Iran: Electronic Warfare Versus the Islamic Republic
Iran's political crisis continues to blaze. It's still impossible to say which leaders or factions will emerge victorious. However, one thing seems certain: the earthquake in the Islamic Republic that is shaking the Mideast and deeply confusing everyone, including the US government, is hardly the black and white morality drama between democracy and repression breathlessly portrayed by Western media.
A prime indicator of the complexity of the Iranian crisis was provided by the head of Israel's intelligence agency, Meir Dagan. The Mossad director reportedly expressed his hope that Iran's embattled president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, would remain in office.
On the surface, that sounds absurd, since Ahmadinejad is Israel's Great Satan, the man that supporters of Israel claim intends to inflict a second Holocaust on the Jewish people.
According to Dagan, if Ahmadinejad's supposedly "moderate" rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi, came to power, it would be harder for Israel to keep up its intense propaganda war against Iran over its nuclear program even when prime minister, Mousavi championed Iran's nuclear development.
That recalls Yasser Arafat's quip that the only reason Israel had not assassinated him was that he looked so ugly, and thus served as a wonderfully negative stereotype of Palestinians.
Besides, added the veteran Mossad chief, the devil you know is better. What new devils might emerge from the wreckage of the Islamic Republic if it falls?
Meanwhile, we have been watching an intensifying western propaganda campaign against Iran, mounted by the US and British governments. We almost exclusively hear highly colored commentary and analysis that comes from bitterly anti-regime Iranian exiles, `experts' with an ax to grind, and US neocons yearning for war with Iran. Wishful thinking and cheerleading has largely supplanted news reporting in the American and British media.
In viewing the Muslim world, Westerners keep listening to those who make a profession of telling them what they want to hear, rather than the facts. We are at it again in Iran.
President Barack Obama's properly stated he would refrain from being seen to "meddle" in Iran's internal affairs in spite of calls by hard-line Republicans for American action - whatever that might be.
Obama also did the right thing by apologizing for the US/British coup that overthrew Iran's democratic Mossadegh government in 1953, for which Iranians are still furious. They also bitterly resent the West for Britain's invasion of Persia in 1941, and Anglo-American encouragement and support of Saddam Hussein's aggression against Iran in 1980 that caused one million Iranian casualties.
But Obama's pledge of non-interference is not the whole story. Washington has been attempting to overthrow Iran's Islamic government since the 1979 revolution and has lately accelerated such efforts.
The US has laid economic siege to Iran for 30 years, blocking desperately needed foreign investment, preventing technology transfers, and disrupting Iranian trade. In recent years, the US Congress voted $120 million for anti-regime media broadcasts into Iran, and $60-75 million funding opposition parties, violent underground Marxists like the Mujahidin-i-Khalq, and restive ethnic groups like Azeris, Kurds, and Arabs under the so-called `Iran Democracy Program.'
The arm of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, remains withered from a bomb planted by the US-backed Mujahidin-i-Khalq, who were once on the US terrorist list.
Pakistani intelligence sources put CIA's current spending on "black operations" to subvert Iran's government at $400 million.
According to an ABC News investigation, President George Bush signed a "finding" that authorized an accelerated campaign of subversion against the Islamic Republic. Washington's goal was "regime change" in Tehran and installation of a pro-US regime of former Iranian royalist exiles.
While the majority of protests we see in Tehran are genuine and spontaneous, Western intelligence agencies and media are playing a key role in sustaining the uprising and providing communications, including the newest electronic method, via Twitter. These are covert techniques developed by US intelligence during recent "flower" revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia that brought pro-US governments to power.
The Tehran government made things worse by limiting foreign news reports and arresting prominent politicians. Its leadership is increasingly - and dangerously - split over how to handle the protests. For the first time, some senior regime supporters are backing charges of vote-rigging.
We also hear a flood of hypocrisy from Western capitals. Washington, London and Paris piously accused Iran of improper electoral procedures while utterly ignoring the total lack of democracy in their authoritarian Mideast allies such as Egypt, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia, that never hold elections and throw political opponents into prison and torture them. Compared to them, Iran, for all its faults, is almost model of democratic governance.
The US, France and Saudi Arabia just cooperated to rig Lebanon's recent elections, dishing out millions in bribe money to ensure victory of the pro-US faction. The US and Britain staunchly backed and financed Pakistan's recent military dictatorship. Those Pakistanis opposing it were often branded, "terrorists."
France's President Nicolas Sarkozy had the chutzpah to rebuke Iran for improper election procedures after returning from the funeral of Gabon's dictator, Omar Bongo, a key French ally who had ruled for 41 years and supplied France with cheap oil.
When Hamas won a fair and square democratic election in Gaza, the US and Israel swiftly moved to mount a coup against the new Palestinian government.
US senators, led by John McCain, blasted Iran for not respecting human rights. That's pretty rich after Republicans and many Democrats just voted to bar the public release of ghastly torture photos from US prisons in Iraq, and want other secret CIA prisons kept open.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the dimmest bulbs in the weak-wattage Republican ranks, called for US intervention in Iran. Graham was one of the arch supporters of the Iraq fiasco and remains a proud defender of torture. Let's air assault the warlike senator into downtown Tehran.
There are many questions about Iran's vote, of which incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won by 60%. Voter turnout was an amazing 84%, putting to shame the US and Europe, where less than half of voters exercise their right. Pre-election polls that showed Ahmadinejad headed for a big win were right. All those foreigners praying for his defeat and the collapse of the Islamic government were deeply disappointed.
But it also appears there were significant -though as far as we so far know - not decisive irregularities. Iran's government has admitted that some ballot boxes were stuffed, and the speaker of the Majils (parliament), the capable Ali Larijani, rebuked certain unnamed clerics for trying to rig results. This was extremely stupid, as Ahmadinejad was way ahead in pre-election polls anyway, and very popular.
Washington is in a quandary. President Obama sincerely wants to enter into talks with Iran over its nuclear program and try to convince Tehran to give up enrichment. But hardliners in his cabinet and Congress are urging Obama to seize the opportunity to further destabilize Iran.
Bad idea. A stable Iran is essential to a stable Mideast. Mossad chief Dagan knows what he's talking about. US and British efforts to subvert Iran's government could yet blow up in our faces. And do we really need another monster crisis after "liberating" Afghanistan, and Iraq, or after the messes in Pakistan and Palestine?
Meanwhile, other Mideast nations allied to the US will look at Iran and conclude that giving any democratic rights can be downright dangerous and must be avoided at all costs.
After all, it may also be possible to use cell phone and the Internet to rouse crowds of protesters in Cairo, Amman, Casablanca and Riyadh, all pillars of the US Mideast Raj. Or even in Tunisia, whose military leader won his last "election" with 94.5% of the vote, to Washington's hearty approval.
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Excuse me, but this just boggles my mind..."no
"There are many questions about Iran's vote, of which incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won by 60%. Voter turnout was an amazing 84%, putting to shame the US and Europe, where less than half of voters exercise their right. Pre-election polls that showed Ahmadinejad headed for a big win were right. All those foreigners praying for his defeat and the collapse of the Islamic government were deeply disappointed.
But it also appears there were significant -though as far as we so far know - not decisive irregularities. "
Western intelligence agencies and media are playing a key role in sustaining the uprising and providing communications, including the newest electronic method, via Twitter. These are covert techniques developed by US intelligence during recent "flower" revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia that brought pro-US governments to power.
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So Twitter is just a clever CIA front? AHA!
Agents of the CIA have talked on the phone, just like everyone else, for years. That doesn't mean the phone companies are CIA fronts.
The claim isn't that Twitter is a CIA front. The claim is that Twitter is now being used by the CIA. I'm sure it is: the CIA still exists and Twitter is an obvious place to bury covert-com
"While the majority of protests we see in Tehran are genuine and spontaneous, Western intelligence agencies and media are playing a key role in sustaining the uprising and providing communications, including the newest electronic method, via Twitter."
Excuse me, but how exactly do you know what fraction of protests are or are not genuine? Do you have any evidence at all that even a single protest is NOT genuine? Do you have some magical source, or are you just BS'ing and hoping your position of authority will suffice?
I dare you to make such a comment to the face of someone who was beaten at a protest.
And since when is social networking run by Western intelligence agencies?
I do appreciate seeing a somewhat different bias than many I've heard. But that is overshadowed by comments like the one above that are absurd and demeaning. And really, you present more of a jumble of assertions and facts than a reasoned argument.
Excuse me for not getting it. Of course we have a "western propaganda campaign" against the Iranian theocratic government. Of course the media nitwits like a morality play. But those truths have almost nothing to do with the electronic revolution that is delivering the atrocities in Iran to the whole world's screens. This revolution is a visceral one, and one that is evoking visceral responses from China, Venezuela, Pakistan, wherever. It's not about Washington's geopolitical interests. Are we as viewers --- Obama and the State Department have separate tasks, which they are doing well enough --- supposed to be so tactical that we don't respond because Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Morocco have even more murderous governments? You're mistaking a basic human response for a propaganda campaign.
Interesting blog. It sheds lite on reality and how the big news media spin it to their favor. The current Iranian Rev. is wonderful and terrible to watch at the same time because as an American, I identify with the crowd's anger against the vote-rigging. I am haunted by the death of Neda and others that I saw on youtube videos.
I hope Prez Obama will do the right thing and stay out of the current revolution and just trust whatever happens, hopefully better times and days could be possible.
"Iran's government has admitted that some ballot boxes were stuffed?"
You win $10,1000 from Mr Naiman. Just provide the reference.
http://www
When the Iran story first broke I stated that it would take 2 or 3 days for the alternative sites to weigh in on the story. Eric Margolis writes for some of those sites.
This article gives a different point of view which is needed to understand the Iranian election issue.
Thank you HP for including Eric's point of view.
x 2
I was right from the beginning on June 13... Your post Sir, gives credence to my points and convinces me that I read the situation in Iran better than the "experts" you so well put in quotation marks, including those at CIA, Pentagon, Congress, White House... and the exiled former Iranian disgraced royalists (Ahmed Chalabi, anyone?).
It's just a matter of time before this blows up in our face. Wait till the dust settles in Iran and watch the mother of all violence escalate in the middle east. I hope the President knows better and does not cave in to... well those who want to see McDonald's, Popeyes... joints all over Tehran, and Shell, Texaco, Exxon-Mobi
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