White House Analysis: 'experts, what do they know?'
Experts challenge White House on Iran’s influence
By Guy Dinmore in Washington
Can't get enough of the Financial Times!! Read more!
Published: July 17 2006 23:00 | Last updated: July 17 2006 23:00
From the moment last Wednesday when Hizbollah fighters seized two Israeli soldiers, the Bush administration immediately held Iran and Syria responsible.
The White House mounted a systematic campaign on the US airwaves to get that message across while seeking to put pressure on the G8 summit to unite in confronting those two governments.
That it has become the received wisdom in the US that Iran was directing Hizbollah to deflect international pressure on Tehran’s nuclear programme, is testimony to the Bush administration’s ability to dominate the discourse in the mainstream media. The crisis has also demonstrated how it can rely on the support of the US foreign policy establishment – Democrat and Republican – when it comes to matters of vital national interest to the US and Israel.
Challenging these assertions, Iranian analysts and activists in the US – both those for and against the Iranian theocracy – are warning that such simplified arguments may not only be completely erroneous, but will also complicate the process of calming down the crisis while raising the chances of a direct conflict between Iran and the US.
Akbar Ganji, Iran’s most prominent dissident who recently emerged from six years in prison, began a symbolic hunger strike outside the UN headquarters in New York at the weekend to press for the release of all political prisoners in Iran. But he also said his mission to the US was to prevent the spread of war.
“There are two voices in this – one is the voice of warmongers, terrorists and fundamentalists. The other is the voice of pacifists, pro-democracy activists and freedom-seekers,” he told the FT.
“Unfortunately, the Christian-Jewish-Islamic fundamentalists are stirring up this situation and setting [Lebanon] ablaze,” he said. “They should all be isolated.”
Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, a former reformist member of the Iranian parliament who was barred from seeking re-election by hardliners in 2004, said Iran knew that direct confrontation between Hizbollah and Israel would not benefit Hizbollah.
“For this reason I don’t think Iran is provoking this situation or wants it to be intensified . . . Iran has taken a pragmatic approach in its foreign policy and does not want to get into a serious confrontation with Israel,” argued Ms Haghighatjoo, a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
She concedes Iran has influence over Hizbollah, but says exercising that will become more difficult as Tehran becomes the focus of US pressure.
Ervand Abrahamian, history professor at the City University of New York, doubts Iran has sufficient influence over Hizbollah to calm the situation.
“Hizbollah’s leaders are not the types to take orders from elsewhere,” he says. Mr Abrahamian believes the Bush administration’s main objective remains “regime change”, and does not rule out US air strikes.
An Iranian expert, who is close to Tehran’s thinking and did not wish to be identified, told the FT that Iran was not looking for a crisis in Lebanon at a critical moment in the nuclear diplomacy. He said Iran had received signals from members of the UN Security Council last week that it would be given more time to consider the west’s proposals.
It was inconceivable that Iran had ordered Hizbollah to take Israeli soldiers prisoner. Iran wanted a negotiated way out of the nuclear stand-off, he said. He argued that Israel’s fierce retaliation for the abduction of the soldiers strengthened the hands of US hardliners who did not want such a settlement.
Meanwhile, American neoconservatives are calling for swift military action against Iran.
William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, says Iran and Syria are enemies of both the US and Israel. “We have been too weak, and have allowed ourselves to be perceived as weak,” he wrote, urging the US to consider strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities. “Why wait?” he said.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
By Guy Dinmore in Washington
Can't get enough of the Financial Times!! Read more!
Published: July 17 2006 23:00 | Last updated: July 17 2006 23:00
From the moment last Wednesday when Hizbollah fighters seized two Israeli soldiers, the Bush administration immediately held Iran and Syria responsible.
The White House mounted a systematic campaign on the US airwaves to get that message across while seeking to put pressure on the G8 summit to unite in confronting those two governments.
That it has become the received wisdom in the US that Iran was directing Hizbollah to deflect international pressure on Tehran’s nuclear programme, is testimony to the Bush administration’s ability to dominate the discourse in the mainstream media. The crisis has also demonstrated how it can rely on the support of the US foreign policy establishment – Democrat and Republican – when it comes to matters of vital national interest to the US and Israel.
Challenging these assertions, Iranian analysts and activists in the US – both those for and against the Iranian theocracy – are warning that such simplified arguments may not only be completely erroneous, but will also complicate the process of calming down the crisis while raising the chances of a direct conflict between Iran and the US.
Akbar Ganji, Iran’s most prominent dissident who recently emerged from six years in prison, began a symbolic hunger strike outside the UN headquarters in New York at the weekend to press for the release of all political prisoners in Iran. But he also said his mission to the US was to prevent the spread of war.
“There are two voices in this – one is the voice of warmongers, terrorists and fundamentalists. The other is the voice of pacifists, pro-democracy activists and freedom-seekers,” he told the FT.
“Unfortunately, the Christian-Jewish-Islamic fundamentalists are stirring up this situation and setting [Lebanon] ablaze,” he said. “They should all be isolated.”
Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, a former reformist member of the Iranian parliament who was barred from seeking re-election by hardliners in 2004, said Iran knew that direct confrontation between Hizbollah and Israel would not benefit Hizbollah.
“For this reason I don’t think Iran is provoking this situation or wants it to be intensified . . . Iran has taken a pragmatic approach in its foreign policy and does not want to get into a serious confrontation with Israel,” argued Ms Haghighatjoo, a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
She concedes Iran has influence over Hizbollah, but says exercising that will become more difficult as Tehran becomes the focus of US pressure.
Ervand Abrahamian, history professor at the City University of New York, doubts Iran has sufficient influence over Hizbollah to calm the situation.
“Hizbollah’s leaders are not the types to take orders from elsewhere,” he says. Mr Abrahamian believes the Bush administration’s main objective remains “regime change”, and does not rule out US air strikes.
An Iranian expert, who is close to Tehran’s thinking and did not wish to be identified, told the FT that Iran was not looking for a crisis in Lebanon at a critical moment in the nuclear diplomacy. He said Iran had received signals from members of the UN Security Council last week that it would be given more time to consider the west’s proposals.
It was inconceivable that Iran had ordered Hizbollah to take Israeli soldiers prisoner. Iran wanted a negotiated way out of the nuclear stand-off, he said. He argued that Israel’s fierce retaliation for the abduction of the soldiers strengthened the hands of US hardliners who did not want such a settlement.
Meanwhile, American neoconservatives are calling for swift military action against Iran.
William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, says Iran and Syria are enemies of both the US and Israel. “We have been too weak, and have allowed ourselves to be perceived as weak,” he wrote, urging the US to consider strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities. “Why wait?” he said.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
posted by Germain at 12:15
9 Comments:
For the sake of, shall we say, balance?
I am all for balance here - however, since I am currently in the U.S., the FT article to me really is the balancing one, not the one on MSNBC.
I am truly baffled by how the media here is "gleichgeschaltet" - not a term I use lightly.
Except that the thrust of the FT article is predicated on a red herring that the Newsweek article undermines.
Which 'red herring'?
ROOF, I admit, I had to wiki " gleichgeschaltet ”... I fear you may be correct but I hope you are wrong.
"That it has become the received wisdom in the US that Iran was directing Hizbollah..."
That one.
To borrow one of your favourite rhetorical devices, Kevin: I don't understand. You're saying that the Newsweek article undermines the assertion that the accepted wisdom in the US media is that Iran is directing Hizbollah. The Newsweek article is about "Iran's stealth war on the US and Israel." It implicates Iran in every facet of Middle East conflict.
Let me see if I can help: Iran needn't be directing every action of Hezbollah in order to be thoroughly implicated/involved. The point of those making the argument about direction seems to be to set the standard of evidence so high that it simply cannot be met and we can, therefore, ignore the obvious.
The obvious is that Hezbollah has always been a client of Iran and continues to be so (along with Syria). The obvious is that Iran has more influence on Hezbollah than all other "actors" (a term I'll use but am not sure I like) combined. The obvious, as the director of Peace Studies at Georgetown said this morning, is that it's unthinkable that Hezbollah would have kidnapped two Israeli soldiers without Tehran's knowledge.
So sure, it's quite possible that Iran didn't know the operational details or give the "go" via sat-phone. It's also largely irrelevant.
So the entire FT article is undermined by, what in your opinion is, an inaccuare assessment of the degree of control...interesting how little it takes to decredibilize arguments that call to question one's beliefs.
Just a small side side about Hezbollah, it emerged as a result of the Israeli incursion into Lebanon in 1982...
It's not that everything in the article is no longer credible. It's that the article was being contrary for the sake of contrariety. There isn't really much daylight between the non-government experts and the government experts about Iran's relationship with Hezbollah. Nearly everyone acknowledges that Iran is Hezbollah's patron and that Iran has significantly more influence over Hezbollah than any other state or non-state "actor". The dichotomy between control and influence was a red herring and the dichotomy between "experts" at universities and "the White House" is likewise false. An example of that? Sure: the aforementioned William Kristol is also Dr. William Kristol, formerly a faculty member at Penn and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. What does that prove? Nothing, except that it's not a case of the credentialed vs. the non-credentialed or experts vs. non-experts as was caricatured in the title "White House Analysis: 'experts, what do they know?'"
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