As Iranians go to the polls to repudiate (it seems) some of the most pernicious aspects of Ahmadinejad’s rule, America’s Iran point man continues to make Ahmadinejad look like a reasonable peacenik.
The newly released book by Dennis Ross, President Obama’s special adviser on Iran, reads like a how-to manual for launching a war on Iran, marketing the war successfully, and making sure the Iranians cop all the blame for it. Ross will have none of Bush’s incompetent warmongering on flimsy pretenses of democracy and WMD’s; when Ross launches his illegal war on Iran, it will be stage-managed to within an inch of its life.
“Tougher policies – either militarily or meaningful containment – will be easier to sell internationally and domestically if we have diplomatically tried to resolve our differences with Iran in a serious and credible fashion,” writes Ross.
Note that there is no way to read this sentence but to see that the goal is to attack Iran. America trying to diplomatically resolve its differences with Iran is not a goal in itself; it is merely a means to more easily sell war and sanctions.
And, then, of course, we get the special Dennis Ross brand of peacemaking-as-warmongering—Ross’s signature dish: derailing negotiations while making it appear to be the other party’s fault.
“Such an approach may build pressures within Iran not to forgo the opportunity that has been presented, while also ensuring that the onus is put on Iran for creating a crisis and also for making conflict more likely.”
The goal, of course, is not just to bring about a military conflict, but also to make sure that it appears that it was the Iranians who brought about this conflict.
This is exactly what Ross did as “mediator” of the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, where he used diplomacy to further the aims of Israeli colonialism, as a cover for Israeli colonialism. As Norman Finkelstein shows in his meticulous destruction of Ross’ previous book, it was Ross himself who derailed the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.
Ross simply used his position as “mediator” to push for terms that were even more favorable to Israel than what the Israelis themselves wanted. During the negotiations, he became “furious” at Israelis for considering annexing less land in Palestine, and even said “if [Ehud] Barak offers anything more, I’ll be against this agreement.” The result was a “generous offer” on which then Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami himself commented: “if I were a Palestinian I would have rejected Camp David”.
But when the Palestinians rejected this offer, of course, it was a green light for “Israel’s Lawyer” to spend the last nine years blaming the Palestinians for rejecting his magnanimous offer. The result is a global green light for the Israeli regime to destroy the Palestinian people and their chances of ever attaining freedom—while placing the blame entirely on the Palestinians.
America can now look forward to seeing this mendacious brand of evil shaping their policy towards Iran over the coming years. Expect to continue to hear Ross talking about the failures of his heroic efforts at diplomacy, and then going on a WINEP-sponsored world tour blaming the Iranians for the conflict he worked so hard to precipitate.
This should leave no doubt that though the Obama Administration is mainly made up of sane humans who do not particularly want to nuke Iran, unreconstructed neocon fanatics like Ross will do all they can to bring about as bad an outcome as possible. Watch this space.
Update:
- Project Destabilize Iran?
- Pres. Ahmadinejad compares protests to passions in a football match (updated)
P U L S E 
Obama envoy raises possibility of U.S. strike on Iran:
http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=107877
http://tinyurl.com/lk837n
This is Obamacult propaganda. Obama appointed Ross. Period.
Can there possibly a more obvious way to make you Democrats realize that those who run your party are no better than those who run the Republican party?:
If Obama has “unreconstructed neocon fanatics like Ross” in his administration, then it is the policy of his administration “to bring about as bad an outcome as possible.”
Is there anyone out there in the Democratic party who can place a positive outcome over his/her allegiance to his/her party?
This is Obamacult propaganda. Obama appointed Ross. Period.
As long as the Israel lobby thrives free from any scrutiny it isn’t surprising that a president should make concessions to it if only to defuse the inevitable resistance from the AIPAC-controlled congress. The left is always good at posturing, but what has it done really to challenge the lobby? Some of its stalwarts still insist the lobby doesn’t exist. Others echo AIPAC in making the silly claim that Israel serves as a ‘strategic asset’. Meanwhile the lobby continues to browbeat politicians into accepting its diktats.
Simply awful. Ross is putting Iran in a box, any escape from which will legitimize the murder of a country. And Ross has the stones to tell us all exactly how he intends to cause that murder to be committed. Iran is absolutely no concern of ours and we should leave them and the rest of the Middle East to work things out for themselves.
Its also curious to watch the degree to which a number of neocons such as Eliot Abrams and Daniel Pipes have almost lamented about the possibility of an Ahmadinejad loss in the lead-up to election results. MJ Rosenberg cites a Ma’ariv piece (israeli press in Hebrew) that cites an senior israeli source as stating, “We’re better off with him getting elected” and himself considers “the pro-Ahmadinejad tilt of Bolton, Pipes, Abrams and the rest of the crowd that gave us the Iraq war is a demonstration of perversity unlike any I’ve ever seen in American politics.”
More sabre-rattling israel lobby demonology or neoconnery charade?
I forwarded a link to this site on to the Iranian mission to the UN. Knowing who your enemies are, and how they think can really go a long way toward working out a solution. Hey, if anyone else out there has an Iranian embassy in their country, forward the URL of this article to it. Maybe if the Iranians are aware of what is going on they can insist on a change of diplomats before they negotiate.