RIVERSIDE, CALIFORNIA – As the Straussian Neo-Conservatives once again fire up the war drums in hopes of dragging this nation into yet a 3rd war in the Middle-East, they look to relegate the complex technological difference between civilian and military-grade nuclear programs to secondary status in favor of their brand of over-masculinized nationalism to achieve their Imperial end.
However, unlike during the run up to war with Iraq, beginning publicly in earnest during the fall of 2002, many have awoke to the message of Dr. Ron Paul’s 2008 Presidential campaign and are instead turning to the independent new-media in lieu of the corporate-controlled talking heads of network and cable news.
Further, those of us looking to promote a humble foreign policy as envisioned and espoused by the Founding Generation, also have a most articulate advocate thereof in one Mr. Scott Horton. Mr. Horton is an intellectual powerhouse countering each and everyone of the Neo-Conservative Warmonger’s empty, yet emotionally charged rhetoric with facts, reason, and more facts, utterly undercutting the warmonger’s chest-thumping.
This past April, the University of California at Riverside impaneled a discussion group consisting of Reese Erlich, Mr. Horton, Larry Greenfield, and Christopher Records for their discussion entitled, “Obama’s challenge: Iran, Nuclear Weapons & the Mideast” The full debate runs two-and-one-half hours, however the playlist below also includes the individual segments of Mr. Horton and Mr. Erlich. (to skip to the next segment, click the button to the right of the Play button)
Scott Horton – Radio Host, Liberty Radio network, KAOS 95.9, and KUCR 88.3
Scott Horton, assistant editor for Antiwar.com and host of Antiwar Radio for the Liberty Radio Network, KAOS Radio 95.9 FM in Austin, Texas and KUCR 88.3 in Riverside, California.
THE REGION, INDIANA – The term neoconservative may have come into more common use during the eight nightmarish years of the Bush Administration, but let us be candid, its core ideology has existed since the founding of the Republic. For there have always been those amongst us who felt that security and obedience is achieved only by pummeling into submission any slight towards the state’s fragile ego executed by the hands of its unsophisticated warmongering political administrators. Whilst Alexander Hamilton might be the pious genesis of the American embodiment towards this philosophy, whereby he was sent to meet his Creator unto the hyper-masculine ritual of pistol dueling, its renaissance began in earnest with the Wilson Administration.
President Woodrow Wilson enabled by the creation of the limitless purse provided by the then newly formed Federal Reserve, collateralized by the confiscation of current and future wages decreed under the 16th Amendment, and unchecked federal authority promulgated by tying Senators to popular knee-jerk sentiment all achieved in 1913, now began a course of “Making the World Safe for Democracy”1. So fell the first domino in a sustained effort to forever alter American foreign policy into that of a new tradition, one of a perpetual war-footing and imperial expansion.
At the dawn of the Twentieth Century, the American people were very much opposed to intervening in the growing conflict in Europe. However, Woodrow Wilson’s personal ambition wholly contrary to his public rhetoric, was to see American entry into World War I. He saw this as an opportunity to propose his machination for global governance, i.e. The League of Nations. So much was Wilson’s desire towards achieving that end, his Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan resigned in protest2, citing Wilson’s Warmongering Diplomacy.
Further, President Wilson so decidedly intolerable of any form of dissent pushed for and achieved a legislative muzzle to stifle Anti-War sentiment in the form of the “Sedition3 and Espionage Acts”. Now with statutory authority, Wilson could jail and silence outspoken opponents of the war, claiming the now tired phraseology of “National Security”. The most famous of theses un-American incarcerations was Eugene Debs, the Cindy Sheehan of his day.
By the middle of the century, the American consciousness was becoming successfully manipulated into lockstep with an interventionist foreign policy. With the Central Authority spewing endless propaganda capitalizing upon the rapid growth of technology, i.e. nuclear annihilation and philosophical boogie-men, ergo “The Communist Red Scare” the state seized upon the manufactured fear to begin its chess game in earnest, funded of course by the private Central Bank. Few things fellow readers make a Central Banker’s eyes gloss over quicker than the thought of mountainous interest payments received on loans required to rebuild a war ravaged nation, continent, et al. As it is said, War is the Health of the State and a secure retirement for the Central Banker.
Fully intoxicated with the rise to superpower status, the Central Authority flexed its muscle under “The Marshall Plan” and thus now began to truly resemble the British tyrants cast off by the Founding Generation not even 200 years earlier.
It remains my conviction that through understanding history in its full prism, We the People can more fully understand the continued saber rattling on Iran and return the neoconservative philosophy to the plane of Hell especially reserved for warmongering tyrants and their Central banker puppet-masters.
While the glorious struggle to reclaim our foreign policy to that of commerce with all, tangling alliances with none will indeed be a difficult task, let us take proper stock of the situation and know that we are making progress. Last week former Vice-President Cheney became so deluged unto his hawkish tendencies that he felt it necessary to reach out to former Democrat and Rand Paul’s Senate primary opponent, Trey Grayson to try and extol the vice that is the Whig neoconservative philosophy.
For while Mr. Cheney is indeed a most tormented soul full of rage, he is no fool; a win for Ron Paul’s son in the Kentucky Senate race will be a referendum on his legacy, the Bush Doctrine. Moreover, it will further solidify that the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts was not merely dissatisfaction with President Obama, but a wider more raucous, growing dissatisfaction with Statist political philosophy in general. That it will illustrate an awakening and realization that regardless of whether a ‘D’ or an ‘R’ follows a politicians name, government continues to grow exponentially, its vacuous nature devouring our Liberty and the posterity’s financial security.
Further, it is time once and for all to refuse to accept the terms offered by the neoconservatives that those of us who prefer the wisdom of the Founder’s foreign policy, “Blame America”, as it is utter logical fallacy to the first degree.
We do not blame America; we blame the small pricked political looters who seek to enrich themselves whilst standing upon the bloodied corpses of American Soldiers killed in senseless wars upon sovereign nations of which are no threat to us outside of the contrived commotions at the behest of the CIA4, i.e. Iran:
The Full History of U.S. Interventionism in Iran
Setting Them Up to Knock Them Down
(Wire/Ind.Inst.) – Because President Barack Obama’s attempt to entice Iran to give up its nuclear program has ended in unsurprising failure, he is now trying to ratchet up the pressure on the regime by leading the drive to increase international economic sanctions. However, even if he were to succeed in getting Russia and China to go along in the United Nations Security Council, the measures would probably be unsuccessful in achieving their stated goal.
The history of economic sanctions illustrates that they can be simultaneously successful and yet not very effective. Sanctions are usually successful in the country or countries that impose them. They are used to demonstrate more resolve to a recalcitrant country than a diplomatic slap on the wrist, but don’t go as far as covert action or a military attack. Sanctions are the middle ground of protest when diplomacy is perceived as too weak and covert action and military action are perceived as too dangerous or excessive. They also satisfy domestic political constituencies who are demanding action.
Unfortunately, however, the economic and political effects of economic sanctions on the target country rarely achieve their often-lofty goals. Sanctions, if severe enough, can bite economically by cutting off trade and financial transactions—for example, the most multilateral and comprehensive sanctions in world history against Saddam Hussein’s regime before the first Gulf War to attempt to dislodge the Iraqi invaders from Kuwait. Yet over time, history shows that cheating on sanctions increases dramatically as it becomes profitable for companies and countries to get top dollar for evading the restrictions on commerce. Thus, in the long term, the real economic effect is to merely raise the cost of trade and financial transactions to the target country.
These increased costs do punish the target nation, but do sanctions usually achieve their intended political goal? Again, the Iraqi case is illustrative. Even in the extreme case of grinding (at least in the short and medium term) worldwide and comprehensive sanctions, Saddam Hussein refused to leave Kuwait until he was evicted by military force. Furthermore, this goal of sanctions was more modest than demanding that the target country abandon a nuclear program, which is perceived as vital to its security, or even trying to achieve regime change.
And in the case of Iran, it is unclear which of these two more ambitious goals the multilateral, but incremental and selective, sanctions are intended to achieve. The three prior selective rounds of multilateral sanctions were directed toward the objective of getting Iran to halt the enrichment of nuclear fuel. Yet restricting more and more Iranian scientists from traveling abroad and exhorting countries to cut off trade with Iran will hardly achieve this ambitious goal. Lately, however, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has accused the Iranian Revolutionary Guard military force of turning Iran into a military dictatorship and talked about an even more grandiose goal for any incremental increase in multilateral sanctions—undermining this heart of the regime.
The history of sanctions indicates, however, that surgically targeting the regime, while avoiding harm to innocent people, is almost impossible. The regime usually redirects the pain of sanctions away from the security forces and onto the backs of ordinary citizens (as Saddam Hussein did), causing a “rally around the flag” effect against the sanctioning nations. At a time when the autocratic rule in Iran is weakening because of election protests, the United States and the international community should be careful about giving the Iranian government an external threat against which to rally domestic support.
Because Russia and China, with substantial commercial connections to Iran, always drag their feet on further sanctions against Iran, it is increasingly likely that the next incremental round of sanctions will have to be watered down—as was the last round in 2008. Even if new sanctions are eventually imposed, Iran can continue to enrich uranium during the months that it will take the United States to convince Russia and China to go along.
Thus, since Iran lives in a rough neighborhood, mere incremental sanctions will be unlikely to end its quest for the ultimate deterrent against attack. The only other option would be a U.S. military attack on Iran, but this wouldn’t likely take out all of Iran’s nuclear facilities (because the U.S. doesn’t know where all of them are located) and could spur potent Iranian retaliation in Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza, and worldwide via terrorist attacks. The only way to assure an end to Iran’s nuclear program would be a full-bore invasion of that inhospitable nation, which would make the invasion and occupation of Iraq look like a picnic.
Thus, the bad news is that, even if stronger sanctions are imposed, Iran will probably get nuclear weapons eventually. The good news is that this threat is less severe than the hysteria indicates. As it did with radical and nuclear-armed Maoist China, the United States could likely deter any attack by Iran’s few warheads—provided the Iranians could eventually develop a missile with long enough range to hit the United States—through the mere presence of the massive U.S. nuclear arsenal.
Ivan Eland, Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace and Liberty, The Independent Institute
Ivan Eland is Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at The Independent Institute. Dr. Eland is a graduate of Iowa State University and received an M.B.A. in applied economics and a Ph.D. in Public Policy from George Washington University. He has been Director of Defense Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, and he spent 15 years working for Congress on national security issues, including stints as an investigator for the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Principal Defense Analyst at the Congressional Budget Office. He also has served as Evaluator-in-Charge (national security and intelligence) for the U.S. General Accounting Office (now the Government Accountability Office), and has testified on the military and financial aspects of NATO expansion before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on CIA oversight before the House Government Reform Committee, and on the creation of the Department of Homeland Security before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
His articles have appeared in American Prospect, Arms Control Today, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Emory Law Journal, The Independent Review, Issues in Science and Technology (National Academy of Sciences), Mediterranean Quarterly, Middle East and International Review, Middle East Policy, Nexus, Chronicle of Higher Education, American Conservative, International Journal of World Peace, and Northwestern Journal of International Affairs.
Dr. Eland’s popular writings have appeared in such publications as the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today, Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, San Diego Union-Tribune, Miami Herald, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Newsday, Sacramento Bee, Orange County Register, Washington Times, Providence Journal, The Hill, and Defense News. He has appeared on ABC’s World News Tonight, NPR’s Talk of the Nation, PBS, Fox News Channel, CNBC, Bloomberg TV, CNN, CNN Crossfire, CNN-fn, C-SPAN, MSNBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC), Canadian TV (CTV), Radio Free Europe, Voice of America, BBC, and other local, national, and international TV and radio programs.
Justin Logan -Associate Director of Foreign Policy Studies, The CATO Institute
Justin Logan is associate director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. He is an expert on U.S. grand strategy, international relations theory, and American foreign policy. His current research focuses on the formation of U.S. grand strategy under unipolarity; the growing role of counterinsurgency (COIN) and nation building in U.S. foreign policy; and the intellectual lineage of COIN.
He has authored numerous policy studies and articles on topics including international relations theory, U.S. China policy, U.S. Russia policy, stabilization and reconstruction operations, and the policy approaches to a nuclear Iran. His articles have appeared in the Harvard International Review, The National Interest, Orbis, the Foreign Service Journal, The American Conservative, Reason, The American Prospect, National Review Online, the Chicago Sun-Times and other publications. He has made regular appearances on a variety of broadcast media including the BBC, MSNBC, Fox News, Voice of America, and others.
Logan holds a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Chicago and a bachelor’s degree in international relations from American University. He lives in Washington, DC.
(WIRE/CATO) – Recent war games and public statements from U.S. military commanders are reinforcing what should have been clear some time ago: A U.S. or Israeli attack against Iran would have significant but unpredictable consequences.
American and Israeli intelligence on the Iranian nuclear program is of uneven quality, but excellent, near-perfect intelligence would be required to make any strike successful. There is the real possibility that an attack would set back Iran’s progress by only a few years, while rallying Iranian citizens around the regime they seem to be increasingly challenging at present. The Iranians have a host of asymmetric capabilities, some of which they would likely use to respond to a foreign attack. This could complicate the American withdrawal from Iraq and ongoing operations in Afghanistan, and potentially cost American and Israeli (to say nothing of Iranian) lives. Most importantly, there is the prospect of an escalation spiral that could lead to a full-blown war and possibly regime change in Iran followed by chaos, potentially across the region.
Beyond immediate policy questions, though, there are general lessons for U.S. foreign policy: Military violence is a tool of limited utility. American threats can frighten weaker countries, encouraging them to seek nuclear deterrents. Willful diplomatic isolation is counterproductive. Finally, inserting ourselves as the balancer-of-first-resort in every region of the world is a costly and unnecessary strategy that discards America’s natural strategic advantages and plays to our weaknesses. The sooner these lessons are digested by the U.S. foreign policy elite, the better.
Editor’s Note: No official Statement is available from Senator John McCain’s office.
Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona compares the struggle for American Independence to the ongoing protests in Iran. He attempts to oversimplify opposition by stating that those seeking to link the C.I.A. to the current Green Revolution based on the C.I.A.’s 1953 overthrow of then Iranian Prime Minister Mossadeq are both cynical and on the wrong side of history. Finally, Senator McCain admonishes the Iranian regime for conducting brutal torture and spreading fear of a feigned foreign enemy as a means to justify a loss of liberty domestically.
One of the great lines from Saturday Night Live was delivered many years ago by Martin Short’s brilliant comedic character, “Ed Grimley”, when he described a situation as,” Doomed as doomed can be!” That summarizes my prognosis on the theocratic regime that has ruled Iran since 1979. With events of this past week, the disciples of the world’s first cyber revolution have passed the point of no return.
WARNING: Graphic Video
The graphic scene of the young woman, Neda, bleeding to death from a fatal gunshot on the streets of Tehran has become the symbol of the upheaval caused by the controversy surrounding the recent national election. Civilian control apparatus is in high gear as the ruling clerics attempt to quell the insurrection of hundreds of thousands of protesters who have taken to the streets throughout the country. Wounded demonstrators are being beaten savagely, pulled out of their houses at night, and even arrested at hospitals. Some families trying to reclaim the dead bodies of murdered relatives are being charged a fee for the bullets expended by security forces that remain logged within the victim’s corpse.
The Iranian authorities are taking every step possible in interfering with electronic transmissions from all sources that are broadcasting messages to the world about the emerging atrocities of governmental suppression of the dissenting demonstrators. The Guardian Council issued a statement that there were no fraudulent voting incidents and the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, said all those people who continued to demonstrate would be dealt with as traitors.
Republican Senators John McCain (AZ) and Lindsey Graham (SC) are criticizing Obama’s tepid response as a failure to lead on an issue that should require him to be aggressive in his denunciation of Iran’s rulers. Other Republican members of Congress are carping at Obama about not leading the free world’s outrage over the unfolding events in Iran, notably Mike Pence (R-IN). Representative Pence compared President Obama’s reticence to Ronald Reagan’s bold declaration to Gorbachev regarding tearing down the Berlin Wall, in 1987. Not all Republicans are as quick to demagogue the issue, however. Indiana Senator, Richard Lugar, ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, feels Obama is wise to keep his cool, for now, as events continue to unfold. Pat Buchanan, MSNBC’s right wing firebrand, praised Obama’s stance as did Conservative columnist George Will on last Sunday’s ABC regular broadcast. Mr. Will even criticized Obama’s detractors by name.
MSNBC, CNN, and all the major old-media networks, have interviewed dozens of guests including Iranian expatriates, college faculty, and American citizens with family still living in Iran. The old-media has called for America to be supportive of the demonstrators, but not to overplay their hand and provide Ahmadinejad with the excuse to castigate the U.S. as “The Great Satan” that is fueling the discord in their country, as has been done since the 1979 revolution. In his Cairo speech, President Obama admitted the CIA’s role in deposing a popularly elected government in Iran in 1953. Iranians have also not forgotten that the U.S. supported their archenemy, Saddam Hussein, in their brutal war with Iraq in 1982 where over a million Iranians were casualties.
Most of Obama’s critics do not take into account the history of unpopular U.S. involvement in Iran over the last sixty-years. The short sightedness of that view was articulated last Thursday during an interview on MSNBC’s, “Hardball”, with host Chris Matthews and Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss (GA). Senator Chambliss said he thought that America’s previous transgressions against Iran happened long enough ago that they were largely forgotten by the Iranians of today. Matthews missed an opportunity for a great follow up question to Chambliss when he failed to ask the Georgia Senator, “When did Georgians stop remembering General Sherman?”
President Obama Press Conference
For his part, President Obama has steadily ramped up his criticism of Iran’s ruling theocracy, but in his news this past Tuesday, he allowed that events are continuing to unfold. However, the days of government by theocracy in Iran are numbered. This youthful generation in Iran, those 30 and under, which amounts to over sixty percent of the country’s total population, are the products of the emerging technology that is changing how the world interacts. It will take several months to make changes in Iran sufficient to quell this culture of the future, but one thing is for certain, history does not have a reverse gear.
I have been observing the Iranian election and subsequent eruption of events occurring there for the past week. Several astonishing things are happening on the world stage, currently centered in Tehran, the most significant of which is the world’s first, “Cyber Revolution”, a term I first saw coined on CNN’s coverage. At the initial outbreak of massive voter dissent on Sunday, the ruling theocracy of Iran wasted no time in shutting down all of the traditional media outlets, rounded up all the foreign press and media agents, unplugged and jammed as many venues to cyberspace as they could, but the world’s front row seat is still being viewed on every TV screen and monitor on the planet. The mullahs are not up to speed with the technology network that has proliferated throughout the globe and are learning that “mass media control” is a thing of the past.
Huge crowds assemble on short notice throughout Tehran and remain several steps ahead of Iran’s considerable domestic security apparatus. The demonstrators of Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989 did not have the technical high ground that their protesting counter parts have in Tehran. It remains to be seen, as of this writing, if Iranian security legions can corral and subdue the hundreds of thousands who are outraged at the voting sham that recently occurred in their country.
The ruling theocracy of Iran made a serious miscalculation in rigging this election. They obviously determined all they needed to do was give the appearance of electoral transparency. They permitted large partisan public candidate rallies, accompanied by a nationally televised debate to the voters and world stage. They also encouraged a large Election Day turnout, and then announce their predetermined choice of the victor in the election and hoped everybody would return to their own affairs and daily business. They are now reaping the whirlwind of an entire culture, intoxicated with the notion that their vote actually meant something.
How utterly foolish this theocratic regime has been. They announced, prior to Election Day in anticipation of a huge voter turnout, that they had 55 million paper ballots printed. The reported turnout was around 35 million with Ahmadinejad garnering 22 million and his nearest opponent, Mir-Hossein Moussavi, with 13 million. These results were announced within three hours of the polls closing, according to Richard Engle, veteran Middle East reporter for NBC. Three hours to tabulate 35 million paper ballot votes is preposterous by any previous standard known to mankind! What idiots these rulers must think of the people.
What kind of precedent did they think they were setting for a country of 78 million people, two thirds of whom are under 30 years old and were not alive when the last revolution took place 30 years previously? This youthful population segment is well educated and acculturated to Western customs and politics, as a result of their interaction via cyberspace since they began substantive cognition. In their reporting of election results they said that Ahmadinejad defeated Moussavi by almost two to one in his hometown, which would be like reporting McCain defeated Obama in Chicago by that margin.
For their part, Republicans have wasted no time in advocating a “get tough” approach to Iran. An approach that has been bereft of any positive results with Iran, to date, along with other disastrous Middle East policy initiatives of theirs. Instead, President Obama has adopted a posture of keeping his powder dry until the smoke clears; at least. Today, the Guardian Council of Iran has announced it will review allegations of any voting infractions and irregularities. My bet is they may determine the vote margin was not as great as first reported, but there will be no new election or recounts that would jeopardize their predetermined choice of the winner.
The situation in Iran represents the first great clash of a pre-cyberspace authoritarian leadership style and the youthful disciples of emerging technology’s informational applications to international politics and governance. The prophetic theme in Marshall McLuhan’s, “Medium Is the Massage”, of 1967, where he predicted the inexorable emergence of the, “Global Village,” is manifest in this current struggle. Stay tuned.
TEHRAN, IRAN – Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader has ordered the Guardian Council to take up the an investigation of alleged fraud over Iran’s tumultuous election, according to Iran’s state television network. In a response to opposition candidate’s letter to the Guardian Council, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei replied:
“You are different from those people (rioter protesters on the streets) and you are advised to keep manners and calmness,”
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Iranian Supreme Leader
Opposition candidate, Mir-Hossein Mousavi is now reporting that he is currently under house arrest as protests continue to swell across the nation. Police and rioters continue to clash regardless of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory speech on Sunday. Reports are also circulating that various news reporters have been arrested, including those from NBC and the BBC. At the time of publiction, details are spotty and difficult to confirm. The Smoking Argus Daily will continue to provide updates to this post upon further developments.
—END REPORT—
Source(s):1NBC “The Today Show” live report, June 15th, 2009 •
CAIRO, EGYPT - In his speech today, President Obama acknowledged and apologized for the United States’ role in the 1953 CIA/British backed overthrow of the democratically elected Iranian government. This marks the first time in history that a United States President has ever publicly spoken about U.S. involvement of the 1953 coup. The operation codenamed, Operation Ajax, was a classified CIA mission headed up by Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of former President Theodore Roosevelt tasked with carrying out a covert regime change of then Prime Minister Mossaddeq’s government. The overthrow came shortly after he [Mossaddeq] nationalized Iranian oil fields which had formerly been under the control of British Petroleum. Operation Ajax would be the first among several successful CIA backed coup d’états.
Former Presidential Candidate and Texas Congressman Ron Paul, spoke to this type of aggressive foreign policy during the 2008 Republican Presidential Primaries. In a now infamous exchange between Dr. Paul and former New York Mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, Dr. Paul educated Mayor Giuliani on the 9/11 Commission report’s sentiments and the CIA definition of the word ‘blowback’ as consequences to the continued practice of suc imperial interventionism.
RIVERSIDE, CALIFORNIA – As the Straussian Neo-Conservatives once again fire up the war drums in hopes of dragging this nation into yet a 3rd war in the Middle-East, they look to relegate the complex technological difference between civilian and military-grade nuclear programs to secondary status in favor of their brand of over-masculinized nationalism to achieve their Imperial end.
