IRAN - May 14, 2009

Obama is, by superficial considerations, very intelligent and excellently educated. So when he misstates the truth in a matter of great consequence it must be assumed that he is lying. He may have subtle reasons for his untruths, but his integrity on matters of substance cannot be taken for granted. The hostility of US to Iran has its roots in the unwillingness of Premier Mossadeq to sign on to political subservience to DC in the 1950s in the matter of the cold war. As a result, the Dulles brothers (John and Allen) came to Eisenhower as the first act of his administration to get him to ally himself with UK in a plot to overthrow the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953 and install a military dictatorship under the Shah. It was Iran’s only democratic government and the consequences continue to this present day. Thus it has been only one of the governments that have availed themselves of atomic weapons and the pretense that they are outstanding in this matter is a deliberate deception. The truth is available in the public record. At a time when we have are genuinely concerned at our outstanding exposure to the unreliable, atomically armed government of Pakistan we continue to pretend that the desire of other states to atom bombs is a unique defiance of the world’s will (meaning the frequently stated demands of the US in the UN). This is only one of the many instances of the demand of US to be considered ethically flawless and supported by the political myths of the US and the agreement by other states unwilling or unable to demand the truth. We need to deal with Iran on the basis of the record, not the concocted stories our government tells to justify its supposed adherence to principle.