Ignorance, Arrogance, Euro-centrism, or Wonky Diplomacy

by MANDA ZAND-ERVIN March 6, 2013

John Kerry's statement rang like a shot among Iranians inside and outside Iran. "Iran is a country with a government that was elected and has a seat in the United Nations," Kerry said in France, while standing alongside French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. "And it is important for us to deal with nation-states in a way that acts in the best interest of all of us in the world."

Let us deconstruct Kerry's statement:

First, we'll discuss his claim about Iran being a country with a government. Yes, Iran is a country with 2600 years of governments. However, what is in Iran now is not a "government"; it is an old theocratic despotism. It is a regime that is constructed of mafia-like, illiterate and corrupt clerics, protected by a military of thugs and hoodlums.

The second part of Kerry's comment was: "Iran is a country with a government that was elected."  Where was Mr. Kerry during the months of June and July of 2009 when the people of Iran were marching on the streets of Iran every day carrying thousands of placards that were specifically written in English: "WHERE IS MY VOTE?"  Did Mr. Kerrey see Neda Agha-Soltan and dozens of Iranians get killed? Was he paying attention when Iranians chanted over and over again: "Obama, Obama, are you with them, or with us?" The simple and irrefutable fact is that "elections" under the rule of dictators will never be real and free.

When the Voice of America, Persian language reporter asked the-then Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, why she did not support the Iranians' uprising, she responded by saying that: "We were told that Iranians don't want American support!"

Now, the Washington Post's Anne Gearan reports from Egypt that "Political liberals and secular parties resent the U.S. push for them to take part in voting.  They say will further divide the country. They say the U.S. is showing favor to Morsi and Islamists."

Among many modernist Middle Easterners, Mr. Kerry is renowned for his "blame America foreign policy" vis-a-vis Third World anti-American dictators, most of whom are known to have been given a leg up by the Kremlin.

The facts are that the foreign policy of this administration has proven to be anti-human rights, and Mr. Kerry is now getting the chance to put into practice what he has been preaching for decades.

Kerry's third point is: "Iran is a country with a government...that sits in the United Nations". A dictator occupying a seat in the UN does not necessarily mean that it is legitimate. Many ersatz heads of states that are members of UN are dictators, proving the hypocrisy of the United Nations.  

If Hitler were ruling Germany today, the Nazis would have had a seat in the UN as well. The name is United Nations not United Governments and Regimes and it certainly does not in any way represent its nomenclature.

On the forth point, Kerry claims: "And it is important for us to deal with nation-states in a way that acts in the best interests of all of us."  

China may fall under a nation-state definition but not Iran's Khomeinist regime; instead, that is a cause. According to Webster's Dictionary, a cause is: "A principle or movement militantly defended or supported."

A cause does not capitulate to fit the world around it; it endeavors to capitulate the world to fit its own parameters. And that is, quite clearly, the very nature of the Khomeinist regime in Iran.

The question here is what does Mr. Secretary mean by; "...that acts in the best interest of all of us"?  Does "us" include the people of Iran also?  Does that "interest" include the human and civil rights of the people of Iran?

Iran has suffered almost two hundred years of Euro style Imperialism and colonialism, which endured right up to the end of WWII. When the U.S. Secretary of State stands in Europe and declares: "it is important for us to deal with nation-states in a way that acts in the best interests of all of us,"  it sends shivers up the spine of every Iranian who has been counting on America to stand against the very imperialism they fought so hard to root out.

Insulting "the people" has been a favorite policy of this administration.  Oddly, though the Iranian New Year (Norooz) is celebrated on March 20th (observing the Vernal Equinox), this year President Obama put out his New Year's video on February 20^th an entire month too early which just happened to coincide with the days before the European-American-Iranian regime meeting in Kazakistan. 

In his message the president mostly addressed the Mullahs who shun celebration of the Iranian New Year and consider it a pre-Islamic and therefore pagan ritual. Most of the video was spent soliciting results from the Iranian regime, on the Kazakistan negotiations and ignoring Iranians around the world.  

Even Joe Biden whose palsy relationship with Iranian regime lobbyists in DC, is a well-known fact, expresses doubt in the legitimacy of the Iranian elections.  On Meet the Press, the former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs expressed concern about what was going on the streets of Iran.

Both of the new American secretaries of State and Defense, Mr. Kerry and Mr. Hagel, insist that the Iranian regime is "an elected, legitimate government" even when the facts prove otherwise.

A foreign policy of ignoring people and persistently catering to the dictators who state and act on their hatred for America is what makes the U.S. unpopular among the people of the Third World.  This is the policy that will not only not change old enemies, it will turn hundreds of millions of disappointed friends of America into new enemies.