Defending Torture, Bombing Iran (Video): Dick Cheney on Fox News Sunday (30 August)

Torture and Lies: Confronting Cheney — 7 More Points to Note
Torture and Lies: Confronting Cheney

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Apologies for not mincing words, but the US in the midst of a sustained public-relations effort to whitewash the torture stain of the Bush Administration by 1) arguing that it wasn't torture and 2) if it was, it helped win the War on Terror. After the release this week of the damning 2004 CIA internal report on the Administration's authorisation of torture and its ineffectiveness, Dick Cheney has been at the front of the campaign to save his legacy, if not America's standing in the world. Fox News set him with the softball questions this morning.

(An important side note for Iran-watchers. Check out the passage late in the transcript where Cheney comes out as a strong supporter of an airstrike on Iran in 2007-8):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CfFiBy8jLM[/youtube]

CHRIS WALLACE, HOST: Mr. Vice President, welcome back to "FOX News Sunday."

RICHARD CHENEY, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's good to be back, Chris.

WALLACE: This is your first interview since Attorney General Holder named a prosecutor to investigate possible CIA abuses of terror detainees.

What do you think of that decision?

CHENEY: I think it's a terrible decision. President Obama made the announcement some weeks ago that this would not happen, that his administration would not go back and look at or try to prosecute CIA personnel. And the effort now is based upon the inspector general's report that was sent to the Justice Department five years ago, was completely reviewed by the Justice Department in years past.

They made decisions about whether or not there was any prosecutable offense there. They found one. It did not involve CIA personnel, it involved contract personnel. That individual was sentenced and is doing time. The matter's been dealt with the way you would expect it to be dealt with by professionals.

Now we've got a political appointee coming back, and supposedly without the approval of the president, going to do a complete review, or another complete investigation, possible prosecution of CIA personnel. We could talk the whole program about the negative consequences of that, about the terrible precedent it sets, to have agents involved, CIA personnel involved, in a difficult program that's approved by the Justice Department, approved by the National Security Council, and the Bush administration, and then when a new administration comes in, it becomes political.

They may find themselves dragged up before a grand jury, have to hire attorneys on their own because the Justice Department won't provide them with counsel.

It's a terrible, terrible precedent.

WALLACE: There are a lot of aspects that you just raised. Let me review some of them.
Why are you so concerned about the idea of one administration reviewing, investigating the actions of another one?

CHENEY: Well, you think, for example, in the intelligence arena. We ask those people to do some very difficult things. Sometimes, that put their own lives at risk. They do so at the direction of the president, and they do so with the -- in this case, we had specific legal authority from the Justice Department. And if they are now going to be subject to being investigated and prosecuted by the next administration, nobody's going to sign up for those kinds of missions.

It's a very, very devastating, I think, effect that it has on morale inside the intelligence community. If they assume that they're going to have to be dealing with the political consequences -- and it's clearly a political move. I mean, there's no other rationale for why they're doing this -- then they'll be very reluctant in the future to do that.

WALLACE: Do you think this was a political move not a law enforcement move?

CHENEY: Absolutely. I think the fact is, the Justice Department has already reviewed the inspector general's report five years ago. And now they're dragging it back up again, and Holder is going to go back and review it again, supposedly, to try to find some evidence of wrongdoing by CIA personnel.

In other words, you know, a review is never going to be final anymore now. We can have somebody, some future administration, come along 10 years from now, 15 years from now, and go back and rehash all of these decisions by an earlier administration.

WALLACE: Let me follow up on that. The attorney general says this is a preliminary review, not a criminal investigation. It is just about CIA officers who went beyond their legal authorization. Why don't you think it's going to stop there?

CHENEY: I don't believe it. We had the president of the United States, President Obama, tell us a few months ago there wouldn't be any investigation like this, that there would not be any look back at CIA personnel who were carrying out the policies of the prior administration. Now they get a little heat from the left wing of the Democratic Party, and they're reversing course on that.

The president is the chief law enforcement officer in the administration. He's now saying, well, this isn't anything that he's got anything to do with. He's up on vacation on Martha's Vineyard and his attorney general is going back and doing something that the president said some months ago he wouldn't do.

WALLACE: But when you say it's not going to stop there, you don't believe it's going to stop there, do you think this will become an investigation into the Bush lawyers who authorized the activity into the top policymakers who were involved in the decision to happen, an enhanced interrogation program?

CHENEY: Well, I have no idea whether it will or not, but it shouldn't.

The fact of the matter is the lawyers in the Justice Department who gave us those opinions had every right to give us the opinions they did. Now you get a new administration and they say, well, we didn't like those opinions, we're going to go investigate those lawyers and perhaps have them disbarred. I just think it's an outrageous precedent to set, to have this kind of, I think, intensely partisan, politicized look back at the prior administration.

I guess the other thing that offends the hell out of me, frankly, Chris, is we had a track record now of eight years of defending the nation against any further mass casualty attacks from Al Qaeda. The approach of the Obama administration should be to come to those people who were involved in that policy and say, how did you do it? What were the keys to keeping this country safe over that period of time?

Instead, they're out there now threatening to disbar the lawyers who gave us the legal opinions, threatening contrary to what the president originally said. They're going to go out and investigate the CIA personnel who carried out those investigations. I just think it's an outrageous political act that will do great damage long term to our capacity to be able to have people take on difficult jobs, make difficult decisions, without having to worry about what the next administration is going to say.

WALLACE: If the prosecutor asks to speak to you, will you speak to him?

CHENEY: It will depend on the circumstances and what I think their activities are really involved in. I've been very outspoken in my views on this matter. I've been very forthright publicly in talking about my involvement in these policies.

I'm very proud of what we did in terms of defending the nation for the last eight years successfully. And, you know, it won't take a prosecutor to find out what I think. I've already expressed those views rather forthrightly.

WALLACE: Let me ask you -- you say you're proud of what we did. The inspector general's report which was just released from 2004 details some specific interrogations -- mock executions, one of the detainees threatened with a handgun and with an electric drill, waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times.

First of all, did you know that was going on?

CHENEY: I knew about the waterboarding. Not specifically in any one particular case, but as a general policy that we had approved.

The fact of the matter is, the Justice Department reviewed all of those allegations several years ago. They looked at this question of whether or not somebody had an electric drill in an interrogation session. It was never used on the individual, or that they had brought in a weapon, never used on the individual. The judgment was made then that there wasn't anything there that was improper or illegal with respect to conduct in question...

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: Do you think what they did, now that you've heard about it, do you think what they did was wrong?

CHENEY: Chris, my sort of overwhelming view is that the enhanced interrogation techniques were absolutely essential in saving thousands of American lives and preventing further attacks against the United States, and giving us the intelligence we needed to go find Al Qaeda, to find their camps, to find out how they were being financed. Those interrogations were involved in the arrest of nearly all the Al Qaeda members that we were able to bring to justice. I think they were directly responsible for the fact that for eight years, we had no further mass casualty attacks against the United States.

It was good policy. It was properly carried out. It worked very, very well.

WALLACE: So even these cases where they went beyond the specific legal authorization, you're OK with it?

CHENEY: I am.

WALLACE: One specific question about Holder, the Obama administration -- you put out the statement saying that you were upset that President Obama allowed the attorney general to bring these cases. A top Obama official says, hey, maybe in the Bush White House they told the attorney general what to do, but Eric Holder makes independent decisions.

CHENEY: Well, I think if you look at the Constitution, the president of the United States is the chief law enforcement officer in the land. The attorney general's a statutory officer. He's a member of the cabinet.

The president's the one who bears this responsibility. And for him to say, gee, I didn't have anything to do with it, especially after he sat in the Oval Office and said this wouldn't happen, then Holder decides he's going to do it. So now he's backed off and is claiming he's not responsible.

I just, I think he's trying to duck the responsibility for what's going on here. And I think it's wrong.
WALLACE: President Obama has also decided to move interrogations from the CIA to the FBI that's under the supervision of the National Security Council, and the FBI will have to act within the boundaries of the Army Field Manual.

What do you think that does for the nation's security? And will we now have the tools if we catch another high-value target?

CHENEY: I think the move to set up this -- what is it called, the HIG Group?

WALLACE: Yes.

CHENEY: It's not even clear who's responsible. The Justice Department is, then they claim they aren't. The FBI is responsible and they claim they aren't. It's some kind of interagency process by which they're going to be responsible for interrogating high-value detainees.

If we had tried to do that back in the aftermath of 9/11, when we captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, we'd have gotten no place. I think it moves very much in the direction of going back to the old way of looking at these terrorist attacks -- that these are law enforcement problems, that this isn't a strategic threat to the United States.

I think it's a direct slap at the CIA. I don't think it will work.

I think that if they were faced with the kind of situation we were faced with in the aftermath of 9/11, suddenly capturing people that may have knowledge about imminent attacks, and they're going to have to have meetings and decide who gets to ask what question and who's going to Mirandize the witness, I think it's silly. It makes no sense. It doesn't appear to be a serious move in terms of being able to deal with the nation's security.

WALLACE: Well, on another issue, the CIA has stopped a program to kill or capture top al Qaeda leaders, top al Qaeda terrorists. And CIA Director Panetta told lawmakers that you told the CIA not to inform Congress.

Is that true?

CHENEY: As I recall -- and frankly, this is many years ago -- but my recollection of it is, in the reporting I've seen, is that the direction was for them not to tell Congress until certain lines were passed, until the program became operational, and that it was handled appropriately.

And other directors of the CIA, including people like Mike Hayden, who was Leon Panetta's immediate predecessor, has talked about it and said that it's all you know a very shaky proposition. That it was well handled, that he was not directed not to deal with the Congress on this issue, that it's just not true.

WALLACE: The CIA released two other documents this week -- "Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: Preeminent Source on Al Qaeda"...

CHENEY: Right.

WALLACE: "Detainee Reporting Pivotal for the War Against Al Qaeda."

While they say that the overall program got absolutely crucial information, they do not conclude whether the enhanced interrogation programs worked. They just are kind of agnostic on the issue. And then there's what President Obama calls the core issue -

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Could we have gotten that same information without resorting to these techniques? And it doesn't answer the broader question, are we safer as a consequence of having used these techniques?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHENEY: Well, these two reports are versions of the ones I asked for previously. There's actually one, "Detainee Reporting Pivotal for the War Against Al Qaeda," there's another version of this that's more detailed that's not been released.

But the interesting thing about these is it shows that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah provided the overwhelming majority of reports on Al Qaeda. That they were, as it says, pivotal in the war against Al Qaeda. That both of them were uncooperative at first, that the application of enhanced interrogation techniques, specifically waterboarding, especially in the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, is what really persuaded him. He needed to cooperate.

I think the evidence is overwhelming that the EITs were crucial in getting them to cooperate, and that the information they provided did in fact save thousands of lives and let us defeat all further attacks against the United States.

The thing I keep coming back to time and time again, Chris, is the fact that we've gone for eight years without another attack. Now, how do you explain that?

The critics don't have any solution for that. They can criticize our policies, our way of doing business, but the results speak for themselves. And, as well as the efforts that we went to with the Justice Department and so forth to make certain what we were doing was legal, was consistent with our international treaty obligations.

WALLACE: At one point the Vice President showed us the view of majestic mountains from his back yard. I asked about the Democrats running battle with the CIA including Nancy Pelosi's charge the agency once lied to her.

Republicans have made the charge before, do you think Democrats are soft on National Security?

CHENEY: I do, I've always had the view that in recent years anyway that they didn't have as strong of advocates on National Defense or National Security as they used to have, and I worry about that, I think that things have gotten so partisan that the sort of the pro defense hawkish wing of the Democratic party has faded and isn't as strong as it once was.

WALLACE: Now that he has been in office for seven months, what do you think of Barack Obama?

CHENEY: Well, I was not a fan of his when he got elected, and my views have not changed any. I have serious doubts about his policies, serious doubts especially about the extent to which he understands and is prepared to do what needs to be done to defend the nation.

WALLACE: Now, he has stepped up the use of the Predator drones against Al Qaeda. He has continued rendition. Aren't there some things you support that he has done?

CHENEY: Sure, some of those things have been -- the use of the Predator drone, something we started very aggressively in the Bush Administration, marrying up the intelligence platform with weapons is something we started in August of 2001. It has been enormously successful. And they were successful the other day in killing Batula Masood [Beitullah Mehsud], which I think all of those are pluses.

But my concern is that the damage that will be done by the President of the United States going back on his word, his promise about investigations of CIA personnel who have carried those policies, is seriously going to undermine the moral, if you will, of our folks out at the agency. Just today, for example, the courts in Pakistan have ruled that A. Q. Khan, the father of the Pakistan nuclear weapon man who provided assistance to the Iranians, the North Koreans, the Libyans, has now been released from custody.

It is very, very important we find out and know long term what he is up to. He is, so far, the worst proliferator of nuclear technology in recent history. Now we have got agents and people out at the agency who ought to be on that case and worried about it, but they are going to have to spend time hiring lawyers at their own expense in order to defend themselves against the possibility of charges.

WALLACE: Actually, the CIA has now said that they are going to pay for the lawyers.

CHENEY: Well, that will be a new proposition. Always before, when we have had these criminal investigations, the fact is that the employees themselves had to pay for it.

WALLACE: What do you think of the debate over healthcare reform and these raucous town halls?

CHENEY: I think it is basically healthy.

WALLACE: And what do you think of the healthcare reform issue?

CHENEY: I don't -- well, it is an important issue, but I think the proposals the Administration has made are -- do not deserve to be passed. I think the fact that there is a lot of unrest out there in the country that gets expressed in these town hall meetings with folks coming and speaking out very loudly about their concerns indicates that there are major, major problems of what the administration is proposing.

WALLACE: There was a story in The Washington Post a couple of weeks ago that in the process of writing your memoir, you have told colleagues about your frustration with President Bush, especially in his, your second term. Is that true?

CHENEY: No.

WALLACE: That story was wrong.

CHENEY: Right.

WALLACE: The report says that you disagreed with the President's decision to halt water boarding, you agreed with his decision to close the secret prisons, you disagreed with his decision to reach out to Iran and North Korea. Is that true?

CHENEY: Well, we had policy differences, no question about that, but to say that I was disappointed with the President is not the way it ought to be phrased. The fact of the matter is, he encouraged me to give him my view on a whole range of issues. I did.

Sometimes he agreed. Sometimes he did not. That was true from the very beginning of the Administration.

WALLACE: Did you feel that he went soft in the second term?

CHENEY: I wouldn't say that. I think you are going to have wait and read my book, Chris, for the definitive view.

WALLACE: It sounds like you are going to say something close to that?

CHENEY: I am not going to speculate on it. I am going to write a book that lays out my view of what we did. It will also cover a lot of years before I ever went to work for George Bush.

WALLACE: Will you open up in the book about areas where you disagreed --

CHENEY: Sure.

WALLACE: -- with the president?

CHENEY: Sure.

WALLACE: There is a question I have wanted to ask you for some period of time. Why didn't your Administration take out the Iranian nuclear program, given what a threat I know you believe it was, given the fact that you knew that Barack Obama favored, not only diplomatic engagement, but actually sitting down with the Iranians, why would you leave it to him to make this decision?

CHENEY: It was not my decision to make.

WALLACE: Would you have favored military action?

CHENEY: I was probably a bigger advocate of military action than any of my colleagues.

WALLACE: Do you think that it was a mistake, while you were in power, while your administration was in power, not to go after the nuclear infrastructure of Iran?

CHENEY: I can't say that yet. We do not know how it is ultimately going to come out.

WALLACE: But you don't get the choice to make it 20/20 hindsight.

CHENEY: Well, I --

WALLACE: In 2007, 2008, was it a mistake not to take out their program?

CHENEY: I think it was very important that the military option be on the table. I thought that negotiations could not possibly succeed unless the Iranians really believed we were prepared to use military force. And to date, of course, they are still proceeding with their nuclear program and the matter has not yet been resolved.

We can speculate about what might have happened if we had followed a different course of action. As I say I was an advocate of a more robust policy than any of my colleagues, but I didn't make the decision.

WALLACE: Including the president?

CHENEY: The president made the decision and, obviously, we pursued the diplomatic avenues.

WALLACE: Do you think it was a mistake to let the opportunity when you guys were in power, go, knowing that here was Barack Obama and he was going to take a much different --

CHENEY: I am going to -- if I address that, I will address it in my book, Chris.

WALLACE: It is going to be a hell of a book.

CHENEY: It is going to be a great book.

WALLACE: Was it a mistake for Bill Clinton, with the blessing of the Administration, to go to North Korea to bring back those two reporters?

CHENEY: Well, obviously, you are concerned for the reporters and their circumstances, but I think if we look at it from a policy standpoint, it is a big reward for bad behavior on the part of the North Korean leadership. They are testing nuclear weapons.

They have been major proliferators of nuclear weapons technology. They built a reactor in the Syrian Desert very much like their own reactor for producing plutonium for nuclear weapons.They probably are the worst proliferators of nuclear technology any place in the world today.

And there ought to be a price for that. Instead, I think when the former President of the United States goes, meets with the leader and so forth, that we are rewarding their bad behavior. And I think it is a mistake.

WALLACE: You would not have done it.

CHENEY: No.

WALLACE: How concerned are you about the increase in violence in Iraq since we pulled out of the major population areas and also what do you make of the fact that the top Shiite parties have formed an alliance tilting towards Iran and leaving out Prime Minister Maliki?

CHENEY: Well, I am concerned about Iraq, obviously. I have been a strong supporter of our policies there from the very beginning. I think we made major, major efforts to take down Saddam Hussein's regime, establish a viable democracy in the heart of the Middle East. I think especially going through the surge strategy in '07 and '08, we achieved very significant results.

It is important that we not let that slip away. And we need to be concerned, I think, in these days now in the beginning of the new Administration, I would like to see them focus just as much on victory as they are focused on getting out. And I hope that they don't rush to the exit so fast, that we end up in a situation where all of those gains that were so hard won are lost.

WALLACE: Given the increase in violence, given some of these new issues, in terms of the political lay of the land, given President Obama's plan to pull all combat troops out by a year from now, the summer of 2010, how confidant are you that -- that Iraq, as a stable, moderate country, is going to make it?

CHENEY: I don't know. I don't know that anybody knows. I think it is very important that they have success from a political stand point. I think the Maliki government is doing better than it was at some points in the past. I hope that we see continued improvement in the Iraqi armed forces, security services.

But I think to have an absolute deadline by which you're going to withdraw, that's totally unconditioned to developments on the ground -- I think there's a danger there that you're going to let the drive to get out overwhelm the good sense of staying long enough to make certain the outcome is what we want.

WALLACE: Obviously, this weekend, the country is focused on the death of Ted Kennedy. What did you think of him?

CHENEY: Well, I -- personally, I liked him. In terms of policy, there's very little we agreed on. He was a liberal Democrat from Massachusetts. I was a conservative Republican from Wyoming. So there wasn't much that we had to work together on.

On the other hand, I admired the fact that he got into the arena as much as he did for most of his professional life, and was obviously a very active participant.

WALLACE: How are you adjusting to life out of power?

CHENEY: Well, this is the fourth time I've done it, Chris. So it's not my first rodeo, as we say. I'm enjoying private life. I just -- excuse me -- took my family on an Alaskan cruise for a week, all the kids and the grandkids. We've gotten to spend a great deal of time in Wyoming, which, as you can tell her in Jackson Hole, is one of the world's finer garden spots.

So I have, I think, adjusted with a minimal amount of conflict and difficulty. It's been pretty smooth.

WALLACE: What do you miss?

CHENEY: Oh, I'm a junky, I guess, all those years. I spent more than 40 years in Washington, and enjoyed, obviously, the people I worked with, wrestling with some of the problems we had to wrestle with. I enjoyed having the CIA show up on my doorstep every morning, six days a week, with the latest intelligence.

WALLACE: You miss that?

CHENEY: Sure.

WALLACE: Why?

CHENEY: Because it was fascinating. It was important stuff. It kept me plugged in with what was going on around the world. And as I say, I'm a junky from a public policy stand point. I went to Washington to stay 12 months and stayed 41 years.

I liked it. I thought it was important. And I will always be pleased that I had the opportunity to serve.

WALLACE: Do you miss having your hands on the levers of power?

CHENEY: No, I don't think of it in those terms.

WALLACE: But I mean being able to affect things. You obviously feel strongly about these issues.

CHENEY: Right.

WALLACE: Do you miss the fact that now you're just another man watching cable news?

CHENEY: No, and as I say, I've been there before. I left government after the first Nixon term and went to the private sector. I left after the Ford administration and ran for Congress. Then left after the secretary of defense and went to the private sector. So these are normal kinds of transitions that you've got to make in this business.

What I've always found is that there are compensating factors to living a private life, to having more freedom and time to do what I want, and to spend more time with the family, which is very important. Over the years, you know, I've sacrificed a lot in order to be able to do those things I've done in the public sector.

WALLACE: Well, we want to thank you for talking with us and including in your private life putting up with an interview from the likes of me.

CHENEY: It's all right. I enjoy your show, Chris.

WALLACE: Thank you very much, and all the best sir.

CHENEY: Good luck.

Truth and Reconciliation in/for Iran? A Roundtable Discussion

The Latest from Iran (11 August): Rafsanjani’s Decision

On July 31st, a politically diverse group of 31 academics, students, and anti-war protestors published an open letter in The Guardian of London, criticising what they viewed as the western media’s one-sided coverage of the post-election developments in Iran.   Foremost amongst the fallacies they perceived was the portrayal of the election results as “the start of a ‘velvet’ revolution against the Islamic Republic". At the same time, the letter alleged that the US State Department has used the crisis to “justify its continuation of Bush-era policies of financing anti-Iranian government organisations". Not only was this an act of political opportunism on the part of advocates of regime change, this interference and propaganda campaign aided the Iranian Government’s crackdown on the opposition and slowed the pace of democratic progress.

The authors contend that is only without foreign threats and interference that “the Iranian people [can] reach their aspirations of freedom and establish their unity in a framework of independence and national sovereignty.” For the reformist and Green Movement to affect real change in Iran, there must be a reversal of the West’s opposition to Tehran’s nuclear program and an “end [to] all their illegitimate economic, political and military pressures aimed at the internal destabilization of Iran".

Beyond this critique of Western policy towards Iran, the authors issued suggestions for finding a “reasonable solution for the conflict”. They demanded of the Government an end to attacks upon activists and the immediate release of political detainees. The letter also calls for a spirit of national conciliation facilitated by the establishment of an “independent truth and national reconciliation commission with representation from all candidates, such that it can gain the trust of the people of Iran". Addressing the leaders of the reformists and the Green movement, the authors suggest that “in order to prevent exploitation of the current crisis by western propaganda and opportunist groups, they unambiguously oppose all sanctions and condemn regime change. operations and any foreign support for the anti-Islamic Republic opposition".

The publication of this letter provoked a spirited debate within academic circles, so Enduring America invited interested parties to participate in a roundtable discussion. The exchanges touched upon all the issues raised in the letter but also spread to a wider debate on how the academic and media approach critical analysis of Iran. Participants included: Siavush Randjbar-Daemi, a Doctoral Candidate in Contemporary Iranian History at Royal Holloway, University of London. Holding dual Iranian citizenship, he has reported extensively on Iranian affairs for national Italian newspapers; Dr Farideh Farhi, a leading US-based scholar of Iran and co-author of the letter; Chris Emery, a British-based Doctoral Candidate who has written on Iranian affairs for The Guardian and contributes regularly to Enduring America; and Nathan Coombs, a Doctoral Candidate in London who specialises in revolutionary politics and is co-editor of the Journal of Critical Globalisation Studies.

SIAVUSH RANDJBAR-DAEMI: The authors introduce themselves as “anti-war activists” and proudly highlight their recent efforts against the “the pervasive deception created by western and Israeli-influenced media”. The group further attempts to remember that it does not wish to see a particular faction in Iran advance its goals, rather they wish to see the country’s “national rights” to be respected and be borne to fruition.

Like many Iranians across the globe, this group has been taken aback from the aftermath of the heady June 12 elections. They state that they wish to “help develop realistic solutions for the benefit of all our compatriots of whatever political persuasion” and particularly propose the creation of a South African-styled “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” to solve the current divergence internal to the regime and express hope that the large number of political activists and civil society practitioners currently imprisoned and facing trial will be freed soon.

What makes the “Open Letter” unappealing for informed readers are the frequent generalisations contained in some of its salient points. Particularly of concern is the lampooning of the Western media. While it is certainly true that segments of the European or American press have been incorrect if not entirely libellous in their respective Iranian coverage in past years - as unconfirmed scoops on the supposed military capabilities of the Iranian nuclear programme or the fake Yellow star story published by Canadian National Post in 2006 suggest - the concept that Western media as a whole has acted in unison to portray a constant skewed, biased and negative image of Iran is questionable. Even more alarming are sweeping judgements such as “The western media, by their one-sided coverage of the post-election developments, portrayed the street demonstrations protesting the election results as the start of a "velvet" revolution against the Islamic Republic”.

At the heart of this particular issue lies a more tangible definition of the “Western media”. The tendency to identify the latter with a few well known villains of the piece, such as BBC, CNN, Fox or Al Jazeera runs into serious trouble if one were to be present in media events in Tehran in the week preceding and following June 12. Nothing less than hundreds of reporters were accredited by the Iranian Culture Ministry for the elections, and most of whom catered for audiences that went in to the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. Coordination across several time-zones, languages as well as experience in direct reporting from Iran that went from journalists on their first assignment in Tehran to experienced hands who pointed out to sign-posts left unchanged since 1979 to produce any sort of “one-sided coverage” was well-nigh impossible. Rather than preach the ills of an inherently diverse group of reporters, the authors could have spent more time detailing the specific parts of the western media that engaged in deception and wrong-doing.

The analysis of the internal situation offered by the open letter also raises some questions. The bulk of the current political-legal quandary faced by the reformists internal to the Islamic Republic is essentially blamed upon the “provocative and confrontational policies” of George Bush, which, according to the authors, “played a key role in the defeat of Iranian reformists in the parliamentary elections of 2003 [sic] and the presidential election of 2005”. Whereas there are no grounds to dispute the erroneous and inhumane traits of Bush’s Middle East policy, the attribution of the conservative victories in 2004 - when the Guardian Council, a distinctively hawkish body, disqualified thousands of would-be reformist candidates from the Majlis race - and 2005, when the reformists and pragmatists such as Hashemi Rafsanjani paid the price of an extremely lacklustre political performance in preceding years, to foreign political meddling is a conjecture that would most likely baffle even the more staunch reformists in Tehran. While it is certainly true that the perception of increased outside intervention made life difficult for Khatami’s camp, one is left wondering why the latter successfully convinced the Supreme Leader to accept to a series of major overtures to the West in that same time frame, such as the wide-ranging settlement proposal sent to Washington soon after the Iraq war in 2003 ,which included a radical overhaul of Iran’s entire regional foreign policy, or the Tehran Nuclear Agreement between the EU3 and Iran in late 2003.  One is therefore left to ponder whether the reformists have been the target of their own undoing on the national political scene, going as they did from total control of Parliament and the presidency in 2000 to the almost total exclusion from institutional participation of present.

The analysis provided within the open letter as to the cause of present disturbances raises some questions. Most peculiar is the attribution of the decision by millions of Iranians to flood the streets of Tehran within hours of the election results to “various irregularities [...] including the suspension of reformist newspapers and mobile telephone SMS service on election day”. It would have been perhaps ideal at this stage to recall the main slogan of the protesting masses: “Where is my vote?” Iranians did not take to the streets to reclaim the distribution of reformists’ dailies or request the resumption of the ability to send text messages. Rather, they felt that an undeniable right of any modern society, and most particularly their own, that has spent the best part of the past century inconclusively engaging in a long-drawn state-building exercise, the chance to choose an official candidate of its liking, had been abruptly taken away from them. Far from being an irregularity whose classification can be cloaked under the term “various”, this request stands at the heart of the unparalleled tension between the different wings of the political elite of the Islamic Republic. Its omission from the discourse of the “open letter” is therefore surprising and of concern.

The open letter ends on a number of valid points, including the invocation to allow Iranians to be masters of their own destiny and the invitation, to Western governments, to avoid a repeat of the 1953 coup or any other sort of interference. However, in their role of informed and esteemed academics, the signatories should perhaps adopt a less generalising approach and one more inclined to grasp the complexity of the dynamics of the Islamic Republic’s relationship with the West and its domestic politics, whose insularity to winds of change occasionally blown from abroad appears to be remarkably resistant three decades after the Revolution that sought to end Western interference in Iran once and for all.

CHRIS EMERY: Although I found myself agreeing with large segments of this letter, I found its overall message confusing. This letter seems to have three aims: to criticise Western policy in Iran, to condemn Western media coverage of the current crisis, and to make suggestions to resolve the impasse. The first two assertions require a more detailed interrogation than is possible here and thus fall flat. The third aim requires MUCH more detailed elaboration, especially regarding the composition, remit, time frame and powers of the "national reconciliation commission". Without this, the purpose of this letter is as unclear as its intended audience. It reads more like a collection of academics trying to get something off their chests than a serious roadmap for solving the impasse.

Though I agree with many of the letter’s critiques of Western policy, several analyses are less persuasive. Firstly, the authors contend that the only thing standing between President Khatami's successful reformist agenda (1997-2005) and rehabilitation of Iran's relations with the West was Bush. This is simply false; Khatami had already faced a hard-line backlash in 1999 following the student riots and there is little to suggest the Supreme Leader was as equally committed to normalised relations. Even Khatami’s overtures were carefully pitched as a dialogue between faiths and peoples rather substantive talks between two governments. I think it is also disingenuous to suggest that Iran’s cooperation with the US in toppling the Taliban was a personal gesture by Khatami aimed more at rapprochement with the US than as an action clearly in Iran's security interests.

Whilst recognising the counter-productive nature of Western policies, I disagree that the final success of democracy and reform in Iran is dependent on the actions of the West. This, in my view, absolves the Iranian authorities of their primary responsibility for their actions.

FARIDEH FARHI: Siavush's criticism is certainly well-taken and there is no doubt that not all Western reporting has been as the statement describes, although much has. But I don't see how Chris' point about the understanding of  Khatami's gestures can be construed from the statement. The point is simply that Bush's policies helped to undermine the reform movement (I believe the sentence says it played "a key role" and not "the" key role). Is this a wrong point? As to the West’s responsibility, show me a state that has not moved in the direction of securitization and away from democratic practices when under foreign threat.

Are there objections to our suggestions? Are they problematic or wrong suggestions? I will be delighted if this statement begins a conversation in this regard even if all the suggested ideas are rejected and replaced

NATHAN COOMBS: The authors’ focus on the Western media’s portrayal of the post-election insurrection follows two recognizable trends that we have witnessed since the elections in Iran.

First is the reformists' rhetorically convenient emphasis on the opinion of the unreconstructed (and-ill informed) anti-imperialist Left in the West, for whom Ahmedinijad is seen as the representative of the poor and a bulwark against American ambitions in the region. Need it be said, this is a distorted and caricatured portrayal; based as it is on a marginal strand of the Left’s take on the situation, never mind the Western media as a whole.

All the Western media, barring some exceptions that stand out precisely for their rarity, were firmly behind the uprising; not just in the sense of uncritical cheerleading for [Presidential candidate] Mir Hossein Mousavi, but in portraying the events as a broadly class-composed popular uprising. This impression was established through the reliance on English-speaking Tehranese ‘informants’ and Iranian scholars based in the West such as Professor Ali Ansari. It was not a critically examined proposition, whatever the truth of the matter.

As such the claim that the Western media portrayed the uprising as a “velvet revolution” by anti-Islamic Republic forces (implying that it was doing so for the benefit of foreign regime-change advocates) does not hold water at all. If anything, there was a clear recognition by the likes of the BBC that what was unfolding was an intra-establishment power play, to which Western commentators predominantly came down firmly on the side of Mousavi, to the exclusion of more radical currents.

Second, the overall framing of the letter is firmly nationalist. In its thorough conflation of anti-Islamic Republic forces with pernicious foreign influence, the letter amounts to essentially a whitewash of the realities of the Islamic Republic and an elaborate piece of apologism. The sub-text is status quoist. From the opening paragraphs to the last, the woes of the IRI [Islamic Republic of Iran] are firmly lumped at the feet of imperialist forces and the policies of the specific government of Ahmadinejad, rather than the Islamic system itself. In its call for a premature truth and reconciliation commission, the authors’ seek to co-opt the spirit of the uprising to refine and buttress the Islamic Republic.

This is justified in terms of seeking to bring in the interests of the bourgeoisie more firmly within the apparatus and juridical norms of the state. As the letter puts it, “These social and political pressures, along with government mismanagement caused by the removal of competent technocrats, have negatively impacted the public interest and put enormous pressure on the middle class, the educated class, journalists and artists. These people must be allowed a more open and free environment in order to fulfil their instrumental roles in service of the country.” And in the spirit of national unity, under the justification of representing the interests of the middle class, the authors applaud the fact that: “extremist elements who used the opportunity to create chaos and engaged in the destruction of public property were condemned by Mousavi". Finally, in a total denunciation of any authentic revolutionary anti-IRI ambitions: “We call on the political forces of both sides to move toward building such a constructive climate and toward creation of an economic, political, and cultural agenda that can respond to all social needs.”

One can only hope that the siren call of this letter is not heeded, and that the workers, students, and radicalized of Iran can build some sort of organization to surpass the inhibiting reformism of Mousavi and his nationalist supporters of the IRI. The Western media has little, if anything, to do with it.

EMERY: Farideh, I do not deny the damage Bush's policies have wrought. However, I think this letter overemphasized Khatami's ability to reconfigure Iran's relations with the West. Certainly, Bush's policies didn't help, but in many ways the instruments of the state were more arbitrary and 'rogue' in the 1990s.

As you say, the main point is that we talk about these issues. Given the enormously broad spectrum of political beliefs and perspectives amongst the authors of this letter, I do wonder how this can be coherently achieved.

FARHI: Chris, if you are reading the statement as though it is trying to discount the overall responsibility of Iran's leaders for political, economic and judicial failures, then that is a shortcoming that was not the intent of the statement. At least in one paragraph tries to deal clearly with those failings (and note that there is a reason the first recommendations address the domestic situation and forces).

At the same time, the intent was also not to shy away from discussing the context of the past two decades of containment and regime change policies on the part of the US and the impact of those policies on distorting Iran's body politic, making many already paranoid officials even more paranoid. Does this mean that the US is the cause for the mess Iran is in today? Of course not. Ultimately culpability lies with those who have other choices but choose to stunt their people's citizenship.

Did Iran have many rogue elements in the 90's? Yes, but Iran was also gradually moving in a direction that could be considered positive even during the Rafsanjani presidency (1989-1997). I have no difficulty acknowledging that the trend was deemed dangerous by hardliners and hence their resistance and reaction. But I don't see any useful purpose in not placing that resistance and reaction in the context of external pressures and threats that by the way were not limited to the Bush Administration.

FARHI: Are the hard-line forces wrong in using these props to justify their authoritarian policies? Of course they are, and they should be condemned as the statement does. But I do not see any useful purpose in toning down the discussion of the instruments they were given, which they have recklessly used and should be held responsible for, since they had the option of not using them.

Frankly, I do not see any reason for anyone interested in the expansion of civil liberties and equal treatment of citizens as well as a somewhat independent foreign policy (yes I am a shameless and hopeless liberal) to shy away from attempting a balanced view, even if that attempts ends up being flawed as you suggest.

EMERY: These are very compelling clarifications. However, I feel the fact that such detailed elaboration is required reinforces my point. The above debate is enormously complex and, I think, treated in much less measured terms in the letter. Likewise, the issue of how the West has covered the current crisis requires examples, comparisons, and historical and political context.

As Siavush pointed out, there has been some fantastic reporting of current events by some outstanding journalists, if of course there have also been some awful, politically motivated, and historically ignorant pieces. It strikes me as a) unfair to tar the former with the latter b) slightly naive to issue a call for the latter to end. It won't, anymore than the ridiculous reporting by the Iranian media.

So I am still unsure what the overall focus and intended audience of the letter was. It seems to be doing quite a lot, often with a slightly complacent reliance on an anti-imperialist framework. Your fundamental point is that the West should butt out and give the reformists space. I think this is essentially what the US Government has done. Obama was resolute in his insistence that this could not become a US-Iranian issue. He has not vocally supported the Green Movement and has not even alleged fraud in the elections.

You say that Obama has kept 'many of his predecessors' policies'. I think Bush would have claimed the Green Movement for himself, immediately condemned the elections as a sham, and would have used all of this as a platform to ramp up his confrontational policies.

If we are emphasising the need for external forces to moderate their policies to allow the political space for domestic change, why are there no suggestions for the Iranian Government to moderate its rhetoric and policies vis- a-vis the West, particularly in the Middle East?

I agree that there probably is a link between external threats and democratisation. I would disagree, however, with the implications of the statement, “Only under these conditions, without any foreign threats, can the Iranian people reach their aspirations of freedom.” Many non-democracies strengthen or uphold this state with or without facing external threats (Saudi Arabia, Burma, Guinea, China). In fact, the Central Asian region is littered with such states. The fact remains that the IRI's attitude to political and human rights has ebbed and flowed, but has never really shown a structural capability to tolerate dissent. Structural and bureaucratic obstacles are MUCH more significant than the external strategic environment.

FARHI: Chris, as to your point about the US government butting out, the statement did point out the difference between Obama's and Bush's approaches and noted the trend was positive, but it also pointed out that the general framework of US policy regarding Iran's nuclear program has remained the same, at least so far. Obama has continued to be interested in a sticks-and-carrots approach, so has his Secretary of State who has talked about "crippling sanctions" if Iran doesn't abandon its pursuit of a weapons program (The US Senate just passed legislation to that effect as well). To be sure, the linguistic shift to a "weapons program" and away from "enrichment suspension" is an important shift, but so far I have not seen any concrete manifestation of what that shift will mean in terms of policy. Suspension as a pre-condition has been removed, but that demand as an outcome has not necessarily been abandoned).

As to the equivalence you imply we should have endeavored to pursue regarding both the US and Iran's immoderate foreign policies, it just doesn't make sense in terms of the purpose of the statement written by people who identify themselves anti-war. Such people are worried about a US attack on Iranian territory, about which there has been not only a whole lot of loose talk but actual threats and policies

Finally, the IRI has been criminal and rigid more often than not but what has distinguished it from many other countries in the region and also other post-revolutionary societies is the level of conflicts and disagreements within it among various groups contesting for power. There is a reason the search for one revolutionary party was abandoned in Iran in the 1980s, and there is a reason you have such heated and violent confrontation about the direction of the country at this point. These conflicts are structural in so far as they represent different interests and ideas. The writers of the statements, despite their ideological diversity, believe that the contending forces --- and there are more than two --- need to find democratic and non-violent rules to live with each other, rather than attempt to purge the other from Iran's body politic.

From my point of view, there is nothing utopian or ideal about the Islamic Republic, but representing the conflict in Iran as many in the West --- or inside Iran --- have done as being between the "people" and the Islamic State, as though the people of Iran are one unit collectively engaged in an endeavor to transform a hated state, is both incorrect and I believe dangerous. It is part and parcel of the hope that a simple wishing away of the Islamic Republic or the street mobilization we have seen will do the trick.

The statement, by the way, is also written in Persian, and its intent for multiple addressees, I think, is clear in the five suggestions.

COOMBS: Farideh, let me take just two of your responses:

"There is a reason the search for one revolutionary party was abandoned in Iran in the 1980s and there is a reason you have such heated and violent confrontation about the direction of the country at this point.”

Could this also not have something to do with the fact that Mousavi, then Prime Minister, presided in 1988 over one of the most brutal mass executions of political opposition in the 20th century? The search for a revolutionary party to overthrow the IRI was not abandoned as much as extinguished.

Ultimately, what you write here, that people basically need to learn to live together, is a confirmation of my reading of the letter: the denunciation (in the contemporary lingo of democracy and pluralism) of the need for the overthrow of the IRI, and advocacy of the recuperation of the bravery of some of the protestors into a status-quoist regime realignment in favour of the reformists.

"There is nothing utopian or ideal about the Islamic Republic, but representing the conflict in Iran as many in the West --- or inside Iran --- have done as being between the "people" and the Islamic State, as though the people of Iran are one unit collectively engaged in an endeavor to transform a hated state is both incorrect and I believe dangerous."

I would of course reject any crass resource to the populist language of "the people". Likewise, I would also reject the naive belief (unfortunately promoted by many of the reformists supporters and sympathizers) that you can do away with the state through a "simple wish" or just "street mobilization". Here we at least can find some agreement. No, to bring down a system is a monumental affair. The idea that the IRI will just crumble when faced by street protest and intra-regime dissent is a laughable fallacy of our post-1989 world; informed by the entirely unhelpful analogy of the fall of Communism in the Eastern bloc. What is needed is genuine organization and the rebuilding of revolutionary organizations that can play the long game.

Politics, and more so revolution, needs to be constituted through a long ideological struggle. What the reformists and young liberals on the streets have as now failed to do (at least to my knowledge) is start to build these principled organizations, autonomous from the regime.