Open any Western newspaper and you are struck by the abundant use of the word “diplomacy”. It is the second most used word after “democracy”. However, careful analysis shows that U.S. version of diplomacy has become the favourite smokescreen of the U.S. war of aggression. Iraq and Iran provide the best cases.
In relation to Iran, the Bush Administration alleges that it is using “diplomacy” to convince Iran to give up her rights to nuclear technology. President Bush frequently says that “we are working with our European allies” to use diplomacy to avert a nuclear impasse with Iran. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that a “diplomatic solution” will be found to the Iranian nuclear crisis. The reality is the opposite. By accusing Iran of intending to manufacture nuclear weapons, the U.S. and its European vassals are using so-called “diplomacy” to coerce as many nations as possible to report Iran to the UN Security Council and pave the way for sanctions and most likely a war of aggression against Iran.
The U.S. version of diplomacy is accompanied by a vicious propaganda campaign to demonise and portray the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad in a very unfavourable way. Western mainstream media, led by the New York Times, the BBC and the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), have fabricated allegations against President Ahmedinejad. They allege that President Ahmedinejad denied the Jewish holocaust took place and threatened to “wipe Israel off the map”. In fact, none of President Ahmedinejad’ speeches (in Farsi) contain anything close to what has been magnified.
However, without any proof, Western leaders, led by Bush and Blair, Western journalists and the intellectual elites were quick to take advantage of the lie and unashamedly use it to justify their attacks on the Iranian President. The cliché of “anti-Semitism” provided the perfect bullying tool not only for the Israeli government but also for those who follow in their footsteps. (See Fikentscher & Neumann). President Ahmedinejad is now threatened with assassination by Israeli-sponsored state terrorism. The threat against a democratically elected head of state passed without condemnation in Western capitals.
Furthermore, President Ahmedinejad was democratically elected and he cannot be considered as a Western-imposed “tyrant” or a “dictator”. Iran had a democracy from 1951-1953 before the U.S.-staged a coup d’etat against Prime Minister Muhammad Mossadeq and imposed the vicious dictatorship of the Shah on Iran. The U.S. version of “democracy” is a colonial dictatorship masked with fraudulent elections.
Iran has made numerous diplomatic efforts to address the various issues. While accusing Iran of aspiring to produce nuclear weapons, the U.S. turns blind eye to Israel’s violence against the Palestinian people, Israeli threats in the region and to Israeli’s huge arsenal of nuclear weapons. Other countries such as Australia, Brazil and Japan, all have advanced nuclear programs ready to produce nuclear weapons within short notice. It seems, the U.S. has become obsessed with Muslim’s independent development, and prefers to keep Muslim nations under its imperialist thumb.
The Iran nuclear issue is nothing more and nothing less than a pretext used by the U.S. against Iran. The current U.S.-engineered crisis is reminiscent of the fabricated pretext of Weapons of Mass Destructions (WMDs) that the U.S. used to instigate a war of aggression against Iraq. Iran is signatory to the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and has the rights to acquire nuclear technology for peaceful use. Indeed, the NPT encourages other nations to assist Iran in its quest for nuclear technology. However, this doesn’t stop the U.S. from accusing Iran of “aspiring” to possess WMDs and interfering in Iran’s domestic affairs; instead, the U.S. rejects diplomacy and continues to beat the drums of war. The alleged threat posed by Iran is a falsehood. An attack on Iran would be an unprovoked act of aggression in violations of international laws.
Throughout the history of US imperialism, the U.S. has always concentrated its war propaganda on one individual in the target nation. For example presidents Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein and Hugo Chávez are made the epitomes of hatred. They are demonised to the highest point in order to make the American people feel obliged to support war against the target nation. The U.S. creates an illusion that the native population are suffering and helpless, and they need “our” help. As American author Stephen Kinzer writes; “Americans love to have a demon, a certain person who is the symbol of all the evil and tyranny in the regime that we want to attack”. For example, Saddam has become synonymous with evil and provided justification to commit greater evil against the people of Iraq. The U.S. Administration writes Kinzer, “play[s] on the American compassion to achieve support for interventions” and commits war crimes against the Iraqi people.
In 1991, the U.S. rejected every peaceful proposal to resolve the Kuwait-Iraq crisis. The U.S. flatly rejected all proposals advanced by Yugoslavia, the USSR, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, France, Jordan and Iraq. Instead, the U.S. used the diplomacy of coercion to bribe those who voted for the war and punished those nations who insisted on diplomacy. At the end, Kuwait was just a pretext for premeditated mass murder and gross war crimes against the Iraqi people. The war followed by 13-years-long criminal sanctions that needlessly killed more than 1.6 million Iraqi civilians, a third of them were children under the age of five years old.
For more than 13 years, the U.S. rejected all diplomatic solutions to end its war on the Iraqi people. Annoyed by the severity of the sanctions, France and Russia introduced a peaceful resolution to end the sanctions against Iraq in return for continued Iraq’s cooperation regarding WMDs, but the resolution was vetoed by the U.S. In March 2003 and after outright rejections of all diplomatic solutions, the U.S. illegally invaded Iraq on the pretext – non-existence – of WMDs. Since then, U.S. forces and mercenaries have indiscriminately killed – in cold blood – hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi men women and children. In addition to the deliberate and planned destruction of Iraq as a functioning state, the U.S. is turning Iraq into purely sectarian state and encouraging the erosion of Iraqi national identity that prevailed throughout Iraq’s history.
Furthermore, the U.S. continues to occupy Iraq against the wishes of the majority of the Iraqi people. The U.S. is also continues to impose a victor (American) culture on the Iraqi people. In addition, the U.S. is denying Iraqis their democratic rights by imposing (by force) a puppet regime or a façade – consists of a collection of thugs and criminals – programmed to serve U.S. corporate interests.
Like the U.S. version of “democracy”, the U.S. version of “diplomacy”, has become the favourite smokescreen for U.S. foreign policy. There can be no doubt that democracy is the perfect alibi for state repressive powers. It is used to serve U.S. corporate interests. The U.S. version of “democracy” in Iraq meant to ignite war and bloodshed. Iran must be encouraged to reject U.S. diktats and pursue her own development for the benefit of the Iranian people.
While the U.S. and its European vassals pretend to solve the Iranian nuclear crisis through “diplomacy”, they are embarking on a path that leads only to a war of aggression against Iran. Resistance to U.S. imperialism through peaceful struggle is the only way to stop U.S. aggression and violence.
Global Research Contributing Editor Ghali Hassan lives in Perth, Western Australia.
