Hamas' Khalid Meshaal on Relations with Israel, US

Hamas political director Khalid Meshaal spoke for three hours last week with Paul McGeough, an Australian journalist who has written a book about the rise of Hamas and Israel's attempts to kill Meshaal. In the interview, Meshaal talked about relations with Israel (“Hamas has declared it’s acceptance of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories; we have joined the political process; we have entered short-term truces with Israel - this is the reality that the world needs to deal with" and relations with countries outside the region ("We’re willing to open a new page with the US and Europe....But they have to be serious about dealing with us on Palestinian rights.”), and the political prospects of the organisation (“If the Palestinian people were gamblers, they would bet on Hamas").

This is McGeough's summary, reprinted from Syria Comment:

DAMASCUS: The tea-cup stops short of his lip, as Khalid Mishal pauses to consider the ironies of trench warfare in the Middle East - a lurch to the political right has anointed as Israel’s next prime minister the man who, 11 years ago, sent Mossad agents on a bizarre mission to assassinate Mishal.

It is late Wednesday evening - March 18 - and Mishal sits deep in a plump armchair, in a second-floor reception room. “Netanyahu…,” he asks, returning to his cup of tea. “Its fate, God’s destiny, but we can’t set policy on the basis of personal grudges.”

The Palestinian resistance leader, whose suicide bombers and assassins have taken their own toll on Israeli life over the years, then declares his would-be-killer to be a man of straw. “We’ve already experienced Netanyahu as prime minister of Israel, so Palestinians are not afraid of him second time round,” Mishal vouches.

“After the battle of Gaza [in December-January] and the steadfastness of our people in the face of the Zionist war machine, do you expect a single Palestinian to be scared of this man? It doesn’t matter if he tries again to kill me, because he’s already killed my people.”

At the time of the 1997 attempt on his life, Mishal was an unlikely target - a mid-level Hamas operative, based in Amman, the capital of Jordan.

These days he is the supreme leader of Hamas, hunkering in a bunker set against a scrabbly hillside in the southern suburbs of the Syrian capital, deep inside a secure enclave which is reserved for high officials of the Damascus regime, foreign diplomats and the staff of foreign NGOs.

It is an unmarked, nondescript apartment block that doubles as jihad headquarters and as Mishal’s family home, where his teenage children are just as likely to wander in, taking a seat for the most intense discussions on Hamas operations.

Festooned with swivelling security cameras, the building also is watched over by an outer ring of leather-jacketed security men who juggle firearms and walkie-talkies as they prowl the pavement.

A Hamas car collects select visitors from city hotels - only by prior arrangement. When discretion is needed, one of a fleet of heavy black Mercedes Benz sedans is wheeled out - black curtains are drawn behind the tinted glass.

When greater discretion is required, the Hamas driver jumps the car on to the pavement, easing to a halt under an outstretched awning that hangs from the perimeter wall of the Hamas HQ. The house guards, moving with practised precision, then seize the loose ends of two bunched canvas flaps suspended from the awning, and draw them quickly out to the edge of the pavement, enveloping vehicles as they arrive, before some of Mishal’s more mysterious callers dare to alight.

The arrival of an outsider is an emergency event for Mishal’s suit-and-tied inner security ring. These men frequently speak into microphones concealed in the cuff of their jacket sleeve. Their thoroughness reveals an understanding that their boss is a constant target for a determined enemy.

Beyond an airport-like, walk-through security scanner and up a set of stairs with a dog-legged turn, a heavy, double-bolted door leads into a hallway, from which a visitor is escorted through a set of big double doors into Mishal’s diwan, or meeting place.

Armchairs line the long walls and the décor is various shades of Hamas green. But upon entering, it is a wall of mostly gaunt faces that locks the attention of a visitor - arranged in a honeycomb pattern; they are 20 Hamas leaders, fighters and bomb-makers, all victims of Israel’s campaign of targeted assassination. It is a sobering achievement in life that Mishal has reached age 53 without his visage being added to this wall of death.

The Hamas leader holds forth expansively, negotiating the tripwires of the diplomatic and political minefields that he inhabits daily, with certainty and a confidence that verges on bombast, as he lectures a fast-changing world on how it should respond to his movement - not than the reverse.

This is the first interview in which Mishal, designated a terrorist by Washington and Europe, makes his first detailed response to the outcome of transformative elections in the US and Israel; the Gaza war; and the imminent return to power in Israel of his would-be assassin - Benjamin Netanyahu.

Mishal starts, on what he genuinely seems to believe is a conciliatory note. However, in the corridors of power in Washington and the other capitals of the Middle East Quartet, they likely will be heard as a challenge.

“We’re willing to open a new page with the US and Europe,” he says through an interpreter, daring President Barack Obama to chart a radical change of course in the Middle East as an acknowledgement of decades of failed US policy in the region. “He’ll continue to repeat the mistakes of those who went before him, unless there is a marked change.”

But as Mishal expanded on his ‘new page’ theme, it soon emerges that what he really means to say is that Hamas requires the US and the European Union to open a new page with the Palestinian Islamist movement.

“I don’t mean that Hamas will take a new [policy] position. I’m talking about a readiness on our part to deal with Washington and Europe. But they have to be serious about dealing with us on Palestinian rights.”

Arguing that Washington and its European allied need to abandon their policy of isolating Hamas until the movement folds to conditions set by the Middle East Quartet, Mishal lectures: “They’ve been trying the wrong way and the wrong approach.”

Then he takes apart what he sees as early signs that nothing has changed in Washington since George W. Bush departed the White House in January.

There is little value, Mishal says, in appointing the experienced Northern Irish peace-broker George Mitchell as a US envoy to the Middle East, if he is not authorised to talk to Hamas. “Would he have succeeded in Belfast if he was ordered to ignore the IRA?”

Mishal is derisory of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s ready acceptance of the Bush Administrations’ insistence that Hamas accede to Quartet demands that the Islamists renounce violence, recognise the state of Israel and abide by all previous undertakings on behalf of the Palestinian people.

He belittles Clinton’s warning that international donations for the reconstruction of Gaza had to be kept out of the “wrong hands.” And he ridiculed the seeming contradiction in her invitation to Iran to attend a regional conference on the future of Afghanistan, at the same time as she shunned Hamas on the grounds that not only was it a terrorist group, but “increasingly it was a client of Iran.”

“So despite a new presidency, it’s the same attitude in Washington,” Mishal says. “We expected real change from Obama - not just talk about change.

“They refused to accept the results of the Palestinian election because Hamas won - that failed. They resorted to imposing a siege on the Gaza Strip - that failed. Then they went to war against the Palestinians - and that failed.

“Despite all this, Hamas has advanced and grown, [so] within the logic of real politick, it is Washington that must reconsider its position if they want to achieve an outcome that is not failure.

“The US and Europe have become accustomed to insisting, that the change they demand of the Arabs will be that which is demanded by Israel, [but] the Israeli vision of peace creates only war and chaos.”

The bulk of the Hamas leader’s critique is aimed at Washington’s conduct of what Mishal calls the Palestinian file. And he denies there can be any reason for concern in Hamas at the Obama Administrations dramatic departure from the other policies of its predecessor in the region - its efforts to engage Tehran and Damascus, which could expose Hamas to uncertainties about its future.

Washington is seeking a thaw in its relations with Syria. At the same time it has asked Russia to intervene with Iran, hoping Moscow middlemen might persuade the Iranian regime to back away from its nuclear program. But Syria and Iran are Hamas’ principal sponsors in the region.

Mishal concedes that these indeed are significant events unfolding around his movement. But he prefers to cast them as Obama’s admission of the errors of the Bush II era, or as he puts it, “Washington having to deal with parties that have proved themselves on the ground.”

There’s more lecturing on this theme before he will address the question - which is about the risk that Hamas might become a sacrificial small-fry in any big-picture horse-trading between Washington and Damascus and or Tehran. Mishal inches up to the issue, warning that the U.S. should not seek to “isolate certain parties at the expense of other parties.”

Finally he bites in terms of the position of Hamas. “We’re not worried,” he says. “Hamas is not a card in anyone’s hand. We play an effective role, even in times of dramatic change. Nothing is going to happen in this region until the Palestinian issue is properly addressed - and many countries in the region, including Iran and Syria, hold a principled commitment to the Palestinian cause.”

As much as Mishal criticises Washington, he also pitches a quick plea that it not accept an argument in some quarters that perhaps the U.S. should seek achievable goals elsewhere, while leaving the Palestine-Israel diplomacy to regional players - like Cairo and an increasingly assertive Istanbul. “Israel doesn’t listen to the regional players. The only party that has the power to pressure Israel and to dictate terms to it is Washington.”

Does Khalid Mishal have any regrets about the extent of the damage Israeli forces inflicted on Gaza in December-January - about 1300 Palestinians dead, thousands injured and thousands of homes and other buildings damaged and destroyed? The assault came after Hamas refused to renegotiate a truce, on the grounds that Israel had consistently violated what Hamas understood to be the terms of the six-month ceasefire.

Reminded that the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had publicly acknowledged that had he known the ferocity of the Israeli retaliation when it invaded Lebanon after the abduction of three Israeli soldiers in 2006, he would not have taken the soldiers, Mishal insists that Gaza and Hamas are different cases.

“The 2006 captures were an option, a choice for Hezbollah; so they are entitled to assess the validity of what they did in terms of the consequences for Lebanon. But for the Palestinians, Gaza wasn’t a question of choice.

“Israel was supposed to end the siege and open the border-crossings in return for a halt to the rockets - the rockets stopped, but the siege remained and the crossings stayed closed. It’s unfair to ask Palestinians if they want to die slowly under siege, or quickly under fire.”

Hamas senses a thaw in its isolation. Mishal’s visitors on the day he is interviewed, include parliamentary delegations from Greece and Italy. A few days previously, they came from the British and European parliaments.

These MPs come in a wave of publicity, challenging their governments to engage Hamas. But the trail-blazers came earlier - analysts from American and European think-tanks who decided the time had come to make discrete efforts to understand the Hamas mindset.

These are small, non-government delegations. But they are signs of different times for Hamas, of feelers being extended from corners of the world that till now have gone along with the US-led campaign to keep Hamas snap-frozen. And they are in marked contrast to the cold shoulder Israel is feeling around the world in the aftermath of its ferocious assault on Gaza, a chill that is billed in Israel as the country’s worst diplomatic crisis in two decades.

As Israel increases its PR spend in a bid to arrest its plummeting stocks internationally in the aftermath of Gaza, Hamas is buoyed by confirmation from Britain that, notwithstanding consternation in Washington, it is moving to ease its isolation of Hezbollah, Hamas’ counterpart in Lebanon, by agreeing to talk to its political wing.

London says the move is justified because Hezbollah joined a government of national unity. Given that national unity talks are on foot in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, an argument is being formulated in Hamas that it should be granted the same dispensation by London.

France too has intimated a willingness to open dialogue with Hamas and a growing army of former government officials and international peace negotiators is urging that Hamas be given a seat at the table. Led by former US president Jimmy Carter, who has visited Mishal in Damascus, it includes the likes of former British Prime Minister Tony Bair and the head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki Bin Faisal.

Despite, or perhaps because of the carnage in Gaza, the mood in the Hamas bunker is upbeat - support for the Islamist movement among Palestinians rose markedly after the January hostility, just as it fell for the US-backed Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and his enfeebled Fatah faction, whose writ is confined to the West Bank.

“More and more, the US and Israel and others in their camp understand that they cannot implement their agenda against us - because of the strength that we have acquired,” Mishal says. “Netanyahu destroyed the peace process the last time he was prime minister and his plan now for Palestinians to be limited to some kind of economic independence will fail too.”

Pressed on what policy changes Hamas might make as a gesture to a new regional order, Mishal offers little, arguing: “Hamas has already changed - we accepted the national accords for a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders and we took part in the 2006 Palestinian elections. Where is the response by Washington and the others? All we got was hostility and negativity.”

In particular, Mishal refuses to entertain rewriting Hamas’ offensive charter, despite the chance that such a move could alter perceptions of the movement at the same time as it might serve to protect the movement’s underbelly from sniping by its critics.

In 2005, the Hamas had appointed a committee to review its controversial 1988 Charter - with its offensive language, its anti Semitism, its incitement to battle and is calls for the elimination f the state of Israel. In a costly fit of pique over being consigned to the sinbin by the US and others after its election win, Hamas shelved the review.

Policy changes by Hamas have rendered much of the document redundant. But the continued inclusion of the call for the destruction of Israel has exposes Hamas to regular atacks.

Revealing that the pique of 2006 is just as potent today, Mishal says: “They didn’t give us a chance after we won the election, irrespective of what we might have done.” Will the charter be rewritten - “not a chance.”

“The message to us from the world was absolute rejection of the election outcome, because the result was not acceptable to the US and to corrupt elements of the Palestinian community [read Fatah].

“Our approach is not by means of changing the charter, a document written in 1988, but by virtue of our policy program today. Judge us by what we do today - not by what was written more than 20 years ago.

“Hamas has declared it’s acceptance of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories; we have joined the political process; we have entered short-term truces with Israel - this is the reality that the world needs to deal with. You say people use the Charter as a weapon against us - well, let them.”

For now, at least, Mishal’s public face is that Hamas is prepared to engage the world - but on his terms.

He becomes irritable when questioned about a letter from Hamas to President Obama, which reportedly was passed to US Senator John Kerry during a recent visit to Israel and Gaza.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he says. Pressed, he claims that the letter was on behalf of an individual - not the movement.

“If Hamas wishes to communicate with the US Administration, it will do so in a different way - at the right time; in the appropriate manner. Up to now, the Americans have rejected any communication with us. Hamas knows itself well and those who reject it today will find themselves compelled to deal with it tomorrow,” he says.

“In the meantime, Hamas will communicate with Washington through its actions on the ground - I’m talking about all our activities; about our weight and effectiveness; our social welfare and our resistance.”

If that’s how he feels about talking to Washington, what about direct talks with Israel?

Neither side likes to admit it, but Israel and Hamas have demonstrated that they actually can negotiate and in some circumstances, achieve outcomes that are acceptable to each other.

For all the squabbling over how the Gaza truce was breached and by which party, they did agree to a six-month ceasefire last summer - which Hamas held to, despite its view that Israel did not stick to its side of the deal.

There was no agreed text. This was an indirect understanding, arrived at through talks by negotiators for Hamas and Israel who met separately with Egyptian middlemen.

Israel believed that Hamas had agreed to stop the rain of rockets fired from Gaza into nearby Israeli communities. Hoping to breathe some life back into the strip’s comatose economy, Hamas understood that in exchange, Israel would end its year-long siege of Gaza.

Figures quoted by The New York Times, indicate that the rocket-rate was reduced by as much as 80-90 per cent as Hamas curbed its own fire and that of the lesser militia groups in Gaza.

But in comparison, the number of trucks entering Gaza increased only marginally. By closing its border crossings into Gaza, Israel can stop the movement of goods, fuel and people, often allowing a trickle of movement that imposes a level of hardship that amounts to total economic collapse.

Under the June deal, the daily rate of trucks entering Gaza did increase - but only from about 70 a day to about 90 which, according to the figures quoted in The New York Times - well short of a pre-siege delivery-rate of 500-600 trucks a day.

In light of that experience, would Hamas negotiate directly with Israel, to produce documented deals that might allow third parties to more accurately verify compliance or violations?

“Direct or indirect is not the point,” Mishal says. “What really matters is will Israel be truly ready to recognise Palestinian rights and to end the occupation? When Israel is ready to accept this,” he goes on, “we will decide what to do … but we’ll not give them a platform for useless negotiation, for trying to improve their image internationally [because] they always try to buy time and to create new facts on the ground.”

When the shooting stopped in Gaza earlier this year, there were more indirect talks. But Hamas refuses to buckle to Israel’s terms and as Mishal describes it, rather cumbersomely, “the situation is not war like it was in January … and it’s not a state of calm.”

At this point, the Hamas leader stubbornly refuses to acknowledge a more colourful description of events on the ground by one of his colleagues, who told reporters in February, “the [smuggling] tunnels are still operating and rockets are still being fired.”

Mishal refuses to take the question. Pressed to explain, he says: “I am a leader. From my position as leader, I describe and express myself in a manner which I deem to be best when I speak about the situation.”

“But the tunnels are open and rockets are firing, aren’t they?” he is asked. At this point, Mishal becomes Delphic: “You know my way of talking. There is an Arab proverb -‘every situation has its way of being expressed’!”

Mishal insists that it is the Israelis who must explain why the latest truce negotiations collapsed - including their failure to agree terms for the release of the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. But in what Israel will read as a threat, he warns there is a risk that more Israeli troops will captured by Hamas - to increase the pressure for Israel to agree to Hamas’ demand for the release of as many as 1400 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Asked about reports the accuracy of reports that Hamas is seeking freedom for 1400 prisoners, Mishal explains the calculus of the negotiations - from Hamas’ perspective.

In the most celebrated exchanged in the past, three Israeli soldiers were swapped, in 1985, for 1150 Palestinians - almost 400 Palestinians for each Israeli.

Asked how Hamas now could demand more than three times that many Palestinians in return for Shalit’s freedom, he says: “Israel’s prisoner numbers were relatively low in ‘85 - 1150 would have been most of those they held. The number we are seeking for Shalit is only one-tenth of today’s number of Palestinians in Israeli jails.

“The Israelis just don’t learn. When they refuse to release Palestinians, it forces the Palestinians to resort to other means to gain their release - and inevitable this incudes the capture of more Israeli soldiers.”

In the March 18 interview in Damascus, Mishal recommits Hamas to the electoral process in the Occupied Territories - despite Israel rounding up and jailing more than 30 of Hamas’ West Bank MPs in the aftermath of the 2006 election. And in the days after the interview, taking in 10 senior Hamas figures in the West Bank, including four MPs, who Israel described as ‘terror operatives’ - reportedly in a bid to pressure Hamas to accept Israel’s terms in the haggling over Shalit.

Underlying Mishal’s analysis is Hamas’ determination to avoid what it sees as the pitfalls, for the Palestinian side, of the years that followed the 1993 Oslo Accords.

Under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, the Fatah movement and the PLO renounced violence as a weapon and recognised the state of Israel, but achieved little in endless rounds of so-called peace talks as Israel continued to carve up the Occupied Territories to suit its own needs. Since Arafat’s death at the end of 2004, his successor Mahmoud Abbas has made no headway either.

Finishing up, Mishal lays out the pieces of the geopolitical puzzle and he laughs. Despite Islam’s prohibition on gambling, he concludes: “If the Palestinian people were gamblers, they would bet on Hamas.”

Scott Lucas on BBC World Service: Barack Obama and Gordon Brown

I spoke with BBC World Service's Newshour last night about President Obama, British Prime Minister Brown, and the presentation of bad news, especially in a time of economic crisis. Conclusion? Each, in his own way, is suited to the role he is playing publicly (and, yes, this is far different from when President Franklin Roosevelt was having "fireside chats" during the Depression).

The discussion is now on-line, about 20 minutes into the programme.

Mr Obama's War? Waiting for the US Strategy on Afghanistan and Pakistan

Related Post: Afghanistan - Former Taliban Ready for Talks with US

So what is the Obama Administration's new approach to American intervention in Afghanistan and Pakistan?

Really. What is it?

Administration officials had set up the media this week for a dramatic re-launch of the US strategy, based on a series of reports for the President. The latest study, headed by Obama campaign advisor and former CIA officer Bruce Riedel, was on Obama's desk on Monday. US envoy Richard Holbrooke was holding forth for the media and briefing NATO members; less publicly, CIA Director Leon Panetta was visiting Pakistan. The President was telling 60 Minutes on Sunday night, "What we're looking for is a comprehensive strategy. And there's gotta be an exit strategy."

This spinning, however, does not add up to a new approach. For Afghanistan, there is still no detail on US troop levels, American non-military programmes, the contributions from Washington's allies. And for Pakistan, which Obama's people are now putting as Number One Crisis, there is no sense of how the expansion of missile strikes and covert operations matches up to a political approach, either towards the "sanctuaries" in the Northwest Frontier Provinces or towards the central Government in Islamabad.

What we have gotten instead from the US is vacuous cheerleading posing as "analysis". Jim Hoagland on The Washington Post wrote a love letter to "Gen. David Petraeus and diplomat Richard Holbrooke [who] are as smart as they come". Even worse, commentators like Jackson Diehl of The Washington Post and David Brooks of The New York Times have been treated to a Grand Tour of US bases in Afghanistan so they can parrot the words of American military commanders, "Over time this will work -- it has worked over and over again through history" (Diehl) and "When you put more boots on the ground, you not only augment your army’s firing power, you give it the capacity to experiment". (Brooks)

This puffery should be set aside for the leaked ideas coming out in British newspapers. The outgoing US ambassador in Afghanistan, William Wood, tells The Observer that "America would be prepared to discuss the establishment of a political party, or even election candidates representing the Taliban, as part of a political strategy that would sit alongside reinforced military efforts". The Times writes of an American approach linking economic aid, a build-up of Afghan security forces and police, and a crack-down on heroin production.

Most striking, sources tell The Guardian, "The US and its European allies are ­preparing to plant a high-profile figure in the heart of the Kabul government in a direct challenge to the Afghan president." Expecting that President Hamid Karzai will win re-election in August, despite its best efforts to build up a rival candidate, the US will insist on a "Chief Executive" or "Prime Minister".

The US strategy on Afghanistan and Pakistan --- really, what is it?

Obama and the US Economy: Singing "Three Wheels on My Wagon"

In mid-1960s Britain, the New Christy Minstrels had a huge hit with “Three Wheels on My Wagon”, a song about a US pioneer family attacked by Cherokee Indians. As each verse begins, another wheel on the wagon goes missing. By the last verse, all the wheels are off the wagon, which is forced to stop. Regardless, the pioneers face death while “still singing a happy song”.

What if one substituted the Obama family for the pioneers and the Washington press corps for the Cherokees? Last week was a public relations disaster for Obama. The faux pas on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno about bowling and Special Olympians might appear small beer, even if it raises the uncomfortable question: could it be that Obama has a discriminatory bone in his body?

More significant is the furour over the bonuses for executives at the troubled financial company AIG.

Compared with the total of the Federal bailout, the sums for bonuses is trfiling, according to the President. However, when American people have insufficient funds to pay their bills, $200 million-plus is far from trivial. The President, according to the press, is giving the unfortunate impression that he's quite happy even as the wheels are coming off his wagon.

Obama wasn't always so blasé about trifling matters. In his book, Dreams From My Father, he describes his efforts on behalf of projects residents in a Chicago suburb. True, the problems, if looked at on a federal scale, were miniscule, but to those Project residents and organisers, the solutions offered through Obama’s efforts were immense.

Little things matter. Indeed, the Obama presidential campaign always paid great attention to detail. Micro seemed as important as macro.

So what happened to Obama last week? Was he overwhelmed by the enormity of his job? Has he become hypnotised by the “very cool” Air Force One and other trappings of the Presidency? Is he already surrounded by White House dobermans and inured to the needs and feelings of the little people?

I don’t think so but the President needs urgently to attend to his public relations.

On Sunday on the flagship TV news programme 60 Minutes, Obama talked about the AIG bonus: "I wasn't surprised by the intensity of the bonus debate and reaction to it. Our team wasn't surprised by it.” Instead, he emphasized that he would not govern out of anger. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has been ordered to use every legal means to recover the bonus money from AIG. If it is not repaid, it will be deducted from the company's next bailout payment.

At the same time, the President is having to tread carefully in the AIG case. The House of Representatives has decided to extract its own revenge by passing a bill that would impose a tax of up to 90 percent on the AIG bonuses. Indeed, anyone making more than $250,000 a year who works for a financial institution receiving more than $5 million in bailout money would be liable to the tax. Obama, who was a constitutional law professor, has rightly expressed doubt as to this law’s constitutionality: "Well, I think that as a general proposition, you don't want to be passing laws that are just targeting a handful of individuals. I think you certainly don't want to use the tax code to punish people."

Obama's fulsome apology to Special Olympians should be sufficient to cope with the sideshow created by his appearance with Jay Leno. The AIG issue is more interesting. Irrespective of the President's correct reading of the law, if the Washington press corps successfully links Obama with the privileged in American society and nails him as unable to curb the worst excesses of Wall Street, his Presidency may descend into the disaster that few predicted and fewer, except died-in-the-wool Republicans, wanted.

Hopefully, Obama will soon put the wheels back on his wagon.

Following Up Obama's Engagement with Iran: Text of the Khamenei Speech

While most of the media is moving on from Friday's message by Barack Obama and the Iranian response, there is still a disturbing whiff of "Tehran rejects US" in today's stories. For example, Katherine Butler of The Independent of London bluntly asks, "Why has Iran apparently dismissed Barack Obama's call for 'a new beginning?"

It's an easy, sometimes lazy interpretation which fits the pre-conception of hard-line, intransigent Iranian leaders, and in this case, it's flat-out wrong. As our colleague Seyed Mohammad Marandi of the University of Tehran says in a more sensible Reuters analysis, "Iran sets terms for U.S. ties", "I think they [the Iranian leadership] are quite willing to have better relations if the Americans are serious." Khamenei's website offers a summary, "Supreme Leader Demands Genuine Change in US policies".

So here, courtesy of Juan Cole, is the US Government's translation of the speech by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini on Friday. And, in a separate entry, Farideh Farhi offers an incisive analysis of the possibilities in the Iranian response.



AYATOLLAH KHAMENEI: Regarding the foreign affairs of our country, I would like to mention one point, and that is the issue between us and the United States. One of the main challenges for the Revolution, right from the beginning, was the same issue. Right from the first day of the Revolution's victory, a phase was opened for the Iranian nation, as a major test in its relations and interactions with the government of the United States of America. This major and important test continued for the past 30 years. The US Government faced this Revolution with an angry and frowning face, and opposed us from the beginning. Of course, they had the right to do so, considering their own calculations.

Before the Revolution, Iran was in the hands of the United States, its vital resources were in the hands of the United States, its political decision-making centers were in the hands of the United States, decisions to appoint and depose its vital centers were in the hands of the United States, and it (Iran) was like a field for the United States, the US military, and others on which to graze. Well, this was taken away from them. They could have expressed their opposition in not such an aggressive manner. But from the beginning of the Revolution, both their Republican presidents, and the Democrats, did not behave well toward the Islamic Republic. This is not secret from anyone.

(People chant: "Death to America")

Pay attention, the first measure taken by the United States was to provoke the scattered opposition groups of the Islamic Republic, and to support terrorism and disintegration in the country. They started this right from the beginning. In any parts of the country, where there were grounds for disintegration, the United States had a hand, we noticed their money, and at times their agents. This cost our people much. Unfortunately, this continues. The bandits in the Iran-Pakistan border areas, we know that some of them -- as we have their voices (as received) -- are in touch with Americans.

They have wireless communications, and take orders from them. Bandits, terrorists, murderers, are in touch with US officers in a neighboring country. Unfortunately, this still goes on. This was the beginning of what they started. Then it was the confiscation of property and goods belonging to Iran. The former regime gave a large amount of money to the United States to buy airplanes, helicopters, and weapons from them. Some of them over there were prepared, and when the Revolution took place, they did not deliver them. They did not give back the money, which amounted to millions of dollars. And the strange point is that they kept these goods in a store, and considered storage charges for it, which they claimed from the Algeria Agreement. To take away some goods from a nation, confiscate them, and fail to deliver them, and then claim storage charges for it! This is the kind of behavior started then, which continues. Our possessions are still there. They belong to the Iranian nation. They are in the United States and also some European countries. We referred to them over the past years, and asked them to give us what belongs to us and what we paid for. They said that since they are under the license of the United States, the United States does not allow them to do so; they cannot return them to us, and they are still there.

They showed Saddam (late Iraqi president) a green light. This was another plan by the US Government to attack Iran. If Saddam did not have the green light from the United States, he would have not attacked our borders. They imposed eight years of war on our country. About 300,000 of our young people, our people, were martyred in this eight-year war. In these eight years (Iran-Iraq war), particularly in the last few years of it, the United States constantly supported Saddam and helped him financially, with ammunition, and political advice. They provided him with satellite information. They had information facilities. They recorded the movements of our forces by satellite, and transferred this information the very same day to Saddam's HQ to use against our young people and forces.

They (the United States) closed their eyes to Saddam's crimes. The Halabcheh (southern Iranian town bordering Iraq) incident took place, hitting various towns of our country with missiles. They destroyed houses, they used chemical bombs on the frontlines, they still closed their eyes. They did not object at all. They helped Saddam. This was another one of the acts of this government over the years toward our country and our nation.

(People chant)

Then, please pay attention; there is a lot of time for chanting. Toward the end of the war, a US officer hit our airplane on the Persian Gulf with a missile from a warship. Some 290, about 300, passengers were in this plane, and they were all killed. And then, instead of punishing that officer, the US President of that time awarded that officer and gave him a medal. Now, should our nation forget this? Can it forget? They supported criminal terrorists who killed men, women, people, great scholars, even little children in our country. They (the United States) allowed them (terrorists) to be active in their country. They constantly released aggressive propaganda against our country. Constantly!

In the past years, US Presidents, particularly during the eight years of the former president (referring to President George W. Bush), whenever he said something against the Iranian nation, against our country, against our officials, against the Islamic Republic system, he said something absurd and nonsensical. He did not respect the Iranian nation. It was always like this over the years. They disturbed the security and peace in our region, security in the Persian Gulf, Iraq, and Afghanistan. They brought massive quantities of weapons to the regional countries, in order to stand against the Islamic Republic, in fact to fill the pockets of armaments factories.

They unconditionally supported Israel, the cruel Zionist regime. You witnessed one example of its (Israel's) cruelty in Gaza in the past two, three months. What a disaster they created. How many children they killed, how many men and women they killed. In 22 days they killed 5,000 people in Gaza with bombardments, missiles, and direct shootings. In the meanwhile they supported it. The US Government supported it until the very last moment. Whenever the Security Council wanted to issue a resolution against the Zionist regime, the United States stepped forward and defended (Israel), and did not let it happen. It (the United States) threatened our country on any occasion. It constantly said that it will attack us. They said that they had a military plan ready on the desk, they will do this, and they will do that.

They constantly talked against our country and threatened our nation. Of course, these threats did not affect our nation, but they showed their enmity by doing so. They insulted the Iranian nation, the Iranian government, and the Iranian president, over and over again. Some years ago, an American said that the Iranian nation must be eradicated. In the past few years, a US official said that a nice and moderate Iranian is one that was killed, who is dead. They insulted this great and honorable nation, the nation whose only fault is to defend its identity and independence in such ways.

They imposed sanctions on our country for 30 years. Of course, these sanctions were in our benefit. With this regard, we must thank the United States.

If they had not imposed sanctions on us, we would have not reached this level of science and progress. Sanctions constantly made us aware, made us think about ourselves, and be innovative. But they did not mean to serve us like this. They wanted to be antagonist. This is how they treated the Iranian nation for 30 years, and now the new US Government says that they would like to negotiate with Iran, that we should forget the past. They say that they extended their arm towards Iran. What kind of a hand? If it is an iron hand covered with a velvet glove, then it will not make any good sense. They congratulate the Iranian nation on the occasion of the New Year (Iranian New Year started 20 March 2009), but in the same message call the Iranian nation supporters of terrorism, who seek nuclear weapons, and accuse it of such things.

I would like to say that I do not know who makes decisions for the United States, the President, the Congress, elements behind the scenes? But I would like to say that we have logic. Since the beginning, the Iranian nation moved with logic. Regarding our vital issues, we are not sentimental. We do not make decisions based on emotion. We make decisions through calculation. They tell us to negotiate, to start relations. They have the slogan of change.

Where is the change? What has changed? Clarify this to us. What changed? Has your enmity toward the Iranian nation changed? What signs are there to support this? Have you released the possessions of the Iranian nation? Have you removed the cruel sanctions? Have you stopped the insults, accusations, and negative propaganda against this great nation and its officials? Have you stopped your unconditional support for the Zionist regime? What has changed? They talk of change, but there are no changes in actions. We have not seen any changes. Even the literature has not changed. The new US President, from the very moment of his official appointment as President, made a speech, and insulted Iran and the Islamic government. Why? If you tell the truth, and there are changes, where are these changes? Why can we see nothing? I would like to say this to everyone. US officials should also know that the Iranian nation cannot be fooled, or scared.

(People chant)

First of all... (Interrupted by chanting)

Changes in words are not adequate; although we have not seen much of a change there either. Change must be real. I would like to say this to US officials, that this change that you talk about is a real necessity; you have no other choice, you must change. If you do not change, then divine traditions will change you, the world will change you. You must change, but this change cannot be in words only. It should not come with unhealthy intentions. You may say that you want to change policies, but not your aims, that you will change tactics. This is not change. This is deceit.

There can be true change, which should be seen in action. I advise US officials, whoever is the decision-maker in the United States, whether the President, Congress, or others, that the US Government has not worked to the benefit of the American people. Today, you are hated in the world. You should know this, if you do not already. Nations set fire to your flag. Muslim nations across the world chant "Death to America."

(People chant: "Death to America")

What is the reason behind this hatred? Have you ever studied this? Analyzed it? Have you learnt from it? The reason is, that you treat the world like a pupil, you talk snobbishly, you want to impose your own will on the world, you interfere in the affairs of other countries, and you implement double-sided criteria. When a young Palestinian is forced to perform some act of martyrdom, because of the pressure he is under, you bombard him with a mass of propaganda, and on the other hand you ignore the crimes of the Zionist regime, while it creates such a disaster in Gaza for 22 days. You call that young man a terrorist, and you say that you are committed towards the security of such a terrorist regime. These are the reasons that they hate you around the world.

This is advice to you. For your own benefit, for your own good, for the future of your country, restrain from your snobbish attitude, hegemony, and your lecturing attitude. Do not interfere in the affairs of other nations. Be happy with your own rights. Do not define benefits for yourself in various parts of the world. You will see that the United States will gradually lose its hated image in the world. These deed have made you hated.

Listen to these words. This is my advice to US officials, the President, and others. Listen well to these words, and have them translated for you. Of course, do not give it to the Zionists to translate for you. Consult healthy people, and seek their opinions.

If the US Government continues its same behavior, method, course, policies against us, as in the past 30 years, we are the same people, the same nation that we were for the past 30 years.

(People chant)

Please pay attention. If you go on with the slogan of discussion and pressure, saying that you will negotiate with Iran, and at the same time impose pressure, threats, and changes, then our nation will not like such words. We do not have any experience with the new US President and Government. We shall see and judge. You change, and we shall change as well. If you do not change, our people became more and more experienced, stronger, and more patient in the past 30 years.