It’s illuminating to see a neo-conservative willing to admit on video tape that he is rooting for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to win Friday’s presidential election in Iran.
At [last] Wednesday’s Heritage Foundation conference on the Middle East peace process (which, as I wrote yesterday, was primarily devoted to pushing the almost-universally-scorned “three-state solution” for Israel-Palestine), Middle East Forum director Daniel Pipes made an unusually revealing comment while discussing Iran’s upcoming presidential elections.
“I’m sometimes asked who I would vote for if I were enfranchised in this election, and I think that, with due hesitance, I would vote for Ahmadinejad,” Pipes said. The reason, Pipes went on, is that he would “prefer to have an enemy who’s forthright and obvious, who wakes people up with his outlandish statements.” (Video of the event is available by following the link to the Heritage website; Pipes’s comments come at about the 1:29:00 mark.)
The reason Daniel Pipes is not concerned about the prospect of another term for Ahmadinejad is the same reason you shouldn’t be overly concerned. Even serving as the president of Iran, Ahmadinejad has no power over the military and he cannot set foreign policy. He is not authorized to make decisions related to nuclear energy. Those types of decisions are made by the Supreme Leader and the unelected Council of Guardians.
It’s not a good sign when a country has a raving nut for a president, but Ahmadinejad’s crazy talk and provocative language mean almost nothing. Pipes and his allies knew this all along but that didn’t prevent them from using Ahmadinejad as a poster-boy for the Clash of Civilizations.
It’s easier to avoid efforts at peace if you’ve convinced yourself that every conceivable approach is doomed to fail and that all Iranians are equally implacable and dangerous. If Iran=Nazi Germany, it doesn’t matter whether it changes a minister here or there. Better to keep a scary face on the thing so it is easier to mobilize the public against them.
That is precisely why it is important that Ahmadinejad lose. Without him making things easy for the warmongers, we might actually make some progress. And progress is not what Pipes and his pals are interested in.
Why Pipes and his ilk so distress me is because of their complete lack of decency and honor. I agree that the neo=conservatives are aware of where the real power resides in Iran but they make a big thing of the current jerk in Teheran so as to stir up their clueless followers. They refuse to acknowledge that they are much more of a threat to our democracy than
Ahmadnejad could ever hope to be. I think there is a road to peace but it begins with honesty and fair play, two words that scarcely exist among our neo-conservative fellow citizens.
What is “some progress”?
Daniel Pipes is ultimately concerned with the Israeli colonization of the Palestinian territories, and most of his work has been focused on supporting proIsraeli propaganda and countering criticism of Israel about the occupation/colonization that continues.
Iran is just Israel’s latest red herring. Like Hamas and Hezbollarh, Iran is a distraction from Israel’s attempt to continue the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian territories that started in 1967, the 22% left after the major 1948 cleansing.
Ahmadinejad is a much better red herring and Islamophobic symbol.
Yes, if the absolute truth exists, you have spoken it.
Just a few nervous breakdowns away from being the next Scott Roeder or the next James W. Von Brunn. Dangerous mentality is dangerous mentality. Taken to an extreme………………..
I think the takeaway part is Pipes’s casual assumption that Iran is the “enemy”. He’s preemptively defining Iran in a way that allows no negotiation or rethinking. If we did a close search of Bush-regime rhetoric, we’d find exact parallels regarding Iraq, by the same crowd. Their job is to agitate the base and soften up the uninformed public and media for another war of choice. And failing that, to smear Obama as “soft” on this “enemy”, thus preparing the way for the next neo-fascist coup attempt.
I hope that one day Israel wakes up to the reality that friends like this are piping it to its demise.
As the saying goes, ‘With friends like that, who needs enemies.’ I’m talking about the U.S. not Israel. Israel is it’s own worst enemy and Pipes is one of its spokesmen and advocates.
Israel is, as it has always been, it’s own worst enemy, and Pipes is a reflection of what Israel is and has always been.
Israel and Zionism have not really changed. What has changed is mainly the nature of the media and their ability to reveal what many would prefer to keep hidden, and that is changing the way Israel is perceived in the world. It has become increasingly difficult for Israel to hide reality from the media.
they continue to show themselves.
they are who we thought they were.
after all, these mofos still won’t apologize for Iraq.