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Distorting
Fascism to Demonize Iran
By Ismael
Hossein-zadeh
11/28/07 "ICH"
-- - -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!
Ismael
Hossein-zadeh, author of
The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism (Palgrave-Macmillan
2007), is a Professor of economics at Drake University.
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!"
alternet.org (Posted on November 17, 2006), <
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers//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,” commondreams.org
(August 5, 2004), <
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0805-04.htm >.
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