April 27, 2006
Open any Western newspaper and you are struck by
the abundant use of the word "diplomacy." It is the second most used word
after "democracy." However, careful analysis shows that U.S. version of
diplomacy has become the favourite smokescreen of U.S. wars of aggression. Iraq
and Iran provide the best cases.
In relation to Iran, the Bush administration alleged that it is using
"diplomacy" to convince Iran to give up her rights to nuclear technology.
President Bush frequently says that "we are
working with European allies" to use diplomacy to avert a nuclear
impasse with Iran. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that a
"diplomatic solution" will be found to the Iranian nuclear crisis. The reality
is the opposite. By accusing Iran of intending to manufacture nuclear weapons,
the U.S. and its European vassals are using the so-called "diplomacy" to coerce
as many nations as possible to report Iran to the UN Security Council and pave
the way for sanctions and most likely war of aggression against Iran.
The U.S. version of diplomacy is accompanied by a vicious propaganda campaign
to demonise and portray the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, in a very
unfavourable way. Western mainstream
media, led by the New York Times, the
BBC and the Washington-based
neo-fascist organisation, Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), have fabricated allegations against President
Ahmedinejad. They alleged that President Ahmedinejad denied the Jewish
holocaust took place and threatened to "wipe Israel off the map." Of
course, it was a fabricated lie and President Ahmedinejad did not say anything
like this. In fact, none of President Ahmedinejad’ speeches (in Farsi)
contain anything close to what has been magnified.
However, without any proof, Western leaders,
led by Bush and Blair,
Western journalists and the intellectual elites were quick to take advantage of
the lie and unashamedly use it to justify their attacks on the Iranian
president. The cliché of "anti-Semitism" provided the perfect bullying tool not
only for Israeli Zionists but also for those who follow in their footsteps.
(See Fikentscher
& Neumann). President Ahmedinejad is now threatened with assassination
by Israeli-sponsored state terrorists. The threat against a democratically
elected head of state passed without condemnation in Western capitals.
Furthermore, President Ahmedinejad was democratically elected and
contrary to Bush and Blair's allegations, Ahmedinejad is not a Western-imposed
"tyrant" or a "dictator." By comparison with the U.S. presidential
elections in which Bush was appointed president by the Supreme Court, the
elections in Iran were far more superior to those of the U.S. In addition, Iran
had a democracy from 1951-1953 before the U.S.-staged a coup d’etat against
Prime Minister Muhammad Mossadeq and imposed the vicious dictatorship of the
Shah on Iran. The U.S. version of "democracy" is a colonial dictatorship masked
with fraudulent elections.
For its part, Iran tried very hard to discuss all issues diplomatically,
however the U.S. and its vassals continue with the language of bullying. While
accusing Iran of aspiring to produce nuclear weapons, the U.S. turns a blind
eye to Israel’s violence against the Palestinian people, Israeli threats in the
region and to Israeli’s huge arsenal of nuclear weapons. Other countries such
as Australia, Brazil and Japan, all have advanced nuclear programs ready to
produce nuclear weapons within short notice. It seems, the U.S. has become
obsessed with Muslims' independent development, and prefers to keep Muslim
nations under its imperialist thumb.
The Iran nuclear issue is nothing more and nothing less than a pretext
used by the U.S. against Iran. The current U.S.-engineered crisis is
reminiscent of the fabricated pretext of Weapons of Mass Destructions (WMD)
that the U.S. used to instigate a war of aggression against Iraq. Iran is a
signatory to the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and has the right to acquire
nuclear technology for peaceful use. Indeed, the NPT encourages other nations
to assist Iran in its quest for nuclear technology. However, this doesn’t stop
the U.S. from accusing Iran of "aspiring" to possess WMD and interfering in
Iran’s domestic affairs; instead, the U.S. rejects diplomacy and continues to
beat the drums of war. The alleged
threat posed by Iran is a falsehood. An attack on Iran would be
an unprovoked act of aggression in violation of international laws.
Throughout the U.S. history of imperialism, the U.S. has always
concentrated its war propaganda on one individual in the target nation. For
example Presidents Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein and Hugo Chávez are made the
epitomes of hatred. They are demonised to the highest point in order to make
the American people feel obliged to support war against the target nation. The
U.S. creates an illusion that the native population are suffering and helpless,
and they need "our" help. As American author Stephen Kinzer writes; "Americans
love to have a demon, a certain person who is the symbol of all the evil and
tyranny in the regime that we want to attack." For example, Saddam has
become synonymous with evil and provided justification to commit greater evil
against the people of Iraq. The U.S. administration writes Kinzer, "play[s] on
the American compassion to achieve support for interventions" and commits war
crimes against the Iraqi people.
In 1991, the U.S. rejected every peaceful proposal to resolve the
Kuwait-Iraq crisis. The U.S. flatly rejected all proposals advanced by
Yugoslavia, the USSR, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, France, Jordan and Iraq. Instead,
the U.S. used the diplomacy of coercion to bribe those who voted for the war
and punished those nations who insisted on diplomacy. In the end, Kuwait was
just a pretext for premeditated mass murder and gross war crimes against the
Iraqi people. The war followed by a 13 years long criminal sanctions that
needlessly killed more than 1.6 million Iraqi civilians, a third of them were
children under the age of 5 years old.
For more than 13 years, the U.S. rejected all diplomatic solutions to
end its war on the Iraqi people. Annoyed by the severity of the sanctions,
France and Russia introduced a peaceful resolution to end the sanctions against
Iraq in return for Iraq’s continued cooperation regarding WMD, but the
resolution was vetoed by the U.S. In March 2003 and after outright rejection of
all diplomatic solutions, the U.S. illegally invaded Iraq on the pretext of
WMD, which were nonexistent. Since then, U.S. forces and mercenaries have
indiscriminately killed -- in cold blood -- hundreds of thousands of innocent
Iraqi men women and children. In addition to the deliberate and planned
destruction of Iraq as a functioning state, the U.S. is turning Iraq into a
purely sectarian state and encouraging the erosion of Iraqi national identity
that prevailed throughout Iraq’s history.
Furthermore, the U.S. continues to occupy Iraq against the wishes of the
majority of the Iraqi people. The U.S. also continues to impose a victor
(American) culture on the Iraqi people. In addition, the U.S. is denying Iraqis
their democratic rights by imposing (by force) a puppet regime consisting of a
collection of thugs and criminals programmed to serve U.S. corporate interests.
Like the U.S. version of "democracy," the U.S. version of
"diplomacy," has become the favourite smokescreen for U.S. foreign policy.
There can be no doubt that democracy is the perfect alibi for state repressive
powers. It is used to serve U.S. corporate interests. The U.S. version of
"democracy" in Iraq meant to ignite war and bloodshed. Iran must be encouraged
to reject U.S. diktats and pursue her own development for the benefit of the
Iranian people.
While the U.S. and its European vassals pretend to solve the Iranian
nuclear crisis through "diplomacy," they are embarking on a path that
leads only to a war of aggression against Iran. Resistance to U.S. imperialism
through peaceful struggle is the only way to stop U.S. aggression and violence.
Ghali Hassan lives in Perth, Western Australia.
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