We Will Never See Iranians The Same Way Again
For thirty years Iranians have been demonized in this country. Ever since the hostage crisis, many Americans viewed them as the worst kind of fanatics. The advent of Ahmadinejad only solidified the general impression that Iranians are, how to put it, nuts.
For some reason we never viewed them as victims of a horrific regime as we view, say, the North Koreans. No, in the case of Iran, the government was terrible and the people were bad. When New York Times columnist Roger Cohen (now bravely in the streets with the Iranian masses) reported that Iranian Jews were not suffering anti-Semitism despite the loathsome dictator's words of hate, he was excoriated. How could he report that? How could anyone report anything about Iran that did not fit in with the view that they are hateful human beings.
They are so bad , we were told, that they would destroy Israel and then happily see themselves blown up in retaliation because they are fanatics and don't even value their own lives. It's part of their religion and culture They are not like us. Hence, we should prepare to bomb them before they bombed our friends.
But that is all over now. The images coming out of Iran now have turned them, in the eyes of most Americans, into the Czechs of 1968.
The Iranian people are demonstrating a fearlessness, a commitment to democracy, a valor, that is literally awe-inspiring.
We are seeing young and old people together risking their lives to bring down this hateful regime. Young people with their whole lives ahead of them are risking everything for rights we extol but take for granted. Can any of us honestly say that we know we would do the same thing?
I don't know how this will end. But I do know this. After this week, no American will credibly be able to talk about Iranians as if they are something other than fellow human beings who want the same things we do. No one will be able to say that they don't value freedom or that they would cheerfully give up their lives to crush Israel.
America's problems with the government of Iran are not over. If the monstrous mullah regime stays in power, they are probably going to intensify. But our war with the Iranian people is over. Both sides won.
Transforming the image of Iran in the minds of Americans is not why the people are in the streets. They are not risking death to transform their nation's image.
But they have achieved that anyway. And, no matter how this ends, that transformation will ultimately benefit Iranians and Americans, and save lives among both peoples.
You've been living in a ghetto, Rosenberg.
"We" didn't think any such thing!
June 20, 2009 9:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Ghetto," Ellen? We don't do racism here.
June 20, 2009 10:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fear not, Ellen. Our buddy Glenn Greenwald had this to say about people like our would-be censor here:
"it's so striking how nobody cares anymore about these smears because they've been so overused and are so transparently dumb... It doesn't inspire fear -- only pity and contempt."
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/06/20/harris/
In other news, Rahm did an angelic job of threatening enough anti-war Democrats to extend our multiple occupations of the A-rabs indefinitely.
The TV told me that A-rabs (and Iranians and Afghans) only understand force. I guess anti-war Democrats are the same way.
Thanks Rahm, for all your individual, conspiracy-free whipping of these anti-war types.
June 21, 2009 12:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
That was my first thought as well. Just because some of the leaders in our country demonized people doesn't mean that we agree or buy into it.
June 21, 2009 1:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
My only quarrel with you, MJ, is that I don't think Americans viewed ordinary Iranians this way.
June 20, 2009 10:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hope you are right.
June 20, 2009 11:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
And my one quarrel with you is that most Americans would only look at your blankly if you asked them about Czech in 1968.
June 20, 2009 11:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tintin...You are right, the past week has shown the world that there is no collective 'we' in the USA or in Iran..It is the 'leadership' that has caused the problems...The people are clear..they want FREEDOM...
June 21, 2009 11:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
The point is, we really know little about Iran and South Korea. The news media only reports sensational stories which promote fear and loathing and hatred!
June 20, 2009 10:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hell. They've shut down their foreign bureaus everywhere.
How many American news organizations still have a bureau in Mexico City, our closest large neighbor, for Christ sake. And the old description of Africa as "The Dark Continent" could equally apply to South and Central America. Those bureaus were some of the first costs to be cut when the media faced dropping ad revenue. Unless the American military is attacking someone, we get no news about them at all except from untrustworthy indigenous sources.
And face it. TV is short cryptic headlines and unexplained emotional pictures when it is (rarely) offering news at all, rather than just ideological propaganda. Locally it's just traffic, weather, and occasional shocking crime and fires. In about that order.
June 21, 2009 12:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ack!
This begs the question, Peter, how do you think Americans 'see' the Iranians?
June 20, 2009 10:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes MJ, the Iranians have a new standing in our eyes.
They care enough about Democracy and their country to protest lawlessness and a stolen election; we did and still do not!
June 20, 2009 10:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good point. We never considered protesting and not one Senator joined the black House members who protested. Not one!
June 20, 2009 10:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
We did not and still do not!
(correction- left out a word)
June 20, 2009 10:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually MJ, you are speaking only of the poor benighted souls who only read the MSM or watch TV news.
Better informed people are aware of the project of zionist sources to demonize Iran and they value the information accordingly.
June 20, 2009 10:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course not all Americans viewed the Iranians as such, but a sizeable swath of this country either thought McCain's bomb bomb Iran song was either funny or at the very least nothing to get worked up about. I believe if he sang this song now, there would be a sizeable swath of this county who would be disgusted by it (as many of were when we first heard it).
June 20, 2009 10:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't forget - most of the folks who thought the song was funny in 1979 have raised kids since then,
or grandkids. I remember hearing it on FM radio.
Repeatedly.
Like, more often than Stairway to Heaven.
To this day, I'm not sure which of the two I hate more.
June 22, 2009 1:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well said! Well said. I see many posters aren't aware of how badly misused Iran has been by Americans (not me, and apparently not these above posters, but by Americans, and not just Neocons).
Obama did what no president has ever done before, to my knowledge, at Cairo: admit we overthrew the government of Iran "during the Cold War". And the Cold War was indeed used as an excuse, but careful readers know it was to "pull British chestnuts out of the fire", as Woodhouse wrote of his involvement in the admitted lie that Mossadegh was a communist in with the Tudeh party.
Your essential point, Rosenberg, is abundantly correct and abundantly worthy to be said. Bye-bye slanderers! Bye-bye Bomb-bomb Iraners! See yuh, you pieces of trash! Don't forget that Bush was the guy who wrecked it for Khatami, he and stapler-throwing JOHN BOLTON!!!!! (if I may quote early Rachel), when Clinton's team had finessed it perfectly and not fallen into the bluster trap the GOPpers are crying for now, not to mention Kim Dae Jung's noble Sunshine Policy, which was making real progress in the late 1990's, and keeping all the North Korean nuke materials locked down on camera.
June 20, 2009 10:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't see the Iranian situation the same way as you, MJ. The protestors are incredibly brave, and their desire to express their views without repression is something we can all empathize with. Neither their views nor their attitudes toward the regime should be generalized to all Iranians, unfortunately.
Although we lack certainty, the best evidence suggests that even a completely fair election would have yielded an Ahmadinejad victory, and that the slogans "Death to America" or "Death to Israel" remain highly popular. This does not mean that most sloganeers intend their words literally, but it also provides little evidence that they share our values or our understanding of a secular democracy.
Iran remains a potentially dangerous player in Middle East affairs, and the regime's support of terrorist organizations outside its borders also remains a threat.
It is one thing to claim, validly, that Iranians are no more evil by nature than the rest of us, but that doesn't spare us the necessity to face the potential for harm that Iran as a nation confronts us with.
The protestors, as far as I can tell, are unrepresentatively better educated and more moderate in their views than most of their fellow citizens. We must certainly hope their movement prevails, but this is far from a certainty for the near future. Until then, we should avoid excessive generalizations about what it means to be Iranian.
June 20, 2009 10:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
MJ states: "America's problems with the government of Iran are not over. If the monstrous mullah regime stays in power, they are probably going to intensify." And to be persnickety: it is not the nation of Iran we need to fear but the state of Iran, and its current power structure, or any power structure that resembles it.
The Cold War came to the relatively peaceful end that it did because those on both sides of the curtain began to see each other as humans, at the mercy of two warring governments.
And we should avoid execessive generalizations about what it means to be citizen of "secular democracies" like the US and Israel, some of whose citizens can be quite the nutjob (and well armed).
June 20, 2009 10:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't believe there's any evidence indicating that the Cold War ended because we and the Soviets began to see each other as humans. In fact, friendship between the American and Russian peoples as individuals was a consistent feature of Cold War dynamics, even as the regimes saw each other as potential enemies.
The end of the Cold War may not be attributable to any single factor, but one of the most important elements was that its continuation was economically more unaffordable for them than it was for us. Gorbachev had the foresight to recognize this, and his vision helped drive the process.
My point in this thread is that wishful thinking is treacherous. We may wish to believe that Iranians wish us no harm, but we must confront the reality that Iran sees us as an enemy, and that reality shows little signs of abating soon.
June 20, 2009 11:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
the intention behind what I wrote was that the continued cross-cultural endeavors help shape the manner in which the cold war ended, not that it was the cause of the cold war ending, or even a significant factor in bringing it to an end. If there was excessive distrust on either side, things could have been a little bit more violent as reactionary forces in one country or another (and I'm thinking of Eastern Europe as well) attempted to whip their citizens into a resistance force.
And many of Iranians sees the US as a threat, maybe most. But there is a difference between distrust and fear based on history, and irrational blood lust driven by religious fervor. What has changed in my opinion is that many Americans now see Iranians, the people, as part of the civilized world, seeking democracy, even if it not a democracy that is modeled on ours. This is a big step, one that moves the potential for a mature settlement of differences that does cost the lives of scores of innocents.
June 20, 2009 11:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think I agree with that. The Cold War ended because it became too expensive and required the expenditure of funds for too many economically useless items. I think that a significant element in the recent economic collapse of America has been the extreme and non-economically productive expenditures the American economy threw into the military and kept on throwing long after much of it was unnecessary.
We still spend more on the military that all the rest of the world combined, much of it for third world war equipment, plans and training that will never be likely to be needed. As an ex-artilleryman, I hated it when Rumsfeld canceled the absolutely beautiful updated 155mm self propelled artillery system with twice the on-board ammunition capacity - but who did it oppose? He was right. As a Fort Worth resident, I don't want the see the F-35 canceled, either. It would devastate this community and a lot of North Texas economically. But who competes militarily with the F-16? Only other air forces flying the F-16, right? We still pump them out faster than the Russians and the French do their aircraft, and numbers are usually more significant than technology. (Which makes the pilots more expendable, which they very reasonably hate.)
The new conflicts we face are largely economic, political and special ops in nature now, and since it takes a decade and ungodly amounts of money to train and prepare special ops people and to support them, we still have expenditures we need badly. (We have MORE than enough economists. Like lawyers, not enough good ones, though.) Unfortunately we are spending on BOTH types of military, both being uneconomically productive. Plus we are spending \massive sums on the war on drugs and on an unnecessarily massive set of prison systems, aimed largely at incarcerating minorities and making them politically impotent. (Many of the most entrepreneurial and ambitious minorities go into the only local business - drugs - and get busted and jailed. Political future is over.)
America needs to realize that we are not the fantastically wealthy nation that came out of WW II any more. We can't spend on everything and be the worlds' policeman everywhere any more. It's time to reign in the expansive bankers and wealthy families and start working to compete economically instead of just militarily in this modern world. Our competition needs to pay for itself, which military competition does not do.
June 21, 2009 1:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
You got it a bit backward. The regime's support for liberation movements across the Middle East and the intense rivalry between it and the far far worse regimes of Saudi Arabia and Egypt seem indeed popular in Iran. But they also popular, and justly so, outside Iran, and constitute one of the bright spots in a generally not so impressive record. Thankfully, while the opposition may differ about style, and maybe even quantity, there does seem (as far as we can know from afar) to be a wide consensus in Iran about these things, and that's really great.
God have mercy on the people of the region if it is left to the unchecked power of the U.S. and Israel.
June 23, 2009 8:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
People are people-- some are good-natured and generous, some are cranky and greedy, others fall in between. Iranians are no different.
I know that I met many, many decent and considerate Iranians when I was in college in the mid-to-late 1970's. Some were fellow students, some were co-workers as I worked part-time in a restaurant. Being a meager student, my car seemed to constantly break down, leaving me beside the road, hoping for a lift to classes. Most often, the person who stopped to render assistance was Iranian. Usually it was a male my age, but sometimes it was a woman with children who interrupted her errands to give this stranger a ride. After a while I realized that it was a cultural norm to aid someone in trouble. It was simply unthinkable to pass a person stranded on the road without stopping to help.
In the years after the shah was overthrown I wondered many times about the good people of Iran and how they were doing under their new, more religious government. I couldn't believe that the ugly rhetoric and hostage taking was actually being perpetrated by the same decent folks I'd learned to admire. The Iranians I'd known loved beauty and kindness and (especially) their families. Helping others was a duty, not an inconvenience.
The events of this past week have shown that the good Persian people have been under the thumb of a system they reviled, in much the same way that we were under the thumb of Cheney and Bush. I truly hope that they will emerge and that their government will be washed just as ours was washed when the neocon agenda was rejected at the polls. Are we clean yet? No. Do the Iranians have a struggle ahead of them? Absolutely. But a glimmer of hope is sometimes all that is necessary to persevere. Here's wishing them all the best.
June 20, 2009 11:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's wishing we don't allow Israel to bomb the Nuclear facilities, and here's wishing we don't escalate the US/Israeli dirty war against Iran even if Ahmadinejad clings to "power."
Given that M.J. has previously wondered out loud why we don't just assassinate Ahmadinejad, I will regard any future "reluctant" support for escalation against Iran with great skepticism.
With comments like these, "If the monstrous mullah regime stays in power, they are probably going to intensify."
How is the mullah regime even equally, let alone more, monstrous than the Zionist regime, or the neighboring Sunni regimes in agreement with the Zionist regime that conquering Iran would be in the interest of all of these monstrous regimes?
June 21, 2009 12:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
What the Iranian conflict is doing is demonstrating very clearly that conflicts between nations are almost always conflicts between the powerful and wealthy elites of those nations, not between the peoples of those nations.
The leaders in some cases owe their power to a vocal minority of ideologues who they represent, or the powerful individuals fear losing their social positions and wealth, so they demagogue the masses and point to powerful "enemies" in other countries. (Or powerless minorities to whom they attribute great and sinister power.
The wealthy, very often people who have inherited their wealth, use money to provide a crucial element of support to politicians who support them and help protect their wealth. The conservative ideology is designed to protect wealth and redistribute it away from the middle and lower classes. That's the reason why repeal of the inheritance tax is such an issue with Republicans and conservatives, as are efforts to lower tax rates on the wealthy and allow them to avoid regulation or even disclosure.
The Republican Party leaders are largely those who have the favor of wealthy donors, if they aren't wealthy themselves. We can see that from Norm Coleman's investigation for bribery in Minnesota and from the existence of "wingnut welfare." Over a long period of time, every politician hits rough patches, and that's when the money can really help.
Internationally conflicts in the last century (at least) _ have all been based on the effects of international trade, primarily oil. Government power gives the wealthy of a powerful oligarchy the ability to redirect trade and profits to themselves. In the Middle East this has led to their oligarchs allying themselves to international oil companies and repressing their respective peoples to support their own incomes and local power.
The real key, though, is that the international conflicts come from the local powerful elites who disagree sharply with the powerful elites of other nations, and then demagogue them to fight other national groups. We invaded Iraq because Saddam was unwilling to submit to the oil companies - and yet those oil companies (competing with each other and protecting their prior investments) kept him in power by giving him the money that belonged to Iraq. Here in the U.S. we have recently watched the way the Oil Companies and Business interests - through the Bush administration - demagogued Americans into an unnecessary war. (And much of our mass media, as usual, was very much involved in the demagoguery. It's the owners that do that, not the reporters. In fact, the editors have to cater to the owners to keep their careers.)
Powerful religious leaders are even more dependent on wealthy donors and to keep their positions, they also have to cater to protecting the wealth of the wealthy families. As an example, the American evangelicals in the American South in the early 1800's were largely anti-slavery. But the wealthy planters supported those Preachers who supported their wealth and taught that African slaves were not fully human, and in fact were put down by the Bible. That religious attitude lasted in the Southern Baptist Church until they finally apologized for teaching that the Bible supported slavery in the 1990's. Organized western religion is ideologically-based (they call it doctrine) and any Preacher who can argue that the Bible supports what the wealthy want the masses to believe will get a church and good donations.
The result of all this is that the wealthy families maintain their wealth by getting their nominees into positions of power, and those nominees owe their positions largely to those wealthy families. So together they make up the dominant power brokers. To maintain that power, they create enemies, real or make believe, and demagogue the massed to go fight them. It's best if they can egg those enemies into attacking the nation. That consolidates power in the hands of a few hardliners who can easily convince others that they are the only ones who can defend us all against those enemies.
Once in a while we get to see behind the charade of group dynamics and see the real people on the ground who have been demagogued. That's what we are currently seeing in Iran with the protests. But even that is an internal battle for power between elite groups in Iran.
And if you have gotten this far, this was supposed to be a one or two short paragraph comment. My apologies. I started putting stuff I knew already together.
June 21, 2009 12:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
I logged in to compliment these two sentences. But by the time I finished reading your comment, I found I had to copy the whole thing into my PDA. It is the most succinct summary of the whole problem of human existence I have yet seen.
We must go out of our way to make the many see that their own welfare is at stake if they don't oppose these predators with us (not to mention their souls, if they choose to pander to them).
June 21, 2009 1:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you. I think that to say it is a "...succinct summary of the whole problem of human existence" may be a little grandiose. I'd say the Buddha had a much better focus on the whole problem of human existence. So did the Existentialists. I am really trying to understand the group dynamics that lead to conflict between groups.
A lot of those dynamics have to do with the rather sharp distinction that exists between the leaders of a group and the followers. (See Bob Altemeyer's excellent book "The Authoritarians." The book is online at the link.) So this essay is more a focus on the motivations of the leaders than it is an effort to work on the problem of human existence. Those motivations are Power and the maintenance, protection and augmentation of family wealth. Those two motivations each motivate a largely different group, those with family wealth and those who gain individual power. Since wealth buys power, the goals of wealth appear to dominate between those to alternatives.
June 22, 2009 1:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
MJ is correct. We will never see the Iranian man or woman in the street in the same light. An that poses a huge problem for Israel's Foreign Ministry and its embassies around the world, who have worked tirelessly for over a decade to paint a picture of an evil people.
Iran is arguably one hundred times more important to the world in terms of population, area, resources, geography and strategic importance.
The Israeli proposal to attack Iran and bomb its cities,(with, it has to be said, American supplied planes, bombs and missiles)) is an anathema to the international community of nations, and must now be expressly prohibited by the UNSC in deliberate and unambiguous language.
DO NOT EVEN THINK OF BOMBING OR ATTACKING IRANIAN CITIES!
It may be an ancient cry but we want peace not war.
June 21, 2009 2:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
June 21, 2009 2:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Of course, this is why the neocons have suggested it might be necessary to initiate a nuclear first strike. And/or severe conventional strikes on known and suspected nuclear facilities.
Of course, any such nuclear detonations will ONLY incinerate the Iranian leadership, while the average Iranians will be asking one another "Did you hear something?"
And we all know that nuclear fallout only affects members of the Guardian Council.
If you want a good look at a useful idiot, grab a mirror.
June 22, 2009 2:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
The desire for freedom to live one's own life without interference is pretty much universal. These young people are so brave....but how can they topple this corrupt regime without help?
Moussavi said yesterday that everyone should stay home and go on a general strike. Bring the whole country to a screeching halt. I sure hope there are enough dissenters to really make a difference.
June 21, 2009 2:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
You feel free to vilify the "settlers", rich, old, white men, Southerners, Republicans, "wing-nut" right-wingers, red-necks and many other groups. You have no trouble at all saying that large groups of people are evil.
Ahmadinjad didn't act alone. Neither did Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein or any other dictator. They all had LARGE bases, large groups of people who shared their ideologies, profited from their powers, were willing to kill to support them.
Anti-semitism is not a fantasy. It's an historical reality. It's not some curiosity exhibited by anomalous freaks from time to time. Huge populations have shared those views.
I've called you a moron but that's not quite the truth. What you are is far more despicable; a cowardly, hypocritical, self-serving .... Well, I'll leave it at that.
June 21, 2009 7:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'd love to hear you finish your sentence.
June 22, 2009 2:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
It probably wouldn't have looked anything like this:
the "settlers", rich, old, white men, Southerners, Republicans, "wing-nut" right-wingers, red-necks and many other groups didn't act alone. Neither did Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein or any other dictator. They all had LARGE bases, large groups of people who shared their ideologies, profited from their powers, were willing to kill to support them.
... regardless of veracity.
June 22, 2009 2:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Marcy Wheeler (emptywheel) has a great post up this morning detailing the dirty war in Iran Congress has funded for the last 3-4 years:
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/06/20/meddling/
Congress has voted to label the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, funded this dirty war, renewed funding for the occupations taking place on both sides of Iran, expressed its solidarity with Israel after the Gaza Massacre, and told Obama not to pressure Israel too much on the settlements.
I'm predicting some new bullshit resolution/legislation that puts us on track to allow Israel to bomb Iran, or something similarly baffling and nauseating.
June 21, 2009 1:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Listen to Rahm say he would carry Dennis' Ross' luggage, at 6:05 in this speech:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcXXV9YUcLQ&feature=related
Now we know how Ross became Special Envoy to Iran, and was recently promoted to the National Security Council. I guess Richard Perle was still cutting oil deals in Kurdistan and wouldn't come back.
June 21, 2009 2:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am somewhat offended by the use of "we". Those of us who know any Iranians---and I wager that includes many if not most of us working in science, technology, engineering, and math fields---never saw Iranians as anything but "fellow human beings who want the same things we do". The depiction of Iran and Iranians in the MSM has always seemed wildly off-base to me, describing something completely alien from what the Iranians I know are like.
June 22, 2009 1:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't fault MJ for using the generalized "we" as I feel it is accurate (as with the statement "we" are a xian nation - i.e. most of its citizens are xian). This "we" is often pretty much led by the nose with messages of who is the next "Hitler" (and who supports them). That sort of propaganda is largely effective with our incurious public, especially when the shifting realities can be countered with a new set of memes that bank on the short attention span and inability to remember or connect the dots regarding earlier pronouncements ("Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.").
The saddest fact about the MSM's "mighty Wurlitzer" is that it matters not that a certain fraction can discern what is actually going on as they can be marginalized in any number of ways in order to keep the masses on the "right" page.
To paraphrase Hitler, 'Don't worry about the intellectuals, there are not enough of them.'
June 22, 2009 12:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Those Iranians MJ wants us to view benignly also want plenty of things we don't want for them, regardless of how they voted. MJ, go wander around in the Middle East and then come back, if you are still alive, and tell us how we are all one big family.
The naivete is breathtaking. Once we get off jobs, food, and the ability to have a say, the notion that all humanity shares a worldview, common desires, etc. is uninformed by any empirical evidence at all.
Just a few things:
-- Iranians have killed a LOT of our soldiers
-- Arguably, Iranians want nukes
-- We don't speak their language, practice their religion or understand their culture, and we never will.
Yeah, let the love-fest begin, right up until we are disillusioned yet again by "liberal" Iranians.
June 22, 2009 4:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
You can see in these comments that "they" are still afraid of the Iranian people (reference SLE). Of course they were demonized by the right wing. I was home visiting relatives in Eastern Ohio and West Virginia this past weekend, and when I mentioned Iranians their fear of the Iranian people as something like "monsters" was quite clear.
I had a conservative relative tell me, "But if you wore an American flag tee-shirt and walked on the streets of Tehran, you would be in danger." (And he meant a month ago, not now.) I spent a lot of time dispelling some of the hatred the wingnuts have instilled in my relatives. For starters, I told the above-referenced family member that I would expect to be (a) asked to converse in English and then (b) invited home for a meal. (And that I did not anticipate cooked dinner.)
June 22, 2009 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Um, for every member of the Middle East "clan" who would invite you to dinner there would be another one who would spit on you.
Folks, go there. Walk around. Read the press. Then come back and tell me how they love us. It is just arrant nonsense to me, and I have been there, several times.
Fact: Iranians have killed many American citizens, soldiers and non-soldiers.
Fact: The clerisy hate and fear us.
Fact: Moussavi killed many "liberals"
Fact: Rafsanjani is a pillar of the revolutionary establishment.
Anyone who thinks these protests presage an enduring friendship between Iran and the US must think purple fingers in Baghdad were a triumph of democracy.
June 22, 2009 6:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
While your facts may be true, the opposition and Mousavi's constituents clearly regard themselves as liberals. Perhaps Mousavi pulled a governor wallace and had a dramatic change in ideology late in life. Who knows.
Mousavi's spokesperson interviewed by foreign policy magazine said "Ahmadinejad is the Bush of Iran. And Mousavi is the Obama of Iran". I've also heard stories describing Mousavi supporters with Obama backgrounds on their cell phones etc. Clearly the Mousavi supporters are not so hostile to America and our Government, even if they were hostile in the past.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=5018
June 23, 2009 1:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are so right MJ,
The Obama generation directly relates to the Iranians fighting in the streets for justice and freedom. No amount of image making would have achieved what those tweet driven, hip youngsters in Iran have done. The mullahs are in trouble and Amhadenajed can count on his pension
June 22, 2009 8:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Roger Cohen was interviewing Iranian Jews using an Iranian intelligence agent as a translator.
The expectation that Jews would be open and honest and not the least bit fearful of a regime that executes Jews on trumped up charges is laughable.
June 23, 2009 9:40 AM | Reply | Permalink