Do We Have Ahmadinejad All Wrong?

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Is it possible that Iran's blustering president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, long thought to be a leading force behind some of Iran's most hard-line and repressive policies, is actually a reformer whose attempts to liberalize, secularize, and even "Persianize" Iran have been repeatedly stymied by the country's more conservative factions? That is the surprising impression one gets reading the latest WikiLeaks revelations.

...

In October 2009, Ahamdinejad's chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, worked out a compromise with world power representatives in Geneva on Iran's controversial nuclear program. But the deal, in which Iran agreed to ship nearly its entire stockpile of low enriched uranium to Russia and France for processing, collapsed when it failed to garner enough support in Iran's parliament, the Majles.

According to a U.S. diplomatic cable recently published by WikiLeaks, Ahmadinejad, despite all of his tough talk and heated speeches about Iran's right to a nuclear program, fervently supported the Geneva arrangement, which would have left Iran without enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear weapon. But, inside the often opaque Tehran government, he was thwarted from pursuing the deal by politicians on both the right and the left who saw the agreement as a "defeat" for the country and who viewed Ahmadinejad as, in the words of Ali Larijani, the conservative Speaker of the Majles, "fooled by the Westerners."

Despite the opposition from all sides, Ahmadinajed, we have learned, continued to tout the nuclear deal as a positive and necessary step for Iran.

...

The second revelation from WikiLeaks is even more remarkable. Apparently, during a heated 2009 security meeting at the height of the popular demonstrations roiling Iran in the wake of his disputed reelection, Ahmadinejad suggested that perhaps the best way to deal with the protesters would be to open up more personal and social freedoms, including more freedom of the press. While the suggestion itself seems extraordinary, coming as it does from a man widely viewed by the outside world as the instigating force behind Iran's turn toward greater repression, what is truly amazing about this story is the response of the military brass in the room. According to WikiLeaks, the Revolutionary Guard's Chief of Staff, Mohammed Ali Jafari, slapped Ahmadinejad across the face right in the middle of the meeting, shouting, "You are wrong! It is you who created this mess! And now you say give more freedom to the press?"

Taken together, these revelations paint a picture of Iran's president as a man whose domestic and foreign policy decisions - whether with regard to his views on women's rights or his emphasis on Iran's Persian heritage - are at odds not only with his image in the West but with the views and opinions of the conservative establishment in Iran.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/01/do-we-have-ahmadinejad-all-wrong/69434/

[Jenn! 918]

Interesting.

[Captain Oates 911]

There are two kinds of leaders in the world

1 Someone who agrees with US Policy 100% at all times – these are to be admired and hugged on the White House lawn – eg Tony Bliar

2 Those who show the slightest independence or say the word ‘Israel’ with genuflexing – these are known as enemies

People in category 1 can be demoted – Saddam Hussein was a wonderful man and so was Osama bin Laden and they were both given enormous amounts of weapons and rockets by the US. Both moved from category 1 to category 2 by not staying ‘on message’

People in category 2 cannot be reinstated. I can’t think of one who was. Gaddafi tried and failed.

[scandal 951]

Do We Have Ahmadinejad All Wrong?

No. I've heard him speak directly to the Western press on the subjects of Israel and the Holocaust. He's every bit the demented dangerous misrepresenting antisemitic hater we all know him to be. Nothing moderate or conciliatory about him.

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No. I've heard him speak directly to the Western press on the subjects of Israel and the Holocaust. He's every bit the demented dangerous misrepresenting antisemitic hater we all know him to be. Nothing moderate or conciliatory about him.

The article makes no mention at all of moderation on the subject of Israel. Of course, there is more to him than his stance on Israel and the viewpoint being offered here is that he may be a moderate (by Iranian standards) on other issues (like the student protests).

[Kathryn41 3,205]

To prevent a 'flame war' erupting that will not end nicely I have removed two posts, edited out the racially inflammatory comments from one and returned it to the thread below:

Although Ahmadinejad is nothing more than a mouth piece for the religious fanatics that run Iran, he has made anti semitic speeches in the past...even in front of the UN not to mention he's threatened to wipe Israel off the face of the planet. . . ., Israel is the only power in the middle east that has anything of a democratic institution...

Please do not continue on this line of discussion but remain focused on the topic at hand. Thank you

Edited January 13, 2011 by Kathryn41

[james&olya 1,121]

No. I've heard him speak directly to the Western press on the subjects of Israel and the Holocaust. He's every bit the demented dangerous misrepresenting antisemitic hater we all know him to be. Nothing moderate or conciliatory about him.

I have no idea if this apparent nut-job is really a moderate in nut-job clothing or not. But the fact that he makes whacko speeches about the holocaust, etc, could be consistent with his being a moderate. He would have to have 'street-cred' with his extremely right-wing nut-job religious over-seers and this could be a way to do it and remain in power to bring about change. Seems unlikely but possible.

[alienlovechild 75]

There are two kinds of leaders in the world

1 Someone who agrees with US Policy 100% at all times these are to be admired and hugged on the White House lawn eg Tony Bliar

2 Those who show the slightest independence or say the word Israel with genuflexing these are known as enemies

People in category 1 can be demoted Saddam Hussein was a wonderful man and so was Osama bin Laden and they were both given enormous amounts of weapons and rockets by the US. Both moved from category 1 to category 2 by not staying on message

Pretty simplistic. First off, who's Tony Bliar?

We gave Saddam and Bin Laden lots of weapons? Really, learn that at the gun range? A big man would post some examples of American weapons sold to these characters.

The U.S. diplomatic relations with all but a handful of nations and you don't get an alignment of all issues. The enemies list is pretty short. It's not as black and white as you think.

Iraq is no friend of Israel but the current government is our ally. Venezuela and China are supposed to potential enemies yet we are big economic partners.

Edited January 14, 2011 by alienlovechild

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Pretty simplistic. First off, who's Tony Bliar?

We gave Saddam and Bin Laden lots of weapons? Really, learn that at the gun range? A big man would post some examples of American weapons sold to these characters.

The U.S. diplomatic relations with all but a handful of nations and you don't get an alignment of all issues. The enemies list is pretty short. It's not as black and white as you think.

Iraq is no friend of Israel but the current government is our ally. Venezuela and China are supposed to potential enemies yet we are big economic partners.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein:

The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_war

United States support for Iraq during the Iran–Iraq war

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA-Osama_bin_Laden_controversy

CIA-Osama bin Laden controversy

[alienlovechild 75]

Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein:

The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984

United States support for Iraq during the Iran–Iraq war

CIA-Osama bin Laden controversy

Still waiting on that enormous list of U.S. made weapon systems sold to Iraq.

Most the U.S. support for was intelligence, financial credit and diplomatic which made sense as Iran was a threat to the whole region and the majority of countries were grudgely more pro-Iraq than pro-Iran. We did sell old Hawk SA missiles to Iran though.

"While there was direct combat between Iran and the United States, it is not universally agreed that the fighting between the U.S. and Iran was specifically to benefit Iraq, or for separate, although occurring at the same time, issues between the U.S. and Iran. American ambiguity towards which side to support was summed up by Henry Kissinger when the American statesman remarked that "it's a pity they [iran and Iraq] both can't lose."[62] More than 30 countries provided support to Iraq, Iran, or both. Iraq, in particular, had a complex clandestine procurement network to obtain munitions and critical materials, which, in some transactions, involved 10-12 countries. Also, a number of Arab mercenaries and volunteers from Egypt[63] and Jordan (called the Yarmouk Brigade[64]) participated in the war alongside Iraqis."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War

The story about bin Laden and the CIA — that the CIA funded bin Laden or trained bin Laden — is simply a folk myth. There's no evidence of this. In fact, there are very few things that bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and the U.S. government agree on. They all agree that they didn't have a relationship in the 1980s. And they wouldn't have needed to. Bin Laden had his own money, he was anti-American and he was operating secretly and independently. The real story here is the CIA did not understand who Osama was until 1996, when they set up a unit to really start tracking him.[19]

Bergen quotes Pakistani Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf, who ran the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Afghan operation between 1983 and 1987:

It was always galling to the Americans, and I can understand their point of view, that although they paid the piper they could not call the tune. The CIA supported the mujahideen by spending the taxpayers' money, billions of dollars of it over the years, on buying arms, ammunition, and equipment. It was their secret arms procurement branch that was kept busy. It was, however, a cardinal rule of Pakistan's policy that no Americans ever become involved with the distribution of funds or arms once they arrived in the country. No Americans ever trained or had direct contact with the mujahideen, and no American official ever went inside Afghanistan.[23]

Vincent Cannistraro, who led the Reagan administration's Afghan Working Group from 1985 to 1987, puts it,

The CIA was very reluctant to be involved at all. They thought it would end up with them being blamed, like in Guatemala." So the Agency tried to avoid direct involvement in the war, ... the skittish CIA, Cannistraro estimates, had less than ten operatives acting as America's eyes and ears in the region. Milton Bearden, the Agency's chief field operative in the war effort, has insisted that "[T]he CIA had nothing to do with" bin Laden. Cannistraro says that when he coordinated Afghan policy from Washington, he never once heard bin Laden's name.[26]

Fox News reporter Richard Miniter wrote that in interviewes with the two men who "oversaw the disbursement for all American funds to the anti-Soviet resistance, Bill Peikney - CIA station chief in Islamabad from 1984 to 1986 - and Milt Bearden - CIA station chief from 1986 to 1989 - he found,

Both flatly denied that any CIA funds ever went to bin Laden. They felt so strongly about this point that they agreed to go on the record, an unusual move by normally reticent intelligence officers. Mr. Peikney added in an e-mail to me: “I don’t even recall UBL [bin Laden] coming across my screen when I was there.[27]

Other reasons advanced for a lack of a CIA-Afghan Arab connection of "pivotal importance," (or even any connection at all), was that the Afghan Arabs themselves were not important in the war but were a "curious sideshow to the real fighting."[28]

One estimate of the number of combatants in the war is that 250,000 Afghans fought 125,000 Soviet troops, but only 2000 Arab Afghans fought "at any one time".[29]

According to Milton Bearden the CIA did not recruit Arabs because there were hundreds of thousands of Afghans all too willing to fight. The Arab Afghan were not only superfluous but "disruptive," angering local Afghan with their more-Muslim-than-thou attitude, according to Peter Jouvenal.[30] Veteran Afghan cameraman Peter Jouvenal quotes an Afghan mujahideen as saying "whenever we had a problem with one of them [foreign mujahideen], we just shot them. They thought they were kings."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA-Osama_bin_Laden_controversy

[slim 1,530]

Like Fidel and Hugo, this dude's going to be hung out there for not keeping the US his #1 buddy.

A big man would post some examples of American weapons sold to these characters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA-Osama_bin_Laden_controversy

Wikipedia. The definitive source on international intelligence.

[alienlovechild 75]

Like Fidel and Hugo, this dude's going to be hung out there for not keeping the US his #1 buddy.

Wikipedia. The definitive source on international intelligence.

Fidel and Hugo are still in power and it's pretty unlikely Ahmadinejad will be overthrown by the U.S. as the U.S. has little influence in Iran for the last 30 years.

Ok, Stingers were given to the Afghans but most their stuff was Soviet or Chinese in Afghanistan.

Wikipedia was quoted and I used the same link.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Like Fidel and Hugo, this dude's going to be hung out there for not keeping the US his #1 buddy.

Wikipedia. The definitive source on international intelligence.

Neat thing about wiki...something most people don't see and/or realize...they have links at the bottom of the page in regards to references which can be checked out to see if they are verifiable.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Mahmoud needs a hug. We should send in more hikers.

[mawilson 2,133]

Although Ahmadinejad is nothing more than a mouth piece for the religious fanatics that run Iran, he has made anti semitic speeches in the past...even in front of the UN not to mention he's threatened to wipe Israel off the face of the planet. . . ., Israel is the only power in the middle east that has anything of a democratic institution...

Please do not continue on this line of discussion but remain focused on the topic at hand. Thank you

Ahmadinejad's anti-Israel stance is relevant to the topic at hand.