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NYT Pushes Confrontation with Iran
Apparently having learned no lessons from the Iraq WMD debacle, the New York Times is pushing for a heightened confrontation with Iran, slipping into the same kind of hysteria that it and other major U.S. news organizations displayed in 2002 and 2003.
In its latest neocon-styled editorial - commenting on a new critical report about Iran's growing truculence toward nuclear inspectors - the Times concluded with this judgment:
"Tehran, predictably, insists it is not building a [nuclear] weapon. Its refusal to halt enrichment and cooperate with the I.A.E.A. [International Atomic Energy Agency] makes that ever more impossible to believe."
Beyond the grammatical point that "impossible" like "unique" is an absolute adjective that can't be modified, the Times misses the point that its previous over-the-top hostility toward Iran - evidenced in its news columns as well as its opinion pages - has helped create the dynamic that is driving the standoff over Iran's nuclear program to a crisis point.
Amazingly, the Washington Post, usually an even more reliably neocon bastion than the Times, offered a more thoughtful assessment in its own Friday editorial on the same topic. The Post noted that the most promising area for negotiation with Iran was its past willingness to swap some of its low-enriched uranium for more highly enriched isotopes for medical purposes.
But the Post observed that delays in reaching an agreement over a proposed swap of 1,200 kilograms of low-enriched uranium - combined with the steady increase in Iran's stockpile - "has greatly complicated the prospects."
The Post said that "when the deal was first proposed, Iran would have given up more than two-thirds of its stockpile and would have been left with less than the amount needed for one bomb. To achieve the same effect, Tehran would now have to be induced to nearly double the amount of low-enriched uranium it turned over."
The Post noted that Iran currently has enough low-enriched uranium to build two nuclear bombs, if it chose to bring the refinement up to much higher levels and committed itself to design and construct a nuclear weapon.
However, what the Post - and the Times - don't mention in their two lead editorials is that they and their neocon friends were instrumental in frustrating President Barack Obama's initial efforts to reach an agreement on the fuel swap last year and that they then helped sabotage a parallel deal negotiated by the leaders of Brazil and Turkey earlier this year.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva persuaded Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to accept the swap agreement in May, completing the negotiations that the Obama administration had begun.
Sinking the Swap
At that point, the swap would have removed about half of Iran's low-enriched uranium leaving the Iranianis only enough to theoretically begin work on one bomb, assuming they actually wanted to.
Though the swap would seem to have represented a major step forward - since one hypothetical nuclear bomb is far less threatening than two and since the agreement might have led to more Iranian concessions - the deal was trashed by opinion leaders at the Post and the Times.
The Post's editors mocked the Brazil-Turkey initiative as "yet another effort to ‘engage' the extremist clique of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."
The Times star columnist Thomas Friedman chimed in, terming the Brazil-Turkey peace effort "as ugly as it gets," the title of his column. Friedman, who was also a top cheerleader for invading Iraq (having dubbed himself a "Tony Blair Democrat"), made clear that he would only be satisfied with more "regime change" in Iran.
"Ultimately, [the success of the Iranian opposition] - not any nuclear deal with the Iranian clerics - is the only sustainable source of security and stability. We have spent far too little time and energy nurturing that democratic trend and far too much chasing a nuclear deal," Friedman wrote.
Administration hardliners, like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, also treated the leaders of Brazil and Turkey as unwelcome interlopers who were intruding on America's diplomatic turf.
Lula da Silva responded by challenging those Americans who insisted that it was "none of Brazil's business" to act as an intermediary to resolve the showdown with Iran.
"But who said it was a matter for the United States?" he asked, adding that "the blunt truth is, Iran is being presented as if it were the devil, that it doesn't want to sit down" to negotiate, contrary to the fact that "Iran decided to sit down at the negotiating table. It wants to see if the others are going to go along with what (it) has done."
What Iran saw instead was a parade of American pundits and policymakers heaping scorn on the Iran-Brazil-Turkey accord.
Puzzled by the U.S. reaction, Brazil released a three-page letter from President Obama to President Lula da Silva encouraging Brazil and Turkey to go forward with the swap deal. In the letter, Obama said the proposed uranium swap "would build confidence and reduce regional tensions by substantially reducing Iran's" stockpile of low-enriched uranium.
However, the administration's hawks - backed by the elite opinion-shapers of the Post and Times - prevailed over Obama. Instead of embracing the swap deal, the Obama administration pressed forward with harsher sanctions against Iran, despite warnings that the sanctions would only harden Iran's nuclear stance.
Now, after Iran predictably reacted with greater animosity and suspicion toward the international community, the Times editorialists are determined, again, to ratchet up the tensions in line with Friedman's view that the only acceptable solution is "regime change."
The Post's editorialists at least were honest enough to note the failed swap deal, but they, too, ended on an ominous note, suggesting that a U.S. military attack may be the only solution.
Noting a new analysis by the Institute for Science and International Security that Iran may already be producing weapons-grade uranium at a secret facility, the Post concluded: "If that is the case, economic sanctions are unlikely to prevent it."
So, this is where the biased journalism of the Times and the Post -- especially regarding Iran's 2009 election -- has led the world, to the brink of another Middle East conflict.
Having brushed aside the disaster in Iraq and the related bungled war in Afghanistan, the neocons and their allies appear to remain the chief arbiters and the leading architects of U.S. foreign policy.
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32 Comments so far
Show AllSole purpose of corporate media is to fool the wealthy upper half of society into thinking that we the laboring class lower half are fooled into submission -- sufficient to not start a rebellion.
And so, who is fooling who?
Perhaps you are fooling yourself?
The "corporate media" IS the wealthy upper half of society.
the elite class = wall street + washington dc + corporate media + private education + private medicine
add the private army and the private intelligence to the equasion = the fascist society
Iran is one of the great prizes (Re:oil) coveted by corporate America. This is why not a single member at the Iranian embassy in Washington has been approached by an American official in over ten years. A negotiate peace will be avoided at all costs as the door for invasion must always be left slightly ajar. The corporate media's aggressive attempts to rile the Islamic world by giving world wide news coverage of such insignificant people like the small time pastor in Gainesville, Florida can only be viewed with suspicion. Any fringe group of radicals who go forward with some type of attack on U.S. interests, could be quickly manipulated into an excuse for the invasion of Iran. The only reason this hasn't occurred yet is because some opposing corporate interests clash with the Neo-cons in D.C. over the financial benefits of another war. In the meantime the general public is completely left out of the policy making process.
If Obama early on in his presidency had reached out to the American electorate via televised 'fireside chats' or 'State of the Union addresses' outlining the corporate obstacles that undermine democracy and the public interest, he may have had the support he needed to take on the ugly beast that has consumed D.C., but instead he has tried to tinker with the establishment which has stonewalled him at every turn. The right wing, with complete support of a fawning media, has decided to wait it out until Republicans regain control of Congress and the White House before moving ahead with their agenda of aggressive resource imperialism. Most Americans, still confused about the actual source of their declining standard of living, will be easily persuaded by the MSM to simply lay blame on their elected officials while voting for a new corporate, political clone (chosen, packaged and presented by a handful of vested interests) next time around championing the benefits of a 'free & democratic society' in the process.
Iran is not going anywhere and peak oil may still be a few years away. Big Oil and all of their oil dependent corporate allies (i.e. agricultural & chemical behemoths) are quite adept at manipulating the electorate via the media and the low cost of buying political candidates. America has yet to enter its Age of Enlightenment with catastrophic consequences just around the corner.
Space Cadet,
Agree with summation except that Obama was chosen by and works for the "ugly beast". This is not Obama tactical error, this is Obama MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. I believe this difference is important as to possible future options on many levels. (This point, granted is opinion, has been brought up ceaselessly on this site, but of course never to be seen on MSM.)
I agree completely!
Unfortunately, I think you're absolutely right.
Space Cadet,
Peak Oil is more of a process than a date certain. Its effects will be felt before the point is actually reached and consensus about the exactly when we hit the Peak will likely lag the event by several years. There are a number of folks who believe the Peak is here already, a fact that may be obscured by the current global economic downturn (as well as a causal factor). Establishing exactly when we hit the point of Peak Oil is not terribly relevant as increasing energy costs have already begun placing significant downward pressure on growth in a number of sectors, a process that can only increase (in aggregate) with time.
In some ways it can be accurately stated that, "Peak Oil is already here, even though it is not yet here."
The liberal establishment in America dominated as it is by zionists has always promoted hatred and misunderstanding of the Palestinian cause and the aggressions of the United States overseas. Their ugly face can be seen whenever there is the slightest hint that the security of Israel is not the top priority of a democratic administration. They were ready to humiliate Obama unless he capitulated and put Israel's security ahead of that of the United States. These same people started the whole birther movement by spreading rumors that Obama was a secret muslim and not born in the US in order to help their neocon queen Hillary Clinton get elected. They are disgusting.
If the "Liberal Establishment" whatever that means, is dominated by Zionists, then there is little hope for Palestine, because the current incarnation of the Conservative Establishment is apocryphal in its support of Israel.
Like the run up to the Iraq War, the MSM was, with the exception of Knight-Ridder, drinking the Koolade about WMD. It was widely known that Iraq's WMDs would not justify the U.S. aggression, but, shamefully, the level was nonexistent. The hue and cry for attacking Iran, using its nascent nuclear program as an excuse, will again prove to be another successful propaganda campaign waged by the warmongers in the U.S. and Israel. Iran needs to plan for Israeli bombing raids this coming spring.
The only hope for Palestine is for Iran to continue to rise as a power in the region. Only Iran can provide a balance to the Israeli-U.S. axis. The more Israelis Iran can kill in its response to the aggression the higher its prestige in the Muslim world. If it uses oil as a weapon, there will be, finally, some consequences for America's erroneous Foreign Policy.
The Times is a leader within the Israel Lobby busy propagandizing the public about Israel/Palestine and implicitly threatening politicians who don't toe the Lobby's line. This is the paper with maps of Israel that are only available for stories describing what happens within Israel's borders, especially attacks by Palestinians. Stories about Israel's actions against Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza, don't come with maps, presumably because the American public might learn who is being occupied and who is doing the occupying.
"Apparently having learned no lessons from the Iraq WMD debacle, the New York Times is pushing for a heightened confrontation with Iran, slipping into the same kind of hysteria that it and other major U.S. news organizations displayed in 2002 and 2003."
Just disgusting. Obviously the NYTimes learned its lesson well: spread fear to squash resistance to another invasion. Iran knows full well that considering a nuclear attack, or any attack for that matter, is suicidal. This talk of Iran building a bomb is a red herring.
Let's face it, the NYT is in decline and inciting terrorism including acts of terror sells newspapers. I refer to William Randolph Heart who engineered the Spanish American War to sell more newspapers.
The NYT is a useful tool for propagandists, and it has a record of covering up Bush's crimes.
Like Israel and AIPAC, NY Times repetas its crime by not acknowledging its own input to the original crime. same goes for WaPo. This doublespeak or plain deceptive attempt to reeingineer the memory of the public that it had nothing to do with the Iraq war would again be repeated after US loses its face/money/souls on "unencesarry Iran war".
very soon NY times will be positinoing itself in a way so that it can offer some arguments aginst future prosecution. Stay tuned.Both Friedman and NY Times have found find fault with Iranain regime for building nukes, now they will call Barack a "wimp" if war not moved to Iran ,then they would see deficits in our psyche for changs in our opinion in the face of losses after the war started ,then US military for not listening to ziocon-run thinktank 100%,and at last aginst Iranain citizen for being ungrateful.Meanwhile they will insert some insights in Europe's weakness and islamaization of Europe as being the cause for not supporting the war aginst Iran with all its resources.
Follow the money.
Iraq draw-down plus eventual Afghanistan draw-down equals zero profits for Big War Profiteer.
Of course, even a moron with an iota of common sense knows that if Iran were to nuke anybody, or hand off a nuke to an evil-doer, the Coalition of the Willing would wipe them off the face of Earth.
And we'd be all kinds of proud about vaporizing a few more million Muslims - oops, I mean Persians. But they all look the same and hate freedom, right?
Of course we need to go to war against Eye-ran. How else are we going to reignite our economy?
Wei Wu Wei
I agree that Obama was chosen by corporate America, however I felt the man still had a conscience and therefore a remote possibility existed that he may yet turn on his corporate facilitators and take the moral high ground. Such an occurrence happened in the Soviet Union with Gorbachev dismantling the status quo. Unfortunately the last two years have shown that Obama has turned out to be everything his sponsors had hoped for.
I cling to such hopes only because the chances of a real third party alternative emerging are somewhere between never and incredibly remote.
OBAMA NEVER HAD A CONSCIENCE! He is his own little fife and drum corps, marching briskly toward the cemetery.
Space Cadet - If enough people stopped saying a third party has no chance and voted for one instead of for a party that abondoned their interests decades ago, then there is every possibility that a third party would have a chance. In case the two parties cheated them out of votes, then what voter of conscience would want to vote for either of those parties. Those who go with the truth are always winners regardless.
Either Israel, or its client state, the United States, is going to attack Iran. The threat has been out there for a long time. I was convinced that Bush/Cheney were going to do it and was very surprised they didn't. But the bar room brawling mentality of the U.S. government and military feels it cannot be made to look foolish for too long. Repeated insults against the National Penis cannot go unanswered. An attack is probably inevitable. The Iranian government has prepared for this eventuality for a long time. They will climb out of the rubble, continue whatever it is they are doing and begin attacks against the United States and its interests. Calls for a U.S. invasion and occupation of Iran will be overwhelming. Obama, cringing little apparatchik that he is, will oblige.
Dear NYT, the Post, and viagra laden chicken hawk neo cons:
You know, before we go to bombing another nation of CITIZENS, please show us the films of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We citizens think that we do have a right to know and to see what work you have WROUGHT in the past.
If you can't, then someone, PLEASE, there must be someone, who can find a way to get this film to wikileaks. Many of us believe that if this was to be shown to the public, then having your chicken MERDE wars would stop!
Really, this unholy TRINITY of war planners, war profiteers, and psycho soldiers needs to end, NOW!
!
There is a photo in the Hiroshima war museum that should be published worldwide although the USG WOULD NEVER ALLOW IT. It's the picture of a shadow of a person who was vaporized by the blast and the shadow is that person immortality and grave.
Well now we know why the Times was in such a hurry to put Iraq behind us--it wants to move on to the next pro-Israel war.
"We have spent far too little time and energy nurturing that democratic trend..." That's especially rich, considering the fact that we destroyed Iran's democracy when we overthrew Mossadegh in '53, for the "crime" of attempting to nationalize what is now British Petroleum. How short Friedman's memory. How little things change.
"Tehran, predictably, insists it is not building a [nuclear] weapon"
Far more predictably, the "newspaper of record", in the world's most radically nukular nation, with tens of thousands of nuke warheadz, squeals when someone else pursues a nuke of their own.
But nobody takes the New Yawk Times seriously. Rather the truly serious issue we face is the rather large percentage of USans who support the elite status quo, motivated to achieve elite status for themselves some day.
But given that human nature is what it is, we see that the achilles heel of the nukular soopernaut remains the nukular elite themselves.
"Now, after Iran predictably reacted with greater animosity and suspicion toward the international community"
What's this "international community" newspeak? The USA isn't part of any international community! The USA doesn't lead any more! The USA is the world's big thug. This is the simple fact of the matter. Ask anyone outside the USA.
Robert Parry is apparently trying to exploit the people's aspirations to belong to an international community to gain for the "lesser evil" faction of the imperial party an advantageous place at the table of plunder.
good points.
time and again, the question is, how do you bring real changes when majority of the people don't want them?
Simple,,,, Boycot the New York Times and any company that advertises with them, watch how fast they change their war mongering tunes.
how we wish it was just the NYT and its advertisers.
NYT is about to bite the dust, technically, but the fascists are getting stronger by the day it seems.
but boycotting NYT is a good start.
it will take boycotting the entire system for alternatives.
the elite class = wall street + washington dc + corporate media + private education + private medicine
add the private army and the private intelligence to the equasion = the fascist society
Slight Corrections:
1) First sentence: “Apparently having learned no lessons from the Iraq WMD debacle. . . .”
Drop “no lessons”: Apparently having learned from the Iraq WMD debacle. . . .”
2) Last sentence: “Having brushed aside the disaster in Iraq and the related bungled war in Afghanistan, the neocons and their allies appear to remain the chief arbiters and the leading architects of U.S. foreign policy.” Change “brushed aside the disaster,” “the related bungled,” and “appear to”: “Having succeeded with regime change in Iraq and a continuance of the war in Afghanistan, the neocons and their allies obviously remain the chief arbiters and the leading architects of U.S. foreign policy.”
"All the News That's Fit to Print."