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March 23, 2002
T.W. Croft
Enron's
Attack on Our
Economic Security
March 22, 2002
Robert Jensen
Corporate Power is a
Threat to Democracy
Tommy
Ates
The
Future of Black Academia
Rep. Ron Paul
Why are We in Ukraine?
March 21, 2002
McQuinn,
Munson, & Wheeler
Stars
and Stripes:
Killing for the Flag?
John Chuckman
How Change is Wrought
David
Vest
Hail
to the Chaff
March 20, 2002
Kay Lee
Censorship at Angelfire
Robert
Jensen
The
Politics of Pain
and Pleasure
Sheperd Bliss
Notes from Hawai'i:
Trouble in Paradise
Rick Giambetti
Prozac
and Suicide:
an Interview with
Dr. David Healy
Philip Farruggio
Bullies
Lori Allen
Live
from Ramallah:
The Madness of Occupation
March
19, 2002
Tariq
Ali
Nuke
Iraq?
Phyllis
Pollack
Roger
Daltrey's LA Surprise
Amir Ahmadi
War-Mongering
Academics:
The New Tartuffe
Ben White
Bomber
Blair
Fran Shor
Child-Murderers
and Madmen
March
18, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Crazy
is Cool
Dave Marsh
DeskScan:
What's Playing At My House
Armen
Khanbabyan
The
Pentagon in the Caucasus:
Georgia Is Only the Beginning
Gabriel
Ash
Abdullah
v. Osama
Bernard
Weiner
Middle
East for Dummies
Alexander
Cockburn
Tipping
in America
March
17, 2002
David
Vest
The
Politics of Packaging
Tariq
Ali
The
Left's New Empire Loyalists
March
16, 2002
Chris
Floyd
Ashcroft's
Secret Snatches
March 15, 2002
Doron Rosenblum
Israel's Settler Warlords
Alex Lynch
Rhetorical
Attacks On Iraq
Norman Madarasz
Neo-Con Propaganda
and the National Review
Paul-Marie
de La Gorce
Making
Enemies
March
14, 2002
Dr. Susan
Block
RIP
Danny Pearl
Francis
Boyle
Bush
Nuke Plan Violates International Law, Again
Wayne
Saunders
Memo
to Paul McCartney:
There Are Two Kinds
of Freedom, Sir
H.P. Albarelli
Anthrax
Cover-up?
March
13, 2002
Amira
Hass
Are
the Occupied Protecting the Occupier?
CounterPunch
Wire
National
Review Editors Suggest Nuking Mecca
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Personal
Responsibility
for Corporate Elites?
Robert
Fisk
Arabs
Don't Want US
to Strike Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
When
Billy Graham Wanted
to Kill One Million People
March
12, 2002
Kay Lee
Dangerous
Changes in
California's Prisons
John Patrick
Leary
The
Return of Otto Reich
Wole Akande
US
is Being Discredited
in the Eyes of Africa
March
11, 2002
Hani Shukrallah
This
is the Way the World Ends
Tommy
Ates
Bush's
New Nuke Policy:
Target Allies and Enemies
Lidia Andrusenko
The Great
Chicken War:
Bush v. Putin
Dave Marsh
10
CDs Playing On My Desk
John Chuckman
Footprints
in the Dust
Norman
Madarasz
Max
Steel in a Time of Chaos
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
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War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
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CounterPunch
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and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
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March 23, 2002
The US and Iran's
Quest for Democracy
By Saeed Vaseghi
If the recent US threats and actions damage the
propcess of development of new democratic structures in Iran,
then it will not be the first time that Iranians' efforts to
build a democratic system has been setback by foreign intervention.
The last major intervention in Iran was the US-backed coup
detat against the democratically-elected government of Mossadegh
in 1953, followed by 25 years of state terror and repression
that convinced most Iranians that the US did not wish to see
democratic progress in Iran, and gave cause to expressions of
anti-US feelings.
It can be argued that Iran has a stronger
claim to a democratically-elected government than the US. Iran's
President Khatami has been elected by an overwhelming majority
of Iranians for a second term. In contrast, there is some controversy
on whether President Bush won a majority of the votes in the
US election.
President Khatami's efforts to find
common ground between different or opposing international interests,
and his civilising idea of dialogue among civilisations is in
sharp contrast to US's unilateral and militaristic approach
to problem solving. The US even rejects advice from its allies,
such as France and Germany, on a greater reliance on diplomacy
and negotiations.
Furthermore, the label "a rogue
State" levelled at Iran (and generally those who dare to
disregard the US's dictates) is a more fitting description of
the US foreign policy, given its consistent disregard for the
authority of the UN and for international treaties such as the
Koyoto and the ABM. The US was also found guilty, by the International
Court of justice, of effectively terror against another country
in a case brought by Nicaragua.
US-backed regimes in the Middle East
are not particularly well known for their commitments to democratic
development and human rights. Under the Shah, whose regime was
installed and supported by the US, Iranians lived in terror
of his security service.
Iran is now firmly on the learning path
of development of democratic institutions and a pluralistic
culture based on the realities and complexities of its own social
traditions and political history. Iran has a long way to go,
but it is on the right direction. In Iran there are passionate
debates at all levels of the society, and most notably in the
press, the parliament, the government, and the state, between
various forces of conservatism and the progressive forces of
modernisation.
These political forces happen to reflect
the texture and the realities of the Iranian society. These
debates are a necessary learning process as part of the development
of a culture of pluralism and democracy in Iran, a process that
was so often interrupted by those who do not consider a democratic
Iran in their economic interests.
Iran is currently the only model of a
developing democracy in a predominantly Moslem county in the
Middle East and Central Asia. Nowhere else in the Middle East
or Central Asia, other than Iran, people demonstrate for democracy,
because elsewhere in the Middle East the political development
priorities are substantially different from Iran. Previously,
during the Shah there were not demonstrations in Iran for democracy,
because people knew the limitations of the Shah's police state,
and that as a compliant servant of the US interests providing
more democracy, and accountability was not in the Shah's gift.
The development of democratic civil societies
is the key to stability in the Middle East and elsewhere. It
is not a chance coincident that most of the hijackers who crashed
aeroplanes into WTC and Pentagon were Saudi nationals. The
Saudis are a major buyer of expensive weapons. Indeed, the perception
in the Middle East is that the US and its allies install and
support undemocratic regimes in order to continue to stifle
progress, create dependency and sell arms.
The Shah was also a major buyer of expensive
arms at a time when the overwhelming majority of the Iranians
lived in abject poverty and needed basic civil infrastructure
such as roads, electricity and health care. This is seen by
the population as a form of extortion or taxing of the people
of these countries because the trillions of dollars wasted on
arms would deduct from the money that could have been spent
on civil and economic development. These people know that what
they need are schools, universities, hospitals and civil and
democratic infrastructures. Instead, they feel that they have
imposed on them tension, militarism, and war, leading to a deep
sense of frustration, helplessness and ultimately of not having
much to lose and then to such tragedies as those of September
11.
The Bishop of Winchester Michael Scott-Joynt
brilliantly observed that to understand the horrors of September
11 one has to understand that the consequence of military-industrial
economy is to keep the standard of living in the West high at
the expense of the people of the southern hemisphere.
George Bush's new world order is not
any different to the older world orders. It is based on militarism,
bullying, creating tension, and demonstrating that there is
a price to be paid for disobedience, particularly if the disobedience
is rooted in a desire for self-determination and democracy,
as was the case with the US overthrow of Mossadegh. It seems
what is behind the US president's recent verbal attacks on
Iran is his earlier demand for obedience: "You are either
with us or against us".
The US sanctions against Iran, and the
Iran-US mutual distrust are damaging to Iran and to a lesser
extent to the US. Most Iranians wish to have a normal relation
with the US, based on economic and cultural co-operation and
mutual respect. If the US wished to help the Iranian democracy,
it could lift the damaging sanctions, and even make a historic
and symbolic gesture of apologising to Iranians for the well-documented
US-led coup detat of 1953, which was followed by decades of
repression imposed by the US-installed regime of the Shah. The
US knows that its threats will only lead to an increase in tension
and anxiety, further distort US-Iran relations and damage Iran's
democratic development. Iranians need time and space to develop
their economy and their democracy and based on their own model.
Saeed Vaseghi
is a University Professor and lives in London. He can be reached
at: SaeedVaseghi@aol.com
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