[Marxism] Iran Democracy Fund

["Politicus E." <epoliticus@xxxxxxxxx>]

Perhaps the comrades are interested to know about an exchange that
took place during the State Department briefing of 18 June 2009.  A
reporter posed a series of questions pertaining to the so-called Iran
Democracy Fund, which Dabashi refers to as "Neocon chicanery."  My
interpretation of Crowley's response, i.e., "I don’t think that we’ve
reached any conclusions yet" is not a generous one.  I have reproduced
a portion of the transcript below.  The full version is at
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2009/125096.htm

*****
QUESTION: The Bush Administration came under quite a bit of criticism over --

MR. CROWLEY: You think?

QUESTION: -- well, over the Iran Democracy Fund and that it made the
situation much more difficult for Iranians on the ground once the U.S.
started pumping money into the Democracy Fund. What are you doing in
terms of funding democracy projects in Iran at the moment? Is that
something that you’re looking at? And are you weighing what the
benefits would be for that, because it would appear that you had put
people in more jeopardy if you start pushing democracy projects?

MR. CROWLEY: I think it’s fair to say in the five months since the
Administration has come into office, we’ve been reviewing and
evaluating all elements of our policies towards Iran. We’ve been
checking in with other countries who have the same interest that we do
in resolving the concerns that we have about Iran. I don’t think that
we’ve reached any conclusions yet. We’re waiting to see exactly what
happens, and we’ve expected all along that Iran would have to get
through this election before we understood exactly what Iran was
prepared to do, and then we would respond accordingly.
*****

________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: 
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40archives.econ.utah.edu