Our Interests

US under secretary of state ,Nicholas Burns, spoke at the 7th annual Herzliya Conference in Israel recently. He declared "We won't allow nuclear Iran." He may have said nuculear but that's neither here nor there.There also was nothing in his speech about Israel's nuclear arsenal or their continued development of the West Bank settlements but he did remind the crowd that "We are committed to being Israels strongest security partner." Joe Lieberman looked like the Cheshire cat.

Then the young Mr.Burns did an interview with NPR's Steve Insky in which he bristled a bit at critics of current policy and did some all-to-rare "plain talking":

"But it's not reasonable to suggest that because the United States has put carrier battle groups into the Gulf, we are being provocative. You know, we've defended Gulf security for six decades. Our carriers have been there throughout that time. So it's not us who are being provocative or raising the stakes here. We're simply trying to protect our interests in Iraq, the security of the Gulf Arab states and of the wider Middle East. And this has been the American position now through many administrations, and the Iranians need to understand they can't come barging into a situation, and express what they want and seek a position of dominance.."

So lets see if wev'e got this straight. "Iran is seeking a position of dominance" even though it is the US which is unprovocatively putting a couple of battle groups in the Persian Gulf. Iran is "attempting to destabilize the region" even though the US preemptively invaded and is now occupying it's neighbor, throwing the country into anarchic chaos. So even though Iran EXISTS in the region, they are "barging in",expressing what they want; while the US, which EXISTS several thousand miles away, must defend Gulf security and it's "interests".

Its one thing to sing such surrealistic songs in front of a bunch of grinning Zionists, but working the NPR crowd with such bald-faced geoblather is more impressive by far. Condi's acolytes and syncophants are just brimming with that tough guy enthusiasm as they move the deck chairs around yet again.

"the binarized notions of "freedom" and "progress" in the West are juxtaposed to "backwardness" and "barbarism" in Iran and the rest of the Muslim world."
Niki Akhaven, Golbarg Bashi, Mara Kia and Siria Shakhsari