[NYTr] Distorting Fascism to Demonize Iran

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Counterpunch - Nov 29, 2007
http://www.counterpunch.org/hossein11292007.html

A Pretext for War?

Distorting Fascism to Demonize Iran

By ISMAEL HOSSEIN-ZADEH

In their frantic drive to pave the way for a military strike against
Iran, leading figures in the neoconservative pro-Israel lobby have
embarked on a vicious campaign of demonizing that country by comparing
it with the early years of Nazi Germany and its President, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, with Hitler.

These champions of war and militarism are the same trigger happy
characters who helped orchestrate the criminal war against Iraq on the
basis of ghastly lies and criminal fabrications of evidence. Instead of
being held responsible for all of the grisly lies and evidence
manufacturing, they are let loose to once again beat the drums of
war-this time against Iran.

Top among these civilian militarists are Norm Podhoretz, a senior
foreign policy adviser to the Republican frontrunner Rudy Giuliani,
Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman, and the leader of Israel's Likud
Party Benjamin Netanyahu. These are part of the leading members of the
"war party" that include, among others, Vice President Dick Cheney in
the White House and Elliot Abrams in the State Department.

Podhoretz's wild charges of fascism against Ahmadinejad, Iran, and
Islam-at times bordering on delirium and self-parody-are unabashedly
spelled out in his recently published book, "World War IV: the Long
Struggle against Islamofascism." Although Elliot Cohen was the original
author of the concept of World War IV, Norman Podhoretz has been the
major popularizer of the concept. Describing the Cold War as World War
III, he sets out to explain both the rationale for the projected World
War IV and the strategies to win it.

To explain the "looming world conflagration" that is allegedly
predicated on the conduct of militant Islam, he begins by asserting
that "the malignant force of radical Islamism" has as its objective "to
conquer our land" and to destroy "everything good for which America
stands." After a long and discursive detailing of how and why Islam is
incompatible with progress and modernization, and how it therefore
poses a serious threat to Western values, he then argues that, "to fend
off the menace of militant Islam," the United States needs to
resolutely engage in a long, drawn out war in the Muslim world that can
be called World War IV.[1]

Benjamin Netanyahu has also frequently called upon the Bush
administration to launch a military strike against Iran on the grounds
that, "like Nazi Germany," it is a menace to world peace: "It's 1938
and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic
bombs. . . . Believe him [Ahmadinejad] and stop him. . . . This is what
we must do. Everything else pales before this." While the Iranian
president "denies the Holocaust," Netanyahu said, "he is preparing
another Holocaust for the Jewish state."[2]

Senator Lieberman's characterization of Ahmadinejad as being another
Hitler is somewhat subtle and indirect: "I'm proud that I co-sponsored
that bipartisan resolution calling for regime change in Iran because
there are some leaders you can't negotiate with. Look at what
Ahmadinejad has said. History reminds us in the case of Hitler and
Osama bin Laden that they said exactly what they ultimately did. . . .
We need to be working with people in Iran, who hate this government, to
help them overthrow it."[3]

Anyone even faintly familiar with the socio-economic and historical
characteristics of fascism would dismiss these wild accusations and
characterizations of Iran as bogus. Ahmadinejad differs from Hitler on
a number of major grounds.

To begin with, Ahmadinejad is known as a grassroots leader or fighter,
not an agent or collaborator of big business, as would be the case with
fascist or fascistic figures and characters. Indeed, he came to power
by challenging and running against the presidential candidate of big
business, whereas fascist leaders like Hitler or Mussolini were
promoted by big business.

Second, Hitler represented an expansionist imperial power. By contrast,
Ahmadinejad (and the Iranian government in general) represent an
anti-imperialist challenge or force in the Middle East that harbors no
expansionist ambitions or territorial claims.

Third, Hitler was an unrivaled and unchallenged dictator. He had
complete monopoly of power; not only commanding the German armed
forces, but also controlling all the branches of government and,
indeed, the entire German society. By contrast, Ahmadinejad is not a
dictator; he is an elected president without much power. The real power
rests with the "Supreme Leader," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is
commander in chief of all of Iran's armed forces. Khamenei has the
final say on all major foreign policy issues.

Ahmadinejad is also constantly and relentlessly challenged by both the
parliament and the Judiciary. For example, the legislature rejected
more than two-thirds of his recommendations for ministers, which meant
that it took nearly a year before his cabinet was fully staffed.

As intelligent and educated individuals, Lieberman, Podhoretz,
Netanyahu and their neoconservative cohorts must certainly be aware of
these glaring differences between Hitler and Ahmadinejad, or between
today's Iran and the late 1930s Nazi Germany.

So, why are they disregarding such obvious differences and deliberately
obfuscating the historic characteristics of fascism?

The answer is clear: they want to justify another war of aggression, a
military strike against Iran.

The more fundamental question, however, is why do they want to attack
Iran?

The answer, in a nutshell, is that the pro-Israel lobby is determined
to eliminate any and all obstacles to the continued occupation of the
Palestinian land. And since the lobby views Iran as one of those
obstacle, it is therefore driven to demonize that country as the next
target of a military strike. All other publicly stated or implied
reasons such as national interests, democratic ideals, Iran's nuclear
technology, and the like are simply harebrained pretexts for achieving
this overriding goal.

There are, of course, additional factors or forces behind the drive to
attack Iran. For example, President Bush and the neoconservative
handlers of his administration hope that, by accusing Iran of arming
the Iraqi insurgents, they can blame their disastrous failure in Iraq
on Iran. They also hope that by expanding the war to Iran they can
stifle or preempt calls for accountability and/or impeachment of those
responsible for the illegal war on Iraq.

Another driving force behind the plan to attack Iran is the armaments
lobby and the powerful Pentagon contractors who view the extension of
war to Iran as an unmistakable expansion of their economic fortunes.
President Bush's neoconservative policies of war and militarism have
been a boon for the arms industry and related businesses of war
profiteering.

It is obvious, then, that the major forces behind the war juggernaut
against Iran are driven not by the interests of the American people or
"national interests," as the champions of war and militarism claim, but
by some powerful special interests that converge on war and political
convulsion in the Middle East: the economic interests of the armaments
lobby and the geopolitical interests of the pro-Israel lobby.

Since the interests of these two highly influential forces converge on
war and international conflicts in the Middle East, they often play
into each others hand in their pursuit of war and militarism in the
region. More importantly, however, they also coordinate their politics
and/or policy agendas to influence U.S. foreign in the area.[4]

Although there is no formal alliance between these two powerful forces,
their collaboration can often be seen through their identical views of
U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Institutionally, this de facto
collaboration is carried out through a number of militaristic think
tanks such as Project for the New American Century, the American
Enterprise Institute, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs,
Center for Security Policy, Middle East Media Research Institute,
Middle East Forum, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and
National Institute for Public Policy.

A closer look at the records of these militaristic think tanks shows
that they are set up to essentially serve as institutional fronts to
camouflage the dubious relationship between the Pentagon, its major
contractors, and the Israeli lobby, on the one hand, and the
war-mongering neoconservative politicians, on the other. Major
components of the Bush administration's foreign policy, including the
war on Iraq and the plans to strike Iran, have been designed largely at
the drawing boards of these think thanks.[5]

It is ironic-indeed, tragic-that hardline Zionist leaders, who
constantly (and rightly so) remind us to not forget the atrocities of
fascism, so callously distort the socio-economic and historical
characteristics of fascism in order to use it in the service of their
short-sighted and misguided agenda for the Middle East. They hope-in
vain-that they can permanently keep the occupation of the Palestinian
land by force, and that by destroying Iran and/or other opponents of
occupation the Palestinian question would somehow go away. Yet, as the
late Albert Einstein put it, peace can be achieved only by
understanding, not force.

Calling Ahmadinejad and/or Iran fascist is even more ironic (it is, in
fact, a perfect case of chutzpah) in light of the fact that the
expansionist policies of unilateral aggression promoted by the leading
figures of Neoconservatism are more akin to Hitler's policies of
unprovoked invasion of other countries than is Iran's foreign policy,
which respects the sovereignty of its neighbors and harbors no
territorial ambition or military aggression against any country.

Neoconservative champions of war and militarism often use terms and
adjectives such as fascist or Hitler to characterize opponents of
US-Israeli policies in the Middle East in order to justify their agenda
of "regime change" in the region. Such wanton or opportunistic use of
political rhetoric for nefarious political purposes represents a gross
misreading of social structures and historical developments.

Fascism cannot be defined or characterized capriciously; it is a
specific historical category that evolves out of particular
socio-economic circumstances or structures. It cannot be haphazardly
applied to any socio-economic system or political leader that is at
odds with the neoconservative agenda of regime change in the Middle
East.

Nor can fascism be reduced to the "sins" of political personas and
individual leaders of Nazi Germany, or the pathological problems of
Hitler's mind. While simplistic or obfuscationist judgments of this
sort may succeed in dressing in the uniform of Adolf Hitler the
horrific acts that the capitalist system can occasionally perform, such
reductionist judgments would not be very useful for the purposes of
averting social conditions that may lead to the recurrence of fascism.

Hitler was not any more responsible for the rise of fascism in Europe
than is President George W. Bush for the rise of neoconservative
militarists in the United States, or for the control of U.S. foreign
policy in the Middle East by the representatives of the
military-industrial-Likud interests.

Some friendly critics attribute the aggressive militaristic policies of
militant Zionism to the traumatic memories of fascism and the attendant
brutalities that were committed against Jewish people. Thus, political
commentator Jim Lobe writes, for example, "the horrific experience of
European Jewry in the twentieth century, culminating as it did with the
Nazi Holocaust, is critical to understanding the neoconservative
mindset."[6]

While this may explain radical Zionists' "mindset" and their policies
of unilateral militarism, it does not justify their plans of war and
"regime change" in the Middle East. Palestinians and other Arab/Muslim
people had nothing to do with the Nazi Holocaust. That these peoples
have been subjected to horrendous punishment for the crimes committed
by others simply defies logic-let alone any sense of justice.

Hard-line Zionist ideologues like Lieberman, Podhoretz, Netanyahu and
their cohorts in the misguided pro-Israel lobby, who sloppily coin
terminologies such as Hitler or fascism in reference to the opponents
of their policies of aggression, are misrepresenting fascism, drawing
wrong lessons from it, and punishing the wrong people for its crimes.
With friends like these fanatical Zionists, the Jewish people need no
enemies!

References:

[1] Norman Podhoretz, "World War IV: How It Started, What It Means, and
Why We Have to Win," Commentary (September 2004).
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/podhoretz.htm

[2] Evan Derkacz, "Netanyahu cries: "Hitler! Hitler! Hitler!"
November 17, 2006 http://www.alternet.org/story/44439

[3] Joseph Lieberman in Connecticut 2006 Senate general campaign Debate,
http://www.ontheissues.org/Archive/CT_Senate_2006_Joseph_Lieberman.htm

[4] Ismael Hossein-zadeh, The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism
(Palgrave-Macmillan 2007).

[5] Ibid.

[6] Jim Lobe, "New Book Attacks Neo-Cons from the Right," August 5,
2004. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0805-04.htm


[Ismael Hossein-zadeh is a professor of economics at Drake University,
Des Moines, Iowa. He is the author of the newly published book, The
Political Economy of U.S. Militarism. His Web page is
http://www.cbpa.drake.edu/hossein-zadeh ]