The United States recently put Iran “on notice.” National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn stated, “The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate Iran’s provocations that threaten our interests. The days of turning a blind eye to Iran’s hostile and belligerent actions toward the United States and the world community are over.”
This type of dangerous sabre rattling with the Islamic Republic depends on the US media and public accepting the repetition of three “truths” to justify U.S. aggression. Though repeated more than Huxley’s 62,400 times, the “truths” the US peddles should be questioned since they are derived from the fantasy that Iran is expansionist, the US acts rationally, and the Islamic Republic is evil.
The classic case of an American official realizing that long held “truths” needed to be analyzed involves the work of the late U.S. Defense Secretary, Robert McNamara. McNamara left the U.S. government in 1968, but refused to leave the lessons he learned from his service behind, documenting 11 by the time his memoir was published in 1995. Though all are relevant today, one stands out in relation to the current U.S. mindset that has engineered nearly two decades of constant war, and now portends conflict with Iran.
“Our judgment,” McNamara said, “of what is in another people’s or country’s best interest should be put to the test of open discussion in international forums. We do not have the God-given right to shape every nation in our image as we choose.”
If the United States hopes to work diplomatically with Iran to avoid war, it will be imperative to consider McNamara’s statement in light of these perceived American truths.
Truth 1: Iran is expansionist
Although frequently described as an expansionist power, Iran has not actually expanded since the days of Safavid Empire in the 16th century. But this has not stopped US presidents from perpetuating the fiction that Iran is a dangerous expansionist state.
President Bush’s inclusion of Iran in an “Axis of Evil” and President Obama’s threat that if Iran violates the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal “All options are on the table” are clear examples of the aggressive stance the US has taken against the specter of Iranian expansion. But Donald Trump has raised existing tensions by stating, “Iran is playing with fire” and “they don’t appreciate how kind President Obama was to them. Not me!”
Such statements may play well with a US public indoctrinated to believe that the Iranian Revolution of 1979 was born in the bowels of hell rather than a response to US support for the brutal Reza Shah regime, but to many in Iran they are nothing but threats that precede war.
Truth 2: Iran is extremist while the U.S. is rational
Frequent use of terms like “extremist” has served to obfuscate any understanding of what Iran stands for, since the term packs with it a powerful anti-American and uncivilized wallop that is rarely analyzed. This takes on greater significance when one considers the fear trumpeted by U.S. media outlets and public officials that refugees from the US destabilization of the Middle East will infiltrate and destroy western civilization. That the US, not Iran, is responsible for this crisis is somehow incredibly lost amongst assertions that Iran’s goal is to destabilize the region.
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