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Seymour Hersh on US Policy On Iran Comment by Larry Ross, March 5, 2007
Seymour Hersh again warns about the new Middle East strategy of the Bush Administration which has brought it "closer to an open confrontation with Iran and, in parts of the region, propelled it into a widening sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims". He doesn't mention past colonial efforts of the UK and US to dominate Iran and its oil by using the CIA to depose the democratically elected leader of Iran Mossedagh, and replace him with a US puppet the Shah with his dreaded Savak secret police and its torture and assassinations. Finally the 1979 Iranian revolution kicked the Shah and the US out and the new religious government came to power. The Iranians gained control of their own oil resources and their own government. They do not have nuclear weapons or a programme to make them. They could not be a nuclear threat to anyone, yet are surrounded by the nuclear forces of the US and Israel who are threatening to massively bomb them. Both the US and Israel are conducting a huge propaganda and false accusation campaign against Iran . Using false claims and threats, the US has influenced the UN security council to issue a warning to Iran to stop it's nuclear enrichment programme. As a member of the NPT, Iran has a legal right to enrich uranium for power under IAEA inspection. Like all the other nuclear power states, Iran believes it's nuclear enrichment programme is legal and in line with international laws. These points and that the US has no legal, factual or moral basis for attacking Iran and demonising it beforehand, has not been mentioned by Seymour Hersh in his otherwise very excellent and detailed paper on the myriad of influences in the various Middle Eastern nations.
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The Redirection by Seymour M. Hersh,The New Yorker, March 5, 2007
In the past few months, as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated, the Bush Administration, in both its public diplomacy and its covert operations, has significantly shifted its Middle East strategy. The “redirection,” as some inside the White House have called the new strategy, has brought the United States closer to an open confrontation with Iran and, in parts of the region, propelled it into a widening sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia's government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda. |
