Re: [Marxism] How to Stop Iran: 'Economist

[Walter Lippmann <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

We should be clear that the idea that Iran is run by a bunch of
crazed Islamic fanatics is being touted widely among those on
the rightist wing of the spectrum. It's a conservative Islamic
government, with all that entails, but it's not the Taliban.

Recently I was really surprised to see in the often very
conservative and 100% pro-Israel Jewish Journal expressing a
strong opposition to Lieberman and the proposals for a strike
against Iran. Here are but two examples from this milieu:

2007-06-29
L.A. Persian Jews and Muslims oppose bombing Iran
By Karmel Melamed, Contributing Writer
http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/searchview.php?id=17850

2007-07-13
Bush's 'neocons': far from the best and the brightest
By Raphael J. Sonenshein
http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/searchview.php?id=17926

As these two paragraphs indicate, the Islamic Republic is a
country with a rational regime, one which the U.S. and Britain
hate because, under Mossadegh Iran took its oil back from the
foreign Western companies. When they put the Shah in, they got
"their" oil back. And when the Islamic Revolution came in, Iran
got Iran's oil back. ("What color is Napoleon's white horse"
In what country is the Panama Canal? Whose oil is it in Iran?"

There is a broad international blockade imposed on the Islamic
Republic by Washington. It has everything the blockade of Cuba
has - subversive propaganda, destabilizing internal opposition
funded by the US, severe restrictions on international banking,
though no travel ban up to the moment. The best way to avoid
a war with Iran is to end the blockade and normalize relations.


Walter Lippmann
Los Angeles, California

p.s., those who wonder why Iranians went for Islam, consider:

"Egyptian well-wishers and journalists looked on baffled as the women
entered the Rifai mosque without putting on head scarves and the men
walked in without taking off their shoes, obligatory for entering a
Muslim house of worship."

"The Iranians were seemingly oblivious to their host country's
deep-felt piety."
===========================================================================

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-shah26jul26,1,6094046,full.s\
tory
>From the Los Angeles Times
Shah's mourners recall a golden era
Iranian monarchists make their trek to Mohammed Reza Pahlavi's
Cairo tomb and share memories of parties, discos and peace.
By Borzou Daragahi
Times Staff Writer

July 26, 2007

FULL:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/change-links/message/59554
===================================================================
ECONOMIST
Iran is a self-proclaimed theocracy. Yet it has conducted foreign
relations since the revolution of 1979 in a way that seems 
perfectly rational even if it is not pleasant. Its president, the
Holocaust-questioning Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is widely reported to have
threatened to "wipe Israel off the map". But in fact he may never
have uttered those precise words, and there is both ambiguity and
calculation behind the bluster. Look closer and Mr Ahmadinejad is
vague about whether he means that Iran should destroy Israel or just
that he hopes for Israel's disappearance. Knowing that a nuclear
attack on Israel or America would result in its own prompt
annihilation, Iran could probably be deterred, just as other nuclear
powers have been. Didn't Nikita Khrushchev promise to "bury" the
West?
----------------------------------------------------------------
A young population with no memory of the revolution is desperate for
jobs its leaders have failed to provide. Sanctions that cut off
equipment for its decrepit oilfields or struck hard at the financial
interests of the regime and its protectors in the Revolutionary
Guards would have an immediate impact on its own assessment of the
cost of its nuclear programme. That on its own is unlikely to change
the regime's mind. If at the same time Iran was offered a dignified
ladder to climb down-above all a credible promise of an historic
reconciliation with the United States-the troubled leadership of a
tired revolution might just grab it. But time is short.


================================
WALTER LIPPMANN
Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
writer - photographer - activist
http://www.walterlippmann.com
================================

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