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[solly]

Check out William Blum's article, "Designer Monsters " (Information Clearing House, 12/18/06).


     Time magazine has just foregone its usual selection of "Person of the Year" and instead chosen "You", the Internet user. Managing editor Richard Stengel said that if it came down to one individual it probably would have been Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but that "It just felt to me a little off selecting him."

William Blum left the State Department in 1967, abandoning his aspiration of becoming a Foreign Service Officer, because of his opposition to what the United States was doing in Vietnam. He then became one of the founders and editors of the Washington Free Press, the first "alternative" newspaper in the capital.

•   In 1969, he wrote and published an exposé of the CIA in which was revealed the names and addresses of more than 200 employees of the Agency.
•   Mr. Blum has been a freelance journalist in the United States, Europe and South America. His stay in Chile in 1972-3, writing about the Allende government's "socialist experiment" and its tragic overthrow in a CIA-designed coup, instilled in him a personal involvement and an even more heightened interest in what his government was doing in various parts of the world.
•   In the mid-1970's, he worked in London with former CIA officer Philip Agee and his associates on their project of exposing CIA personnel and their misdeeds.
•   The late 1980s found Mr. Blum living in Los Angeles, teaching and pursuing a career as a screenwriter. Unfortunately, his screenplays all had two (if not three) strikes against them because they dealt with that thing which makes grown men run screaming in Hollywood: ideas and issues.

William Blum is currently living in Washington, DC again, using the Library of Congress and the National Archives to strike fear into the hearts of US government imperialists. Blum maintains his own Web Site and also maintains the Foreign Policy Watch section of ZNet.

[dark_globe]

The article states:

"According to people who know Farsi, the Iranian leader has never said anything about "wiping Israel off the map". In his October 29, 2005 speech, when he reportedly first made the remark, the word "map" does not even appear. According to the translation of Juan Cole, American professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History, Ahmadinejad said that "the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.""

Can you supply a link to the original statement? I know Farsi.

[solly]

Dark Globe.

Try:
http://www.president.ir/farsi/ahmadinejad/speeches/1384/aban-84/840804sahyonizm.htm

[dark_globe]

"rezhim ishghalagar quds baeed az safahah ruzaghar muhashawad (?)." "The regime occupying Quds (Jerusalem) must be muhashawad from the page of time." "muhashawad" is a passive I don't recognize (it also could be "mushahud--damn inefficient alphabet), but from what little time I put into it I found is related to the word "fatahashadan," "to gain a victory, to conquer." I think it means something along the lines of "be defeated" but not exactly.

However, there is nothing there about a map; Cole is correct there; " az safahah ruzaghar" literally means "from the page of time." As for the verb, I think Cole is softening its meaning, as I would have expected him to. Not sure, though.

[solly]

dark_globe

Thanks for your research. My linguistic skills do not extend to Farsi but I have read many of the Iranian President's speeches in as faithful a translation as I can find. These are always at variance with the translations touted in the press.
One commentator has linked the "page of time" statement to Gandhi's observation that tyrants, no matter how strong they may appear, always fall. (I rather like King's "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,")

What few seem to grasp is the almost comical irony of Ahmadinejad's words and actions. His response to the Mohammed Cartoon controversy was to sponsor a Holocaust Cartoon Competition.
A little bit of "How do you like your holy cows done?"

Ahmadinejad maintains that Israel is in denial about the Naqbah, the Palestinian Holocaust. His response - the Holocaust conference.

Incidentally, these two speeches by the Orthodox Rabbis at the conference are illuminating:

http://www.nkusa.org/activities/Speeches/2006Iran-ACohen.cfm

http://www.nkusa.org/activities/Speeches/2006Iran-Feldman.cfm

Happy Christmas to you and all Chronicle readers. Let us hope for a 2007 with fewer bombings and more diplomacy.

[dark_globe]

dark_globe

Thanks for your research. My linguistic skills do not extend to Farsi but I have read many of the Iranian President's speeches in as faithful a translation as I can find. These are always at variance with the translations touted in the press.

If you don't know Farsi, than how can you judge their faithfulness to the original text? Therein lies the problem.

As they were responsible for the deaths of many classmates of a friend of mine, I am no lover of the Iranian regime. However, I agree that the hysteria being built against Iran is absurd. The notion that if Iran acquires a nuclear weapon they will use it on Israel simply defies logic. The Iranian regime demonstrated its pragmatism during the Nagorno-Karabagh War in the early 1990s, when they supported Christian Armenia against Azerbaijan, the only other Shi'ite Muslim state in the world. They acted not as an Islamic republic but as a typical nation-state that places its own security above ideological concerns. Since any person with even a limited amount of reasoning capacity could easily see that the launching of a nuclear weapon at Israel would trigger a retaliatory strike, perhaps involving the United States, that would effectively destroy the Iranian nation, it is crystal clear that the leaders of Iran are pragmatic enough never to commit such a suicidal act.

[larryc]

Indeed, having a nuclear weapon would almost certainly sober up the Iranian regime and force it to act more responsibly.  Historically this is what happens when nations get the bomb, they try to earn a seat at the grown-up table.  Think how much more civil India and Pakistan are to each other these days.

[spork]

Iran has some degree of democracy in its government institutions.  Saudi Arabia has none.  Farsi is an Indo-European language and Iran has cultural connections the West.  Arabic is a Semitic language and Saudi Arabia has one of the most non-urban tribally-oriented cultures on the planet.  Also, al-Qaeda is overwhelmingly Sunni in its membership and is religiously quite similar to the Wahhabi of Saudi Arabia.   I don't understand why the USA consistently allies itself with Saudi Arabia.  Oh wait.  The Saudis sell us oil.  I forgot.

[jonesey]

it is crystal clear that the leaders of Iran are pragmatic enough never to commit such a suicidal act.

And you feel comfortable enough in this assertion to let Iran get nuclear weapons?  Iran, the country that sponsors Hezbolla, one of the largest terrorist organizations in the world.  Iran, who fund the suicide bombers that are killing American servicemembers every day in Iraq. 

There is no way, in any shape of form, that any fundamentalist Islamic "nation" can be allowed to have nuclear weapons.  None.  It would be, quite simply, a grave threat to the entire world.

Suicidal act?  These are the same people who strap bombs to children and send them into cafes to blow themselves up in order to get into Heaven.  I don't think they'd hesitate in attacking anyone with a nuclear weapon if they had the means.

[dark_globe]

Suicidal act?  These are the same people who strap bombs to children and send them into cafes to blow themselves up in order to get into Heaven.  I don't think they'd hesitate in attacking anyone with a nuclear weapon if they had the means.

You should read Contested Borders in the Caucasus by Bruno Coppieters. This study examines the Iranian regime's pragmatism in the Nagorno-Karabagh War when it backed Christian Armenia against Shi'ite Muslim Azerbaijan. To think this regime would commit an act that would inevitably result in the complete destruction of the Iranian nation is quite irrational.

[abuflletcher]

However, there is nothing there about a map; Cole is correct there; " az safahah ruzaghar" literally means "from the page of time." As for the verb, I think Cole is softening its meaning, as I would have expected him to. Not sure, though.

This reminds me of the notorious "We will bury you" quote attributed to a shoe-pounding Kruschev at the height of the cold war.  What he said was the Russian proverb "I will show you Kuski's mother"  meaning something like "so you think YOU're tough! just wait..."

[dark_globe]

Iran has some degree of democracy in its government institutions.  Saudi Arabia has none.  Farsi is an Indo-European language and Iran has cultural connections the West.  Arabic is a Semitic language and Saudi Arabia has one of the most non-urban tribally-oriented cultures on the planet.  Also, al-Qaeda is overwhelmingly Sunni in its membership and is religiously quite similar to the Wahhabi of Saudi Arabia.   I don't understand why the USA consistently allies itself with Saudi Arabia.  Oh wait.  The Saudis sell us oil.  I forgot.

The Saudis run a totalitarian regime in which imams are directed to preach anti-semitic bile on a daily basis that makes anything Ahmedinejad said seem meek by comparison. Yet the US administration calls for "regime change" in Iran while chumming up to the Saudis. It's clear evidence that the US is not truly interested in security for Israel but uses this question as a front for pursuing its own agenda.

I agree; the Saudis sell the US oil so they're fine; the Iranians don't so they're the enemy.

[abuflletcher]

The Saud family might head up a totalitarian regime (though the totalitarianism isn't nearly as "total" is in, say, North Korea) but their grasp on the reins of power are delicate and conditional.  Conditional primarily on their continued support of the Wahhabi-influenced power blocks that brought them to power and keep them there.  The day the Sauds turn their backs on the Wahhabists is the day they fall from power.

And US interests in the Arabian Peninsula are much better served by the (comparatively) moderate Saud family than by whatever Wahhabist leader (probably from the Rashidi clan) who would replace them. 

[dark_globe]

The Saud family might head up a totalitarian regime (though the totalitarianism isn't nearly as "total" is in, say, North Korea) but their grasp on the reins of power are delicate and conditional.  Conditional primarily on their continued support of the Wahhabi-influenced power blocks that brought them to power and keep them there.  The day the Sauds turn their backs on the Wahhabists is the day they fall from power.

And US interests in the Arabian Peninsula are much better served by the (comparatively) moderate Saud family than by whatever Wahhabist leader (probably from the Rashidi clan) who would replace them. 

Yes, of course. However, I would change your final clause to read "who will most likely replace them." Once the last of the widely influential Saudi leaders passes away, I think there will be major changes there.

This underscores the shortsightedness of US policy. Deposing the Mossadegh government and re-installing Pahlavi as Shah led to the radicalization of the Iranian clergy, the election of Khomeini as ayatollah, and the current unfortunate state of affairs there. Similarly, supporting the Saud family throughout the 20th Century has stalled any democratic movement and created a situation where the most radical elements are in a good position to seize power.

If the US had left Mossadegh in power Iran would have had a democratic state for over half a century now. How different things might be . . .

[spork]

Nuking Jerusalem and Mecca would solve a lot of problems.