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Fri. Dec 03, 2004

Mixed Iranian Messages

You’d think that an “authority” that claims a religious mandate wouldn’t have such problems with the truth. You’d think they would feel silly, maybe even ashamed, to make such transparent lies. But in the case of Iran, you’d be wrong. The are the Masters of Mixed Messages.

Take their current opinion on the Arab TV network, Al Jazeera:

At the beginning of the U.S. attack on Afghanistan, Al-Jazeera became the tribune of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorist groups in order to give the world the impression that those terrorists represented real Islam.

In addition, since the occupation of Iraq began, ethnic tension has risen and there have been clashes between Iraqi Sunnis and Shias, partly due to the efforts of Al-Jazeera.

By broadcasting abhorrent scenes of the beheadings of foreign hostages by the criminal agents of the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi terrorist group, the network succeeded in increasing anti-Muslim sentiment throughout the world, particularly in the West.

Tehran Times: Al-Jazeera’s Psyops

A surprisingly rational view (if you can ignore they story’s subtext that Al Jazeera is really run by Zionists). Therefore, it’s a bit difficult to understand how, on the one hand, the broadcast of the murder of Westerners in Iraq is bad for Islam, while on the other hand, you can go to a cemetery in Tehran and sign up for suicide attacks in Iraq today:

Some 200 masked young men and women gathered at a Tehran cemetery Thursday to pledge their willingness to carry out suicide bomb attacks against Americans in Iraq and Israelis.

The ceremony was organized by the Headquarters for Commemorating Martyrs of the Global Islamic Movement, a shadowy group that has since June been seeking volunteers for attacks in Iraq and Israel.

Sunday, Iran’s deputy interior minister for security affairs told reporters the movement had no official sanction and said such groups could operate only “as long as their ideas are limited to theory.” The group, though, has the backing of some prominent hard-line Iranian politicians.

CBC: 200 pledge willingness to carry out suicide attacks against Americans, Israelis

How can a government speak out against the promotion of such acts by outsiders, yet allow similar preparations for murder in their own capitol? Here’s a clue. How does the Al Jazeera story begin? “The Al-Jazeera network’s recent insult of the Iranian nation was totally unacceptable. The Arabic network, which broadcasts its programs from the little Arab country Qatar, has recently posted an insulting cartoon about the Islamic Republic of Iran on its English site.”

They’re not upset about the broadcast of beheadings, that’s not the lead. They’re pissed about … a cartoon.

Which somehow seems entirely fitting, since they’ve been behaving like a bad cartoon character for some time now. When it comes to their nuclear ambitions, they make Boris Badenov look positively subtle. They continue to claim that they simply want to generate electricity, but they blow their cover when “the Iranian parliament voted to resume nuclear-enrichment activities, with some members chanting, ‘Death to America.’”

Ah, now I understand. They need a nuclear plant to power 250 million electric chairs.

The foreshadowing here is so heavy handed that a novelist who tried it would be laughed out of the business. Here we have a “government,” one of the Axis of Evil, that many believe is trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction. They, of course, claim complete innocence, and that the “Death to America” chants are due to the current epidemic of Tourette’s syndrome in their capitol.

Meanwhile, back at the UN, our Eurobuddies have cast their diplomatic nets, and thought they had snared the beast in a web of inspections. Until the beast commented, “A top Iranian official has claimed a ‘great victory’ over the US after the UN said it would not punish Iran’s nuclear activities with sanctions. Hassan Rohani said Iran would never give up its right to nuclear power. He stressed during talks with European countries Iran’s freeze on uranium enrichment was only temporary.”

But wait, there’s more (emphasis mine):

Iran, which insists its nuclear programme is solely for electricity generation, earlier this week escaped possible U.N. Security Council economic sanctions after agreeing to freeze all activities which could be used to make bomb-grade material.

But several military sites inspectors would like to inspect are legally off-limits to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which only has clear rights to visit facilities declared to it as nuclear sites.

One U.N. diplomat described it as “depressing” that the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an Iranian exile group with a history of revealing hidden nuclear sites in Iran, said recently that Lavizan II was a secret atomic weapons site and then days later reported it was being stripped clean.

Diplomats and weapons experts said the IAEA inspection process had been dealt a severe blow this week when France, Britain and Germany gave in to Iranian demands that a clause demanding Iran grant the IAEA “unrestricted access” to sites in Iran be removed from a draft resolution.

Reuters: Reuters AlertNet – UN lacks right to inspect sites in Iran-diplomats

And so it would appear that the multilateral approach has created a mechanism that has actually made things worse (Oil-for-Food, anyone?). Meanwhile, the Bush administration is severely pooh-poohing the whole process, and muttering about putting up the carrots and getting out the stick.

Haven’t we seen this movie before?