Who would seriously believe that Donald Trump or any US administration really care about the Iranian people?
Lots
of Western commentators who are posturing about being concerned about
human rights in Iran are people in think tanks funded by other
dictatorships and repressive tyrants in the same region.
Speaking
to DemocracyNow,
Glenn Greenwald exposes
the enormous hypocrisy of the US and its Western allies by pretending
that they care about the human rights in Iran. He explains clearly
why someone should be extremely naive to believe such a thing.
Greenwald
reveals that the State
Department itself, through a leaked memo, admits that human rights is
not actually something the US government believes in. It is just a
pretext that is used for undermining foreign governments that don’t
serve US interests.
Also,
he points out that lots of Western commentators who are posturing
about being concerned about human rights in Iran are people in think
tanks funded by other dictatorships and repressive tyrants in the
same region. Specifically, the Brookings Institution is funded with
tens of millions of dollars by the government of Qatar, and, one of
the biggest funders of the Center for American Progress, is the
government of the United Arab Emirates.
Greenwald
finally explains why it matters someone to concern about the real
motives of the US and allies to intervene in other countries. We can
see what happened in Libya for example. On the pretext of liberating
Libyans from an authoritarian regime, the US delivered a country in
absolute chaos.
Key
points:
We
have to comment on the posture of the United States government and
Western governments in terms of foreign policy and how they’re
responding to the events in Tehran.
It’s
worth remembering that for a long time it has been the top item on
the foreign policy agenda of lots of factions to have regime change
in Iran. Going back to 2005, 2006, the neocon slogan, after they
toppled Saddam Hussein, was “real men go to Tehran.” They were
really most eager to facilitate regime change in Iran. And so,
there’s a lot of interest in terms of agitating for instability
in Iran from people who are pretending to care about the Iranian
people, but who actually couldn’t care less about the Iranian
people.
Donald
Trump tweeted his grave concern for the welfare of Iranians. This is
the same president who, not more than three months ago, announced a
ban on Iranians from coming to the United States. He is somebody who
has aligned with the world’s worst, most savage dictators,
including in Saudi Arabia and other places around the world. Lots
of Western commentators who are posturing about being concerned about
human rights in Iran are people in think tanks funded by other
dictatorships and repressive tyrants in the same region.
We
ought to be extremely skeptical when it comes to people like Donald
Trump or people in Washington think tanks pretending that they’re
wanting to intervene in Iran out of concern for human rights or for
the welfare of the Iranian people. When it comes to foreign policy,
the best thing we can hope for, is that the United States stays out
of what is a matter of political dispute inside Iran.
The
centerpiece of US foreign policy, really in the wake of World War II
through the Cold War, and then even with the fall of the Soviet
Union, has been to align with and to embrace and to support
dictators, tyrants and repressive regimes, as long as they serve the
interests of the United States. So, anybody in their right mind
who ever takes seriously pronouncements from official Washington that
they’re motivated by anger over repression or a defense of the
political rights of people in other countries is incredibly naive at
best, to put that generously.
There
was an amazing leak that Politico published, which was a State
Department memo written to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that
explicitly said what has been long obvious, but usually isn’t put
into words so clear, that human rights is not actually something
the U.S. government believes in. It is a cudgel that it
uses to undermine and bash countries that don’t serve its
interests. They use denunciations of human rights abuses to undermine
and weaken governments that are contrary to their agenda, like in
Iran, while at the same time, this memo said they overlook and even
sanction repressive behavior on the part of their allies.
And
it goes beyond the Trump administration. If you look at how official
Washington works in terms of, say, the leading think tanks in
Washington, the Brookings Institution, for example, which has
become incredibly popular among liberals in the Trump era, is funded
with tens of millions of dollars by the government of Qatar, one of
the most repressive regimes on the planet. The Center for American
Progress, which is probably the leading Democratic Party think tank
in the United States, is funded in—one of their biggest funders is
the government of the United Arab Emirates.
So,
when you hear people like that or people in the Trump
administration, who have aligned themselves with the world’s most
savage dictators for decades, who are funded by tyrants, pretend that
what they’re motivated by is a desire to liberate people from
oppression, you should instantly know that there are other agendas
going on.
And
the reason that matters so much it’s not just we’re exposing
hypocrisy or deceit. It’s because what someone’s motives are,
when they intervene in the affairs of other countries, determines the
outcome. Look what happened in Libya, where people like Anne-Marie
Slaughter and Hillary Clinton and John Kerry pretended to be
motivated by the interest of the Libyan people. Once Gaddafi was
killed and was removed from office, which was what the real goal was,
everybody forgot about Libya, allowed Libya to fall into utter chaos,
militia rule. The slave trade has returned there. ISIS is reigning.
Because when you don’t actually care about the interests of the
people of the country you’re intervening in, you’re only
pretending to as the pretext for it, it really alters the outcome in
ways that are never desirable.
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