Sunday
Jul122009
Iran Idiocy of the Day: Bushmen Claim Credit for "Regime Change"
Sunday, July 12, 2009 at 10:43
The Latest on Iran (12 July): When Is Normal Not Normal?
Receive our latest updates by email or RSS- SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FEED
John Hannah, one of the advisors to Vice President Dick Cheney trying to remake the world in the Bush years, looks to claim the Iranian protest movement as Dubya's legacy. Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Hannah claims, "The reality is that large-scale anti-regime protests erupted on multiple occasions throughout Mr. Bush's first term -- the very moment when his Iran policy was most aggressive."
Leave aside the fact that it is impossible for Hannah to envisage that protest was due to internal factors, since he shows no knowledge of Iranian politics or society. His article (unintentionally) upholds the charge that he and his fellow Bush officials undermined Iranian political discussion because they tried to tie it to the US Government's aim of toppling Iran's political system.
In spring 2003, just after the invasion of Iraq, the story leaked --- with some evidence behind it --- that Washington was ready to go as far as military operations, supporting covert action, to get rid of the "mullahs". And, as discussion on this board has highlighted, the Bush Administration's loud promotion and funding of "democracy promotion" in Iran could easily be represented as the pursuit of a "velvet revolution". Inevitably, the Iranian regime used the spectre of the "foreign threat" to limit and even put down the opposition.
Even today, however, an official like Hannah --- who showed little concern for "human rights" except when it could be used as a lever to get a Government in power whom he and his colleagues liked --- has no comprehension of this complexity:
This is a matter of concern for anyone who revisits the events of 2002 and 2003. However, it is of far more concern --- as Mr Hannah moves onto another topic to find some vindication for the misspent Bush years --- for those who worry that, in 2009, the Iranian Government can seize upon fatuous statements of "regime change" to justify their suppression of dissent.
Receive our latest updates by email or RSS- SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FEED
John Hannah, one of the advisors to Vice President Dick Cheney trying to remake the world in the Bush years, looks to claim the Iranian protest movement as Dubya's legacy. Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Hannah claims, "The reality is that large-scale anti-regime protests erupted on multiple occasions throughout Mr. Bush's first term -- the very moment when his Iran policy was most aggressive."Leave aside the fact that it is impossible for Hannah to envisage that protest was due to internal factors, since he shows no knowledge of Iranian politics or society. His article (unintentionally) upholds the charge that he and his fellow Bush officials undermined Iranian political discussion because they tried to tie it to the US Government's aim of toppling Iran's political system.
In spring 2003, just after the invasion of Iraq, the story leaked --- with some evidence behind it --- that Washington was ready to go as far as military operations, supporting covert action, to get rid of the "mullahs". And, as discussion on this board has highlighted, the Bush Administration's loud promotion and funding of "democracy promotion" in Iran could easily be represented as the pursuit of a "velvet revolution". Inevitably, the Iranian regime used the spectre of the "foreign threat" to limit and even put down the opposition.
Even today, however, an official like Hannah --- who showed little concern for "human rights" except when it could be used as a lever to get a Government in power whom he and his colleagues liked --- has no comprehension of this complexity:
Mr. Bush always understood that large swaths of Iranian society do not consider their regime to be legitimate. They detest it and yearn for freedom and democracy. Mr. Bush knew that regime change was not the crazed fantasy of a small cabal of American neoconservatives. It was the deepest desire of tens of millions of Iranians.
This is a matter of concern for anyone who revisits the events of 2002 and 2003. However, it is of far more concern --- as Mr Hannah moves onto another topic to find some vindication for the misspent Bush years --- for those who worry that, in 2009, the Iranian Government can seize upon fatuous statements of "regime change" to justify their suppression of dissent.