The U.S. government has chosen to be against Iran’s government. Neocon Elliott Abrams says “We should be expressing support” for protests. Given his record and views, we therefore can be quite sure that this is exactly what should not be done. Mere support sounds “moderate”, but it’s only a first step, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The full Abrams and neocon agenda on Iran and many other foreign lands, shown clearly by his record is full neocon, meaning intervene, interfere, use any means, make war if need be, so as to influence, control and dominate these regions. The agenda is to expand the American empire.
Nikki Haley refers to Iran as a “dictatorship”. She says that “a long-oppressed people [is] rising up against their dictators.” Actually, Iran has a system of elections. Their institutions vet candidates, to be sure. In America, our institutions also vet candidates, our Supreme Court has immense power over laws, and our deep state and agencies wield considerable undemocratically-restrained power.
Do Trump, Haley and Abrams actually know who is protesting and why they are protesting? Are they so sure that a governmental system more to their liking will result if the existing form of government is destroyed? How can they possibly know what the result of a power struggle will be? They have to be assuming that the U.S. will institute a regime to its liking, in one way or another because they cannot be assuming that such a regime will magically arise on its own. How do they know that they are not promoting a full-scale civil war as they did in the case of Syria? How do they know that destabilizing Iran will produce a wonderful democratic system with checks and balances and liberty and justice for all? How do they know that such a newborn, if it ever could arise, will be better for the Iranian people? How do they know that Islamic extremists and suicide bombers won’t infiltrate and further destabilize the country?
Once the U.S. expresses such strong anti-regime and pro-protest support, won’t the next steps be to arm forces that are anti-regime? If protesters are already attacking police stations and police, aren’t Trump, Haley and Abrams conscience-bound to provide them with material support? Maybe Trump already is doing this. One cannot in good conscience encourage unarmed people to attack armed forces and die in the process. Most revolutions are bloody affairs. The end of the Soviet Union is the exception.
The Trump-Haley agenda on Iran is American dominance. It has three focal points: oil, Israel and Russia. Democracy and freedom are not the focal points. They are merely proposed means to the end of control. The U.S. is aligned with Israel and Saudi Arabia against Iran. The U.S. long accepted the non-democratic Shah as ruler of Iran. The U.S. would accept another Shah, a decidedly non-democratic result, but that’s not in the cards. What it’s after as its means to control is some sort of “modern” democracy, to overturn the 1979 revolution that ousted the Shah. However, such a means is an absurdly naive expectation and simplistic goal. This has been shown in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. Democracies do not arise from the ashes of broken states, either automatically or by the hand of the U.S. Death, destruction, bombings, terror havens, refugees, hardship, disease and civilian deaths are the consequences.
“As of March 15, 2016, IHRDC estimates that there are 821 individuals imprisoned in Iran for the exercise of fundamental rights.” Under the Shah, there were more: “According to official statistics, Iran had as many as 2,200 political prisoners in 1978.” The Shah was the U.S. man in Iran. In America, drugs are politicized. The number of drug-related political prisoners runs into hundreds of thousands. Let’s not forget the thousand and more people in America injured and killed by police using excessive force. Is this what gives Trump, Haley and Abrams the right to pontificate about the Iran regime and associate it with terrorism?
The Shah was overturned via a revolution that amalgamated various dissident groups to create a state, the Islamic Republic of Iran, that has now lasted almost 40 years. Do you think that Trump, Haley and Abrams have any real clue as to what sort of situation they are fomenting through their words and deeds as they aim to overturn the Islamic Republic of Iran? It is my belief that they should shut up.
9:30 am on January 3, 2018
