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Wednesday
Jul142010

Iran Through the Looking Glass: "Never Judge Enduring America by Its Cover"

Yesterday a contact sent word that --- for the first time to our knowledge --- Enduring America had made an appearance in the leading Iran opposition website Rah-e-Sabz. True, the reference was only one line in an opinion piece, but still, it's a reference, right?



Oops.

Turns out the article sets out to expose the motives and deceptions of US neo-conservatives. EA unexpectedly finds itself not along the Green Movement but as an uncomfortable bedfellow of former CIA operative Reuel Marc Gerecht, former Bush Administration official John Bolton, and Senator McCain. So here is our walk-on part in the article:


We must turn upside down the notion that neoconservative Americans "support" democratic movements and their people. The website "Enduring America" (meaning "Sustainable America"), with its Pentagon logo, pretends to support the Green Movement.

Well, about the name. We were probably being too clever by half when we came up with EA's title, but as Mike Dunn explained last November, after we had faced a series of questions as to whether we were pro- or anti-American:
Enduring America took its inspiration from Operation Enduring Freedom [the US war in Afghanistan]. We were struck by the ambiguity behind this name, with “Freedom” being both enduring and endured. This double meaning is also present in our feelings towards America and US foreign policy: is it enduring or endured? Or both?

And the logo? We also wanted something to capture the complexity of American power, not to endorse it but to think about it. So a colleague, Ryan O'Kane, came up with a combination of the Pentagon motif and a Coca-Cola/Pepsi bottle-top, all in red, white, and blue.

More importantly, I'm not sure the author of the Rah-e-Sabz piece got past our banner to read any of what we've written. If he had, he might have noticed that we're not fond of Mr. Bolton's approach to Iran and that we do not think Senator McCain and Mr Gerecht's simplistic representations of the regime and the opposition deserves priority over assessments by Iranians of their situation. Indeed, a quick search for "neoconservatives" on EA would turn  up our open letter last December to "False US Friends of the Iranian People".

Indeed, the only direct reference by the Rah-e-Sabz author to any of our coverage and analysis came in an assertion earlier this year, posted in a comment on another website, on a different topic: "If it were up to William Lucas, there would not have been any discussion of the New York Times articles leading up to the Iraq invasion."

Hmm... Must be a different William (or rather Scott) Lucas who devoted a 324-page book to the "Betrayal of Dissent" by the US Government, media, and intellectuals in their justification of the 2003 Iraq War.

So, given this, how did EA wind up amongst the neo-con, CIA-affiliated bad boys in Rah-e-Sabz? The answer is a glimpse of how the post-election conflict takes perspectives on the Iranian government, the Green Movement, and activists through the looking glass.

For the author's attention to EA and William/Scott Lucas --- distilled into the comment on Iraq above --- was prompted not by our position on the Green Movement, the Iranian Government, civil rights, post-election events, or even "neo-conservatives". Rather, it was prompted by my criticism of the commentary on Race for Iran --- which eventually appeared on EA in this form when it tried to tear down the reputation of  a New York Times reporter, Nazila Fathi, for her article on May's execution of five Iranians.

(So I criticised a website which supports the Iran Government for its attempt to put a reporter beyond the acceptable for her writing on justice and civil rights. The outcome is that an author on Rah-e-Sabz, which opposes the Iran Government, tries to put EA beyond the acceptable without considering its writing on justice and civil rights.

Just grabbing a dictionary to look up "irony".)

In the author's words, "It is not helpful to comment on [Race for Iran's]' 'intellectual honesty'...as Lucas does."

I beg to differ. It is always helpful to comment on honesty, be that the honesty of US neo-conservatives, the honesty of academics and intellectuals, the honesty of Iran's opposition movement, and the honesty of its regime.

But that critique should be done, well, honestly, not by guessing or speculating superficially on a logo or a name, but by considering evidence and analyses. It should be done with open mind and open hand rather than closed thought.

And, with that, back to today's news....

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