policy analyst and Robert A. Taft Fellow with the American Conservative Defense Alliance. He served as a special assistant to President Ronald Reagan and as a senior policy analyst in the 1980 Reagan for President campaign. One would suspect he knows what he is Talking about! and he is calling Bush's unwillingness to negotiate with Iran Criminal!
36 comments:
Looks like a good book Naj and one I will get.
I'll put this on my reading list. The connection and weird, (for the lack of any other word to describe the relationship), relationship between the USA and Israel has always puzzled me. Looks like it is worth a look. I might learn something.
PEACE TO ALL
Hi Naj, just so you know. Re. the Tony Karon/Trita Parsi article, your link is to Karon's website. The permalink to the article is here.
http://tonykaron.com/2007/10/09/iran-the-inflatable-bogey/
Cheers!
Larry
========================
Yes it is a good book!
Spadoman
========================
It is a good read, indeed!
Furgaia
========================
Thanks fr the link.
Actually I put the link to the main page on purpose. The link to the specific article is in the text of the post. But I thought this guy is a sharp journalist so I am happy to have found him! :)
Karon wrote a nice piece about him being put on Massad 2000's SHIT list of 'self hating jews'. Quite funny and Massada 2000's site is absolutely batshit insane. The book looks like a good read, if you swear it is absolutely worth reading I will part with my hard earned/stolen/won cash for a copy. From the short piece by the author it does make me think the real danger for now is Israel attacking Iran simply to provoke a counter attack that the US neo/likuds will be happy to launch. Basically a small cabal of hawks causing a whole shitstorm to maintain the Israel/US relationship (also because of some racist aversion to anything remotely islamic). But I would need the whole book to really get a grip on this.
Rick
:) I am not going to swear to have you part with your cash. You can wait for yoru library to deliver it ;)
Also, I think there maybe a media buzz created around this. I hope so!
I am enjoying the book.
The danger of "Accidental wars" ...
Well, when 911 happened, if someone did a poll in Iran, I am sure a good size of Iranians would say "It's Mossad's doing."
Everytime a suicide bomber "goes off" in an Israeli market (just as they are about to make peace of some sort) We in Iran say: It's Mossad's doing!
NO-ONE benefits from chaos more than Israel does. And no one benefits from Israel more than the military industry complex does!
This book is making an important argument. I wait to read to the end to comment on it. But I agree with the premise of the book, and I am happy that he is not "guessing", but documenting the actual accounts by interviewing a good number of who-s whos!
A lot of these information are not available to the IRanians inside Iran either. So all in all, a good educational project!
naj
I am so sick of hearing that it is all about oil. That is only a part of it. A benie if you will. To bush it's all about new order. too Israel they want to create a safety buffer around them. It will all backfire. At least that is my take. I must admit I was surprised to hear that Iran had the largest Jewish community over there outside of Israel at 20,000.
I will look at the link furgaia supplied to see if there is a summary of the book.
Jim,
I never said these things are about oil, did I?
The world order ... well we have different competing versions of it.
I think what Americans are panicking about is that they see their country dragged to ground, and that other world orders will soon take it over. Bush is only resisting his eventual fate. He's just bringing his end about quicker!
I marvel with amusement!
"The world order ... well we have different competing versions of it."
ok now, some of that is covered in what I've read so far-- :)
On page 107!
:)
Yeah maybe, but waaaaaay before that.
What's the title of chapter 4?
"Iran's quest for supremacy"
thanks for being here..I was over to AZ Goddess today and she has a link to a post all about Iran it is poignant an beautiful..and I thought of you..( she is on my blogroll check it out)...thanks..
and thanks for the reading material..all weekend I am going to sit and read..
Nunya:
I meant I was on page 107, now 111. Was busy yesterday. How far are you?
reading this book I am beginning to like a whole number of enemies :)
Enigma:
Thanks for introducingThe Unapologetic Mexican That is a beautiful post and a very beautiful blog too!
I haven't seen anything as pretty as that before :)
Najita,
Thanks for the recommend. I've heard Parsi before, he preached very well to this choir. Am traveling, so will swing round to a bookstore. Reading the tea leaves between US/Israel/Iran/Russia is a worthy pastime, and once best not screwed up!
Hey Sweetness, I think I found the next book for the reading club.
Have a look see:
Bill Moyers and Anouar Majid discuss A Call for Heresy
Are you game?
----------------------------
I gave Trecherous Alliance a rest on Friday, was busy catching up on some homework (Gawd I hate the local paper, it's a neocon's wet dream), & I was nosing around blogtopia ( skippy made up that delightful word)
how true to reality of the Iranian state of affairs
Oh yah “Sponsoring Terrorists "
Thursday October 11, 2007
Germany plans early release for Iranian, Lebanese killers
Germany- An Iranian and a Lebanese serving life
sentences in Germany for the 1992 massacre of Iranian-Kurdish
opposition leaders are to be freed early, officials said Thursday.
The federal prosecutor's office said Kazem Darabi and Abbas Rhayei
would be released in December after serving 15 years of their
sentence for murder.
Darabi, an Iranian, is believed to have masterminded the slayings
at the Mykonos restaurant in Berlin. Rhayei, from Lebanon, was
convicted as an accomplice along with two other Lebanese men.
The prosecutor's office said the judiciary had decided not to
enforce the remainder of the sentence, something which was possible
in the case of foreigners who would be deported after their release.
Iranian-Kurdish opposition leaders Sadeq Sharafkandi, Fattah
Abdoli, Homayoun Ardalan and their interpreter Nouri Dehkordi were
assassinated at the restaurant in September 1992.
At the trial, the court declared that the assassination had been
ordered by Iranian intelligence minister Hojjat al-Islam Ali
Fallahian with the knowledge of Iranian leaders.
This triggered a diplomatic crisis between Germany and Iran.
Iran has repeatedly pressed for the release of Darabi,
http://rawstory.com/news/dpa/
Germany_plans_early_release_
for_Ira_10112007.html
Hi Naj,
I read the article on Tony Karon's blog and I think it was you who pointed the link to me. I am reading 'The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy' now. Although I am familiar with their argument because of the article in the LRB and the following debates (yes after all they were able to debate, people were debating with them and at the same time discrediting the book), it was interesting to read the latest addition, the role of the IL in the Lebanon war.
As for the recent turn in US/Iran relations, it is meaningless unless you look at it from the Israel lobby perspective. Look at Turkey, a country that was always friendly to israel and the US, they are alienating Turkey now. Else how would they claim that they are fighting a global war on Islam ?
I think one cannot speak of a foreign policy per se, this is war business and we have to start to look at it with this perspective in mind.
I am sorry I wouldn't be able to engage in this debate neither to follow up on my comment in the coming days.
MarcLord
More on Iran/Israel's love-hate relationship, from Haaretz
Naj,
Ok, that should give me a chance to catch up. I guess I never realized how complicated foreign policies are for so many different countries.
"reading this book I am beginning to like a whole number of enemies :)"
How Persian of you. :) :)
Looks like an interesting book.
A HOT story raging 1/2 hour ago
source INTERFAX
http://ef-111aardvark.blogspot.com/2007/10/assassins-plot-to-kill-putin-in-iran.html
Hi aardvark, yes I just saw it on google news on Iran!
I am sure Usrael are not very happy about Iran-Russia's closeness and I won't doubt CIA/Mossad would love an attempt on Putin's life.
As far as Iranians are concerned, this is their response:
""The reports in some media are completely without foundation and part of a psychological war waged by enemies to disrupt relations between Iran and Russia," foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told AFP.
"Such erroneous reports will have no effect on the programme already decided upon for Putin's visit to Tehran" which begins on Tuesday, Hosseini added.
©2007 AFP
LOL
Russia's Interfax news agency said Russian security services had been told suicide bombers and kidnappers were training to kill or capture Putin during his visit to Tehran on Tuesday, when he is due to attend a meeting of Caspian Sea states.
weelll, we all know that Iran doesn't have suicide bombers! So I am sure CIA/Mossad may have already imported some (from their al-quaeda repository, of course) to Iran!
Naj,
"weelll, we all know that Iran doesn't have suicide bombers!"
Huh?
Well, not in Iran, anyway, this must be because the judge was a Jew, right?
Iran responsible for 1983 Marine barracks bombing, judge rules
Friday, May 30, 2003 Posted: 11:14 PM EDT (0314 GM
Nunya, sweetheart, as hard as you try, you don't seem to have still quite removed yourself from what is false accusations and propaganda!
No honey, there were no Iranian suicide bombers involved in that event!
Also, contextualize a threat on Putin's life! It CANNOT come from Iran, as Russia is the only ally they've got now!
I'll have to check it out.
Time had an article today about Putin flying into Iran to talk with Iranian leadership and see how the project is going.
After all, the Russians are buildingn the nuclear power plant for Iran.
Putin sees no evidence that Iran is looking to build a nuke bomb.
But Putin wants some reassurances from Tehran that they aren't going to build a nuke.
Funny how Putin isn't afraid to go to Iran and talk with Iran's leadership but Bush is.
Then again, Bush is afraid of horses as well.
Check this out Naj:
By Joe Gandelman
Once upon a time, there was a phrase that truly was cringe-worthy. It was as trite as when someone would say (as if it was profound) “we don’t want to sit around singing Kumbaya.”
The phrase is “they’re just being Good Germans.” It’s a phrase that was hideously overused during the Vietnam War (for those of us who remember) and now in the Iraq war….which has shaped up as this generation’s Vietnam war.
But New York Times columnist Frank Rich has now made it legitimate again in a column that is that asks readers to stop and see how far the United States has come — or fallen. His use of the words “Gestapo tactics” and “Good Germans” will be red flags to some, but he’s clearly speaking about a descent of long-held American values here and not just throwing lash-out adjectives around.
And, indeed, if you look at Point A as where we were X number of years ago in terms of American steadfast values and Point B where we are now, there is a perceptible shift – not one that has come with any big announcement, but via a series of teeny baby steps taken as if no steps were taken at all.
The thrust of his piece is at its end:
Our moral trajectory over the Bush years could not be better dramatized than it was by a reunion of an elite group of two dozen World War II veterans in Washington this month. They were participants in a top-secret operation to interrogate some 4,000 Nazi prisoners of war. Until now, they have kept silent, but America’s recent record prompted them to talk to The Washington Post.
“We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture,” said Henry Kolm, 90, an M.I.T. physicist whose interrogation of Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, took place over a chessboard. George Frenkel, 87, recalled that he “never laid hands on anyone” in his many interrogations, adding, “I’m proud to say I never compromised my humanity.”
Our humanity has been compromised by those who use Gestapo tactics in our war. The longer we stand idly by while they do so, the more we resemble those “good Germans” who professed ignorance of their own Gestapo. It’s up to us to wake up our somnambulant Congress to challenge administration policy every day. Let the war’s last supporters filibuster all night if they want to. There is nothing left to lose except whatever remains of our country’s good name.
The beginning is where he also notes a common administration response and the reason he felt this column’s time had come:
“BUSH lies” doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s time to confront the darker reality that we are lying to ourselves.
Ten days ago The Times unearthed yet another round of secret Department of Justice memos countenancing torture. President Bush gave his standard response: “This government does not torture people.” Of course, it all depends on what the meaning of “torture” is. The whole point of these memos is to repeatedly recalibrate the definition so Mr. Bush can keep pleading innocent.
And that has been a modus operandi not just of the administration, but going back to Mr. Bush’s 2000 Presidential campaign.
When he ran against Arizona Senator John McCain, who was widely seen then as a reformer, Mr. Bush reformulated his campaign at one time and appeared behind signs that said he was “reformer with results.” But after Mr. Bush was elected, it turned out some of those reforms were not such great reforms after all.
Administration environmental policies have been given names to sound like great environmental policies, but check with any number of prestigious, independent environmental organizations and they’ll tell you that the administration is considered to have one of the poorest records on environmental issues. Similarly, the administration insists it is not saying Saddam Hussein was involved with 911 but it has repeatedly suggested just that even as it denied it was doing so.
It’s the use of language to recast and deny. But if previous definitions were used or not shifted and tossed away, it is clear on several fronts that this administration has made many significant shifts which claiming it was doing no such thing. Rich writes:
By any legal standards except those rubber-stamped by Alberto Gonzales, we are practicing torture, and we have known we are doing so ever since photographic proof emerged from Abu Ghraib more than three years ago. As Andrew Sullivan, once a Bush cheerleader, observed last weekend in The Sunday Times of London, America’s “enhanced interrogation” techniques have a grotesque provenance: “Verschärfte Vernehmung, enhanced or intensified interrogation, was the exact term innovated by the Gestapo to describe what became known as the ‘third degree.’ It left no marks. It included hypothermia, stress positions and long-time sleep deprivation.”
Still, the drill remains the same. The administration gives its alibi (Abu Ghraib was just a few bad apples). A few members of Congress squawk. The debate is labeled “politics.” We turn the page.
There has been scarcely more response to the similarly recurrent story of apparent war crimes committed by our contractors in Iraq. Call me cynical, but when Laura Bush spoke up last week about the human rights atrocities in Burma, it seemed less an act of selfless humanitarianism than another administration maneuver to change the subject from its own abuses.
Laura Bush’s comments and motivations? That’s up for debate and no one — Rich included — can say they know she was trying to change a subject. Perhaps this happened: perhaps she WAS outraged by it. Rich almost undermines his argument by falling into the discredit-you-opponents trap.
But the larger issue in America is that our goal posts keep changing.
And how can they change so easily?
Once upon a time there were people in both parties who were staunch partisans but had ideals that they would not toss away just to win an election or cling to power.
These ideas were steadfast and were the reason WHY they belonged to X or Y party — and the reason they were so proud to be Americans.
Those of us who have spent years of our lives overseas (in my case India, Bangladesh, Spain and covering parts of Mexico) often ran into heated criticisms and outright denunciations of the United States but we also know that the United States has long been a country considered by many in the world to be perhaps a CUT ABOVE the rest due to certain values.
These values have also been a selling point for the United States abroad. But now some of the values are falling by the wayside and, as Rich notes, many Americans really don’t seem to care.
We are now in an era when politics to many seems to be less about policy and fundamental values than defending your own party’s political players, no matter what they do.
Longtime principles are tossed out as quickly as used Kleenex. The mental adjustments are made (this MUST be right because the administration says so and because this or that talk show host or blog says so). Old values become inoperative and the new values (or non-values) are rationalized and quickly become the norm.
What’s the solution? Congress? Congress can only be part of it. And clamoring for one political party to do something about it won’t cut it, either.
It’s about Americans who are now willing to let a government or party change the rules of the game or throw away longstanding ideals and values and just go along with it. It’s about whether politics means more than just making sure your side gets in and stays in.
They used to say about conservative icon Barry Goldwater: “He’d rather be right than be President.”
Politicos of both parties seems as if they’d all rather be president — and worry about being right later on.
But so do many Americans. Torture? Many who insist what’s going on now isn’t torture KNOW in their hearts it is torture but that’s not what “their team” says so they’ll insist it isn’t and go after those who say it is.
It’s not about Americans being “Good Germans.”
It’s about Americans being bad — and negligent — trustees of long held, long cherished values.
Values that generations of American died to protect — and to perpetuate.
–Newsbusters:
It’s not as if Frank Rich has a deep and abiding hatred of his nation’s leadership, or contempt for his fellow Americans. It’s just that he accuses the Bush administration of using tactics worthy of the Gestapo — the Nazi secret police headed by Heinrich Himmler — and his fellow Americans of being like citizens of Hitler’s Germany who turned a blind eye to the atrocities in their midst.
….I believe that when the history of this war is written, it will be seen that our nation waged it in accordance with some of the highest ethical standards ever observed in a major conflict. Yet Frank Rich paints our government as adopting Nazi tactics, and average Americans as akin to passive supporters of Hitler’s regime. Were it not ever-so-gauche to do so, you might call that unpatriotic.
–Michael van der Galien:
All the exaggerations aside, I’m with American liberals on this one: I won’t compare anyone to Hitler - because Hitler was truly evil, not someone who simply went a bit too far in his desire to protect his people - but the treatment of prisoners is truly embarrassing to the US. Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, etc. have done great damage to America’s image and rightfully so. Personally I don’t understand why this hasn’t caused more outrage in the US than it has done. This is one of the major weaknesses of Bush and this is one of the errors the US has made. Enhanced interrogations techniques shouldn’t be used. Not only do experts point out that they’re not all that effective, it’s also inhumane to use them. Even the worst criminals in human history should be treated in line with human rights. All of them should have a fair trial, all of them should be treated humanely.
–The Heretik (who always has incredible original graphics on his posts):
Good Americans, we don’t torture. So our leaders say. But if we believe that, more than the dignity of a detainee’s body is lost. The bones of our civilization are broken and our morality evaporates. We have acted better when things were far worse.
–TMV coblogger Pete Abel at his excellent blog Central Sanity:
Rich seems to suggest that “the war’s last supporters” are synonymous with those who would excuse and/or enable torture. That implication is neither fair nor accurate.
Among others, I both condemn torture and support the mission to stabilize Iraq. I agree wholeheartedly with those like Rich and Andrew Sullivan who have rejected the Administration’s repeated attempts to liberalize definitions of what does and does not constitute torture. I further believe American leaders and citizens must take the moral high ground on these subjects, consistently, without wavering. And we do just that when we both stand against torture and advocate the prevention of the massacre in Iraq that would be prompted by a too-soon withdrawal of American forces.
–Rhymes With Right:
Frank Rich can be officially dismissed as a serious commentator on the war (not that he ever really credibility) after this column today…..This is the classic reductio ad Hitlerum intended to cut off all debate or discussion — and as such, as per common application of Godwin’s Law, Mr. Rich loses.
–The American Street:
Not all of us will be guilty of benign neglect. I believe the majority of the citizenry still stands for the rule of law and wants to restore legitimacy to our government and restore our nation’s values to one of clear, unbending principles.
I don’t care what party you belong to. Are you with the good of humanity or are you against it? There is no neutral position, no escape. Answer the question of whether our America, our democracy will exist. Or whether you surrender it and create an inferior second rate country in its place.
–Flopping Aces shows Al Qaeda photos of terrorist torture techniques and writes:
Frank Rich, the always hyperventilating liberal, is at it again today in this column inside the New York Times. As usual with most of the far left he calls Bush another Hitler, and the CIA his Gestapo. This time he also calls those Americans who do nothing about the Bush Administration’s use of interrogation techniques “good Germans.”
….These are the same kind of liberals who believe putting panties on one head is “torture”, and Mr. Rich also obviously believes sleep deprivation is “torture” because he can cite cases where the Germans used that technique also. Well whoopdidoo…..Do these liberals really believe that a hard core al-Qaeda agent is just going to sit down and tell us everything because we were super nice to them? Gave them some cookies and warm milk? It appears they do.
–Say Anything:
Op-ed columnist Frank Rich’s article entitled,”The Good ‘Germans’ Among Us” makes me want to bury my head in shame for what my country has done in Iraq. If this article does not move you, nothing will.
–Arkansas Politics Blog:
When I started to read Frank Rich’s latest piece my skin got cold. He was comparing my country and my fellow Americans to the good Germans…the Germans that turned a blind eye and professed ignorance of there Gestapo and what was happening in their country. And as I got further into what Rich was saying I realized he was right. The damage this administration has done to our country is stunning and as Rich explains, we all have to share in what has happened to this once great country. I will add, that there is no other country on this earth, that when we set our hearts and minds to fixing something…we can do it. The question is…are we willing?
–Sister Toldjah:
Rich is another in a long list of liberals whose perspective doesn’t extend beyond the inauguration of President Bush in January 2001. It almost makes me wish that time machines actually existed, time machines that could accommodate a large number of people, so we could encourage the numerous liberal columnists, journalists, and “scholars,” among other deluded lefties, who have asserted for years that this administration is essentially a modern day American version of Nazi Germany and that our troops are supposedly merely mindless followers, to travel back to that time period in history, and have them attempt to report from the front lines what they’re observing about Hitler’s regime.
That is, of course, assuming they wouldn’t be discovered first by the Gestapo.
The Blackwater Gestapo: The Bush Army of Choice!
Attack on Iran Said To Be Imminent
Yesterday’s edition of Le Canard Enchaîné, a French weekly known for its investigative journalism, reported details of an alleged Israeli-American plan to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. The frontpage headline read: “A report sent to the Elysée — Putin tells Tehran: They’re going to bomb you!”
The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, also expressed concerns to reporters in New York that an attack on Iran might be imminent.
Like most stories in the French paper, the article was based on unnamed sources who said that in order to reduce casualties, the attack against Iran is planned for October 15, the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Israel would bomb the first targets while America would orchestrate a second wave of strikes, the report said
Larry: Wanna bet?! ;)
No Naj and I would lose if I did. I responded to your comment and I agree with you from Lydia's.
updates,updates
http://ef-111aardvark.blogspot.com/2007/10/putin-to-go-ahead-with-iran-trip-after.html
Ismalal Ascari, an Iranian, drove the 19-ton truck over the barbed wire fence around the barracks, past two guard posts, and into the center of the compound, according to a federal court order issued earlier this year in a case brought by relatives of the victims.
I don't patronize you. Don't do it to me.
Freedom of the press means freedom to propagandize in ALL countries.
Nunya:
I have never heard of any Ismael Ascari, nor have I heard Iran erect a martyr tower in the name of such a person.
If this guy was Iranian, he was not operating within any Iranian framework, otherwise he would have been given the glorious recognition as a "martyr."
Iranian government is not shy to honor what you Americans call "terrorists". Coming to think of it, for example Mandela was a terrorist! So was Yasser Arafat. I am sure the Germans used to call the French resistance "terrorists" too! So, if this guy was Iranian, and operating under "command" of Tehran, he would have been given a "martyrdom" status, don't you think?!
Take that guy, Richard Reid, he decided to blow up himself and his shoe on an airplane! That doesn't make him a characteristically "American" terrorist, would it? But take Columbine shooting for example. That kind of "terrorism" IS characteristically American!
With respect to this particular case, I suggest you look at my earlier posts and take a look at the war-mongering history of this particular judge; and decide for yourself what is fair trial and what is propaganda.
Nunya:
How far in the book are you? I'm on p. 160!
Naj, thanks for dropping by.
I have put the book on my wishlist and am looking forward to reading it.
Meanwhile, here is a review of sorts from Mondoweiss. It's good.
Warmest regards!
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