GEOPOLITICAL STRATEGIES

Obama Sails into Iran's Rough Seas under False Colours

By Con George-Kotzabasis

The Iranian political turbulence brought to the eyes of the world the Islamic Republic’s long incubation of its monster child of military dictatorship. The keepers of the quintessential Koran’s Justice disrobed themselves of their religious white garments and donned the black robes of Islamofascism to commit their injustice to their own people. To survive as the true guardians of Islam and its conferred political power the post-election torrential wave of dissent that rose against them, they are resorting, true to the nature of the ‘imamocracy,’ to the brutal instruments of the police baton and the gun against their own believers. In this unequal struggle between brute force and ‘slogan-armed’ civil disobedience it’s not hard to guess who is going to be the victim. But history might have its revenge: In this temporary victimization of civilians and ‘modern’ Iran might also be the hole in which the brutal imamocracy will be buried.

In this crucifixion of the Iranian people the Obama administration, both on moral and political grounds, cannot assume the role of Pontius Pilate and take the stand of intellectual, moral, and political neutrality on the grounds of political realism. The art of realpolitik is not only to react to events but more importantly to foresee the probable contours in which these events are shaping and be pro-active in their shaping. The Administration has failed abysmally in this art. Within one week of the events unfolding in Iran President Obama abandoned his initial cautious “meddling” argument and adopted, after the latter was overcome by events and as a result of internal criticism of his position, a less cautious course by calling on the Iranian government “to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people,’’ and warned it could not expect “the respect of the international community” if it failed to “respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.” But despite this apparently tougher position, President Obama still missed the mark, as we will explain further down.

There are a lot of eminent people who support this ‘realist’ position of Obama such as Henry Kissinger and Paul j. Saunders, CEO of the Nixon Centre , and the political commentator Taylor Marsh of the Huffington Post. The gist of their argument being that for Obama to have come out in support of the opposition would not have helped the latter as it would have been painted by Iranian propaganda as being agents of the U.S., Kissinger stating that showing “public support for the opposition would only be used by Ahmadinejad,” and would damage any prospect of a favourable diplomatic outcome on the grave issues between the United States and Iran in future negotiations. According to Kissinger the Administration would place itself in a great diplomatic handicap if it put itself behind the people who are behind Mousavi. Another argument being put by Taylor Marsh is that you have to accept the world as it is and you have to “engage your adversaries,” as if it was only a matter of accepting it without changing it by choosing the right time to engage your enemies. All of these arguments of course are respectable and fit to be put in the realist frame of politics. But in this case it’s a dusty frame and needs cleaning.

In all grave momentous political conflicts between opposing parties there is a process of polarization that definitively removes any doubting ‘Thomases.’ That is, there are no middle ground societal forces to which one of the opposing parties could appeal for its support that could tip the balance in its favour. Clearly therefore, in such a situation propaganda becomes redundant and obsolete as there is no middle ground to be influenced by it. And this is exactly the present situation in Iran. Moreover, in such polarized conflicts both sides are fighting for their political and physical survival and they will use all means that are conducive to it. Hence Ahmadinejad and the imamocracy will concoct all kinds of conspiracies and lies, including of course the lie that the ‘Great Satan’ is behind the opposition, but who is going to be convinced of the truthfulness of such a lie other than their own solid supporters? Kissinger of course is fully aware from his wide experience and sagacious nature of this process of polarization and its consequences, but remarkably in this case of Iran is drawing the wrong conclusions from it. I would argue on the contrary, since diplomacy is the continuation of war by other means, to paraphrase Clausewitz, that President Obama should calibrate his tougher response to the nascent military dictatorship in the following terms: That the United States and many other nations of the world would find it very difficult to engage with a regime that in the eyes of its own people and of the world is an illegitimate regime. Thus by casting a shadow of isolation from the world over the Khamenei-Ahmadinejad Theocracy, President Obama could tip the balance indirectly in favour of the ‘modernist’ opposition forces and the great potential this would have for the future of Iran, and indeed serve as a paradigm for all the Middle East. As such a statement by Obama could further spread the division among the ruling elite with the great possibility that some of its key members defecting to the opposition and thus opening an opportunity for the opposition to take over power. Thus Obama by taking this stronger stand could be the latent force that would facilitate the transfer of the governing power from the imamocracy to the reformist opposition which despite the conservative religious origins of its leaders could severe the up till now conflation of religion and politics. Due to the fact that this powerful movement behind the opposition is propelled by modernist forces of the young educated generation whose desire for real democracy in Iran is unabated and inextinguishable, more so by the present martyrdom of so many young Iranians whose embodiment is the beautiful and spiritually brave Neda Salehi Agha Soltan, who was shot by a goon of the military dictatorship.

 

Obama’s ‘Latter Day’ Criticism Ineffective and Too Late

President Obama in the last few days has escalated his criticism of the Iranian regime but he has done so at the ebb of the protest movement of the opposition when he should have done so at its flow and in stronger terms as has been suggested above. And like a conductor of an orchestra who has missed his notes, he aborted a potentially brilliant performance by bungling it. Instead of letting himself to be overcome by the rapidity of events he should not have missed the opportunity to at least ‘pilot,’ if not directly influence, these events to the favourable port of the opposition. But, alas, political short-sightedness pays a heavy price.

It is obvious that President Obama was more concerned to save his new foreign policy which is pivotal on his unconditional diplomacy with the adversaries of the United States than to imaginatively save the great potential for democratic change that the protest movement in Iran had not only for its own country, but next to Iraq, for the whole Middle East, including the resolution of the complex and intricate issue of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Instead Obama chose to sail into the rough seas of Iran under the false colours of his diplomacy. And already the sails of this diplomacy are in tatters as a result of the unfolding events in Iran, as we predicted in a short article ten days ago. David Axelrod, one of his most astute and chief advisors by now is touting and foreshadowing the Republican’s ‘spectre’ of conditions in any future talks with Iran.

But the danger of this naive unconditional diplomacy is still present if Obama continues to be hooked to it. And unlike Agamemnon who sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to the goddess Artemis to propitiate the winds that would take him to his triumph at Troy, Obama might be sacrificing the long term strategic interests of his ‘daughter’ America on the altar of the faltered winds that will never raise his diplomacy to triumph.

I rest on my oars: Your turn now             

 

       

   

False Realists Onlookers to Atrocities of Brutal Iranian Regime

By Con George-Kotzabasis

It’s very sad to see Clemons making a mockery of his own facts. He states in one of his previous posts   “those who are being brutalized and risking everything (m.e.) to challenge Ahmadinejad and his thugs deserve our respect and our nuanced (m.e.) support.” While Iranians in substantial numbers are opposing a “military dictatorship,” that Clemons himself acknowledges as being so, for whom is an existential issue, for Clemons apparently is an issue of intellectually splitting hairs by his use of the words “respect” and “nuanced.” Ostensibly he is doing this as a ‘political realist’ who needs to see reality through always ‘nuanced’ binoculars. His fatal error is that by using these binoculars in all circumstances he blows up his political realism to smithereens by not realizing that in a situation where people are engaged in an existential struggle, they do not need “respect” and “nuanced support” but clear open sans nuance unequivocal support.

False realists of this sort, President Obama being one of them on this issue, by refusing to take an unambiguous stand in support of the modernist forces of Iran, become onlookers to the atrocities committed by the mullahcracy that in the process of fighting for its survival suppresses the peaceful democratic dissent against it by the most nefarious and brutal means.  

Iran's Post-election Turmoil Heralds Obama's Diplomacy Stillborn

By Con George-Kotzabasis

The dramatic events unfolding after the election of Ahmadinejad, whether legitimately or not, are also crippling Obama’s diplomacy and his Alice in wonderland Cairo speech, that mesmerized the ‘cerebral’ classes, and putting them both on crutches. And all the ‘grand bargainers’ from Flyntt Leverret to Juan Cole and the “hyper-active Clemons,” who has so little to show from his hyper activity, not to mention the ‘disciples’ of The Washington Note of David Hume and Bertrand Russel, are totally and irreversibly discredited. For the question is, that while the Theocratic regime for its own survival will have to clamp down with an iron fist the modernist forces of Iran and its putative leaders such as Mousavi, Rafsanjani, and Khatami-I’m saying putative because although they are apparently the leaders of these forces they themselves are not part of that modernity-and incarcerate and jail, if not covertly kill, some of the members of the educated classes if they continue to threaten the existence of the Mullahcratic regime, how then would be possible for President Obama to proffer to the regime the olive branches of his diplomacy when the latter was in the process of deflowering democracy in Iran? How could he possibly claim, with any credibility, that America by showing to the world that it was living and practising its values-which according to his simplistic notion would transform anti-Americanism  into a loving world –feast for America-would be changing its image, while at the same time was negotiating with the Mullahs at the tragic expense of the forces of modernity in Iran, when in fact Obama will be doing his own ‘Mossadegh act,’ launching his own “Operation Ajax,” which in his Cairo speech was one of the critical mea culpa of America, this time on the diplomatic domain which would be no less than a coup that would solidify and continue the existence of Iran as a dictatorship?

Alas, in such terms will be told the sad story of Obama’s stillborn diplomatic initiative toward rogue states and their sundry proxies.    

Reply to Romantic Americans in their Infatuation with Obama

On open salon

By Con George-Kotzabasis

Bill Beck,

“Remedial action” in the context of war is not an end in itself but with a purpose of leading to victory, as it’s in the present case in Iraq with the “tactic’ of the surge, providing the U.S. leadership does not abandon its intelligent resolution and determination to win the war.

The U.S. and U.K. politics of Iran you have to consider them within the context of the great confrontation between the two superpowers of the Cold War. At the level of strategic priorities Anglo-American politics that led to the “Iranian hostage crisis”, as you say, was minor to the major successful goal of preventing the Soviet Union from dominating the region, which you seem not to consider as being geopolitically at the time the paramount issue.

Lastly, why divert the issue of character as adumbrated by Nietzsche, to an unproved situation of political manipulation which you call the “Munchausen by proxy”? Isn’t such a diversion rather absurd?

Lori HB,

America remains the best of all possible ‘perfections’ in an imperfect world. That is why people from all over the world are voting for America with their feet.

Gordon O,

Good to see a kindred spirit when one is ‘besieged’ with anti-Bush warriors in this Salon.

Kent Pitman,

Indeed, we should be learning our own lessons. And I agree entirely with you that we cannot talk of, or achieve, victory on bankrupt foundations, either economic or political. But one must acknowledge that the incubus of economic bankruptcy that threatens America is the ‘monster child’ that has been sired by Democratic administrations in their act of social engineering. Roosevelt and Carter were the fathers of Fannie Mae and the Community Reinvestment Act respectively, the latter resurrected by Clinton. And Obama as community organizer was threatening banks with prosecution if the latter did not offer cheap loans to his non-credit-worthy constituents.

The most effective recruiting tool would have been to withdraw from Iraq prematurely. And Iraq illustrates at its best this proposition. Because the insurgents have been defeated in the field of battle they presently face a dearth of recruits and therefore are using women and children in their suicidal missions.

If he had strength of character he would have gone against the stream in regards to the war, as McCain did at a high cost of popularity. Instead he chose to ride on the imprudent emotional wave of the anti-war movement. And it’s a fact that he was considering Clinton as his vice...but Michelle was against it and he unwisely and cravenly yielded to her wishes which might cost him the election to the presidency. Also, what Gordon O says about the “public funding issue.” I’m sure that you would agree that these are not traits of strength.

lalucas,

Your “failed premise” rests on the backside of hindsight. At the time of 9/11 it was a premise of a real impending threat.

Certainly we all carry our own “baggage”. But it’s a matter of character how one “chooses to deal with one’s parental issues.” You can accuse Bush of some failings—perfection is not a gift easily granted by nature—including drunkenness which he had the strength to overcome. But G.W. Bush was not daddy’s boy in the White House. Woodward in his book makes it quite clear, by implication in some cases and more directly in others, that Bush made his hard decisions with the characteristics of strength.

Max Quillen,

Thank you for your gracious intervention and your exposure of intellectually meretricious arguments.

Francisco Patino,

Thanks for the flowers while you were getting ready to entomb me into intellectual oblivion.

A field of points and I will try to separate the wheat from the chaff and answer you on the former. And it’s good to know that one’s opponent is at least of a strong character even if he is not strong in gray matter.

Touché on my “swiftly” as I concede that it was not done quickly enough and it took two years for the Bush administration to realize that it was a wrong strategy. But why you conveniently leave out the main thrust of my argument that the administration corrected this strategic error and by implementing the new strategy of the surge turned the tables on a losing war?

Indeed, “democracy does not come by force” but the CONDITIONS upon which one can build democracy sometimes come by force and a long occupation. Germany and Japan are the preeminent examples. And wasn’t the Maliki government the result of a democratic process under the auspices of the U.S. occupying power? The Iraqi people never had a direct experience of democracy only a visual one from their TV sets of the political status quo of the West. But once their tribal leaders adopted the American plan for democracy the Iraqi people followed their leaders to the ballot box. Only intellectual fixation and historical ignorance can claim that democracy perforce only rises from bottom up and cannot come down from the top.

You obviously are a votary of the intellectual and historical insolvent belief that profit as a high value is a dirty word. But it was in the cradle of the high profits of the mercantilist bourgeoisie that the Italian Renaissance was engendered and begun eroding the seigniorial class of its political power and eventually spread the seeds of democracy in the fertile lands of the European continent made on profit. An elementary history lesson that does not need a review is that democracy and the entrepreneurial search for profit are not incompatible but the sine qua non of economic prosperity. (Read the great Indian economist Amartya Sen.)

And where from my writings you “get” the impression that I’m a traducer of the principle “that all human beings seek the same basic things and are worthy of respect?” This is rather a stolid method to attribute to your opponent a fictional position so you can make your ‘tailor made’ case.

As for “bigotry, irrational religious beliefs, and ignorance this is the “plague” of democracy itself. All political parties at an election perforce have to bring this minority to their side and use different slogans and techniques to succeed in this task. Why with your strong bearings choose to be a fugitive from this reality? But my argument, as you know, was that while it’s necessary to win over this minority it would be highly unlikely politically, and indeed, stupid, to govern on its behalf.

Again on the following issue you misinterpret my position but I don’t believe you are doing this on this particular issue for sinister reasons—your strong character would not allow you to do this, although your urge to win an argument could be stronger and could trump you on this—but as a result of soft thinking. I don’t at all object to America “upholding” its values. On the contrary, I greatly admire America that it continues to water the Tree of its values, to paraphrase Franklin, with its own blood. I did not state that any of Obama’s speeches contained the “lovey dovey terrorists and my conditional “perhaps” would have made this clear to a careful reader. But there is a general belief among the liberal intelligentsia that by a softer approach by the use of “softer power” and diplomacy, one could stop fanatics from pursuing the seventy-two virgins.

Lastly one is original by the grace of nature. And no future long distance can make one original if one has not been graced by nature. Hence, to ask someone to be “a little more original” in the future is oxymoronic.

What you know and what you are pretending to know?