U.S. Foreign Policy; Iran 2005

Gary C Gibson. - 11:25am Feb 2, 2005 EDT (#129 of 132)
John 10:16 "I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd."

It is my hope that President Bush will refrain in the state of the Union address, from pillaging the reputation of Iran, isolating them in his paradigm of popular opinion from the big dinner table of popular nations, threatening the Iranians with possible invasion and so forth. The United States fundamentally misunderstands Iranian history in the state department perhaps, or maybe White House ineptitude blunders from leader to leader by transferring American values and paradigms onto an inappropriate and dissimilar context.

One might of course note the inappropriate match up of international relations aesthetics between the administration's 'axis of evil' diatribe and the Persian history of Zoroastrian dualism cosmically to intellectually 'see' the innate opposition insult of the presidential parameter.

The Persian were a proud people, initially the Aryans that invaded the Indus civilization to establish the caste system and affect the course of sub-continent religious development thereafter, that eventually were invaded and conquered in turn by a number of tribes including those of the Mongols and Osmanlis/Ottoman Empire.

The Persians were occupied for more than 500 years, and struggled to liberate themselves or at least conserve a national identity while occupied. As a consequence of the Ottoman rule with it's Sunni identity the occupied Persia reinforce their Shiite identity. Its leaders could be a de facto national underground.

Until the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, and a coup a little later (about 1920) in 'Iran'/Persia, the Persians had no political sovereignty, they were a nation that had been subjugated and perhaps humiliated for half a millennium. The administration should seek to offer the carrot, the sugar in the coffee, the international face of kindness and patience to the Iranians to perhaps begin to develop a belief that the U.S.A. and transnational corporate puppeteers are not simply a continuing colonial power seeking to trod them under foot.

The 20th century history of Iran was nearly as grim as the preceding 500 years. With corrupt royal rulers of Iranian/Persian ancestry the people were still oppressed. They still looked to their Shiite leaders for liberation and an alternative political reality. Unfortunately the U.S. blundered in mid-century into interference in Iranian affairs supporting a coup and emplacement of a ruler friendly to oil interests, I believe. This began the creation of an appearance to Iranians, perhaps, that the U.S.A. was another ottoman like power.

Then of course there was the late Shah victimized by the Iranian revolution. He'd been such a friend to the U.S.A. buying all the newest weapons and doing business with the oil companies, yet his rapid westernization of Iran was more offensive to the people that were tortured brutally by the Shah's secret police agency-SAVAK than if Larry Flint were to become absolute dictator of the American bible belt-Midwest/south.

With the loss of prestige following the U.S. flights from Vietnam (with honor), and a restive populous with an aggrieved Ayatollah abroad the Iranian revolution occurred, and radical students took the American Embassy residents hostage. That is they severed diplomatic relations without loss of life, I believe, and returned the Americans intact a year or two later.

America’s response since has been to brand Iran as a terrorist nation, and perhaps it has sought to oppose U.S. interests with support to terrorists from time to time, I can't say. Yet is noteworthy that much of the planet has continued to use gross violations of human rights as normal guerilla or counter-terrorism modalities while the U.S. and the Euros and some others sought the Geneva Convention's high ground, until recently with the evils of the Presidential torture proclamations/wavers.


The President should walk softly and carry a big stick, instead of braying (that is a popular deprecatory term for Democrat utterances on talk radio presently) loudly in playing to the home crowd as if they were a lot of daft imbeciles persuadably by tax cuts and trinkets while threatening with the sharp fears of hyper-tech bombers and cruise missiles the former Persian geopolitical region driving the Iranians further into distrust of U.S. intentions. It may take a while for a people to cool off from foreign occupation, and beanings from Bush probably don't help matters. His cowboyish Randy Johnson fastballs may work against the Red Sox and even get past Sammy Sosa occassionally in the season ahead, yet it would tend to widen the gap of distrust in bilateral Iranian-U.S. relations.

The U.S. administration can utilize of variety of means to simultaneously encourage Iranian trust regarding peaceful, honorable and civilized relations while participating in international conventions to continue to discourage the proliferation of nuclear weapons where possible, and to discourage international and domestic terrorism.

I believe, albeit with a modest research database, that the Iranian response of a return to Shiite fundamentalism when threatened or oppressed by foreign invaders is a 600-year-old practice deep in Persian tradition. If the United States can take up a non-threatening overt posture to Iran, over time it might encourage the Iranians to venture somewhat farther away from their traditional Shiite, paternal ecclesiastical core and into the peaceable international realm of trade, travel and the exchange of ideas and cookies (there needs to be some humor in here someplace).

The U.S.A. can use it's James Bonds, its Epsilon Forces, its Global Proliferation and weapons inspections negotiators if it must, to safeguard against direct threats to American or mass civil interests elsewhere, yet the fundamentally wrong policy of intimidating, isolating and giving the appearance of threatening Iranian sovereignty and cultural independence seems a counter-productive U.S. policy. If the administration actually cares about peaceful and eventually productive relations politically with Iran it should relinquish the bellicose general speech making against that historically oppressed people and work with more subtlety to achieve a simple and just international brotherhood and sisterhood of nations in the Koran latitudes.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/24/iraq/main541815.shtml

http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=972 winners and losers-election predictions for Iraq