Antony Loewenstein

My following article appears in today’s ABC Unleashed:

The fifth anniversary in March of the Iraq war should have given the political and media elite time to reflect on their actions since 2003. Virtually ignored by the mainstream media were stories such as life in Fallujah, where citizens remain mired in poverty and resentment.

Despite the failings of the conflict, increasingly aggressive rhetoric against Iran suggests that a military strike against the Islamic Republic is being considered at the highest levels of the American and Israeli governments.

During the recent testimony of American General David Petraeus, he consistently blamed Iran, and not al-Qaeda, for Washington’s problems in the occupied nation. Tehran now complains that US-backed rebels are provoking its borders. New evidence proves that the Bush administration wanted to target Iran soon after 9/11.

Fox News‘ Bill Reilly blindly accepted the argument that, “Iran is directly responsible for killing and maiming thousands of American troops, and it is the primary reason Iraq remains so chaotic”. Bombing should clearly commence in five minutes.

The reality of Iran’s involvement in Iraq remains confusing, however, something confirmed by Independent journalist Patrick Cockburn. Tehran’s influence is complex, though undeniable.

Cockburn fears that an American attack on Iran is not unlikely, but for reasons other than currently stated. A regional challenge to America’s hegemony is not accepted lightly. Moreover, Washington will simply not tolerate a well-armed and relatively wealthy nation, Iran, challenging its unimpeded flow of oil from various, authoritarian client states.

The fact that America now has less control over the world’s global resources is something ignored by most commentators. The great, ironic legacy of the Bush administration will be its success in increasing the decline of America’s diplomatic influence. Large swathes of the world now largely ignore State Department dictates.

Israel also finds itself in a situation largely of its own making (not unlike its colonial addiction to the settlement project). Yossi Alpher, former adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, has articulated the thinking in Tel Aviv:

“…In order to understand Israel’s response to both the current tension with Syria and Hizballah and the link between that tension and the status of Israeli-Palestinian relations, it is vital to recognize the major evolution that has taken place in recent years in Israel’s grand strategic thinking regarding the Iranian threat. Iran - not Syria and not Palestine - is today the prism through which Israeli security planners look at the region, its permutations and the threats it presents. Any effort at either war or peace with Syria is directed against Iran. The non-state Islamist actors Hizballah and Hamas represent Iranian footholds on Israel’s borders and on the shores of the Mediterranean. Israeli-Egyptian cooperation regarding Hamas relates to Iran.

“Of course, Israel still has a host of strategic threats and issues to deal with. But the prism is Iran.”

The last weeks have seen bellicose statements by various Israeli ministers, not least Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer who warned Iran that any attack on Israel would result in the “destruction of the Iranian nation”. The Iranian response was predictable. Gen. Mohammad Reza Ashtiani said that Iran would destroy the Jewish state if attacked.

The Bush administration provide valuable insights into the mindset that led Tony Blair, John Howard and a host of other leaders into the “war on terror’s” orbit. Time.com’s senior editor Tony Karon explains:

The U.S. or an ally or proxy launches a military offensive against a politically popular “enemy” group; Bush and his minions welcome the violence as “clarifying” matters, demonstrating “resolve”, or, in the most grotesque rhetorical flourish of all, the “birth pangs” of a brave new world. Each time, the “enemy” proves far more resilient than expected, largely because Bush and his allies have failed to recognize that each adversary’s power should be measured in political support rather than firepower; and the net effect of the offensive invariably leaves the enemy strengthened and the U.S. and its allies even weaker than before they launched the offensive.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd may be faced with a request from the White House – including from the next President, either Democrat or Republican – to support military action against Iran.

The Labor party has already stated that it intends to bring Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the International Court of Justice (something praised by the local Zionist lobby). It will inevitably fail but worryingly associates Australia with a neo-conservative foreign policy agenda, something supposedly jettisoned last year. It’s a shame our media doesn’t investigate recent claims that Israel is purchasing oil from the Islamic Republic, fundamentally undermining its claims of victimhood.

Rudd’s recent world tour was praised by the Wall Street Journal, though journalists missed a far more important gauge of public opinion. Iranians, in a recent poll, expressed scepticism towards America but a willingness to have “direct talks on issues of mutual concern” and “more access for each other’s journalists” Iranian bloggers continue to be active, despite the onerous restrictions.

Our media has a responsibility to fully investigate the claims and counter-claims surrounding Iran’s alleged nuclear program (though Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric rarely helps matters). As former US President Jimmy Carter said this week about the necessity of including Hamas in any Israel/Palestine peace deal, Tehran will inevitably need to be engaged if Middle East peace is to be achieved.

That is, of course, if what America and Israel truly desires.

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After years of propagating lies about Iraq and its alleged threat to the world, the New York Times continues to publish Bush administration talking points, this time outlining the supposed menace of Iran.

Critical thinking? Don’t expect that from the “paper of record.”

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Iranian blogger Omid Memarian, currently living in California, explains to his readers the apparent appeal of the current presidential race:

Many Iranians are obsessed with Barack Obama. If he goes to Iran, I’m sure he could fill Tehran’s Azadi Stadium, which has a capacity of 100,000. To a large extent this is because of the nature of Obama’s message about change and hope. Iranian people truly want to change their situation, get rid of decades of marginalization and restore their reputation in the world. They feel connected to his message of change. They are tired of living under the threat of economic sanctions and military attacks. Obama’s remark about initiating a dialogue with Iran translated for many Iranians into hopes of normalizing the relationship between the countries and Iran rejoining the international community. For many Iranian women struggling for women’s rights, Hillary is incredibly inspiring. Senator McCain, on the other hand, they see as just as a third term of President Bush, and I see no reason for them to connect to him.

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Only in the Iranian blogosphere:

Iranian women talks about their body and sexual desire.

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The growing global interest in the Middle East has allowed an Iranian graffiti artist such as A1one to gain prominence. He has to work covertly in the Islamic Republic but his blog provides ample examples of his fine work:

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Kamangir, April 7:

Camels do not run on nukes. That, alone, is sufficient to prove that the Iranian theology is pursuing nuclear bombs. On top of that, with all Iranian women covering their faces, they are not at risk of skin cancer, eliminating Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric that the nuclear research in Iran is geared towards technological advances, including developing nuclear drugs for treating cancer patients.

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Kasra Naji, Ahmadinejad: The Secret History of Iran’s Radical Leader, I.B.Tauris, 2008:

When Ahmadinejad was elected President in June 2005, anxiety replaced election fever amongst many Iranians. To let off steam they told jokes. Why did the new President part his hair so straight? To segregate the male and female lice. But while the laughter died down, the anxiety never went away…

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Alastair Crooke, The Guardian, March 24:

Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, in a recent interview with a German magazine, embellished Rusi’s complaints of naivety and “flabby thinking”. Radical Islam won’t stop, he warned, and the “virus” would only become more virulent if the US were to withdraw from Iraq.

The charge of naivety is not limited to failing to understand the concealed and duplicitous nature of Hamas and Hizbullah, Iran and Syria; it extends to not grasping the true nature of the wider “enemy” the west is facing. “I don’t like the term ‘war on terror’ because terror is a method, not a political movement; we are in a war against radical Islam,” says Kissinger. But who or what is radical Islam? It is those who are not “moderates”, he explains. Certainly, a small minority of Muslims believe that only by “burning the system” can a fresh stab at a just society be made. But Kissinger’s definition of “moderate” Islam sounds no more than a projection of the Christian narrative after Westphalia, by which Christianity became a private matter of conscience, rather than an organisational principle for society.

If radical Islam, with which these experts tell us we should be at war, encompasses all those who are not enamoured of secular society, and who espouse a vision of their societies grounded in the values of Islam, then these experts are advocating a war with Islam - because Islam is the vision for their future favoured by many Muslims.

Mainstream Islamists are indeed challenging western secular and materialist values, and many do believe that western thinking is flawed - that the desires and appetites of man have been reified into representing man himself. It is time to re-establish values that go beyond “desires and wants”, they argue.

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My following article appears in today’s ABC Unleashed:

Fidel Castro controlled Cuba for nearly half a century. His rule was defined by defiance and dictatorship, brutal repression against dissidents and the management of an immoral American embargo. Free speech has always been the Achilles’ heel of the regime.

During my visit to the island last year – researching a book on the internet in non-democratic countries – I saw a population that craved access to the outside world.

Web and mobile phone penetration is the lowest in Latin America. I met computer students who studied the internet, but couldn’t access an unfiltered system. Cyber-rebels are increasingly challenging this information apartheid. I talked with hip-hop kids who loved gangsta rap they saw on satellite television. They cared little for revolutionary thought. Being able to buy consumer goods such as ipods was far more important.

It was a similar pattern across the globe, as I travelled from Egypt to Iran, Syria to Saudi Arabia and finally China.

The internet was playing a leading role in citizens talking to government and often challenging its archaic rules. Some simply wanted to meet boys and girls online. Others loved downloading pirated films and music. Only a handful craved political engagement.

A growing number of repressive regimes are experiencing the “Dictator’s Dilemma” defined in 1993 by Christopher Kedzie as “having to choose between open communications (encouraging economic development) and closed communications (controlling ‘dangerous’ ideas)”.

China maintains the world’s most effective internet censorship, dubbed “The Great Firewall” or “The Golden Shield Project”.

Tens of thousands of people are employed to monitor web traffic. Western companies such as Cisco, Yahoo, Google and Microsoft have willingly assisted officials in their goals and sensitive subjects such Taiwan, Tibet and democracy are routinely excised.

Over 210 million Chinese netizens – with 200,000 more going online for the first time every day – are leading a massive shift in the country’s relationship with central power, both allowing the regime a unique way to gauge public opinion and an opportunity for others to challenge corruption and pollution.

Although China is preparing for the likely onslaught of international pressure during the August Olympics over its human rights violations, the Communist nation is only the most infamous example of internet censorship.

Iran, especially under the leadership of hardliner President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has led a purging of journalists, dissidents, prominent women and unionists.

Although the country’s online culture is arguably one of the most robust in the Middle East – and I met many bloggers there who bravely challenged the mullah’s grip on power – Western companies are contributing to the country’s isolation.

Yahoo and Microsoft quietly removed Iran from the country lists of their webmail services last year, claiming US sanctions forced their hand. My investigations suggest that these moves were probably a pre-emptive buckle, fearful of Bush administration sanction. Google’s Gmail service still features Iran on its country list.

Internet censorship is becoming a key human rights issue around the world, highlighted by leading NGOs and the European Union.

In a new book titled Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Policy, writers Ronald Deibart and Rafal Rohozinski remain optimistic that despite the best efforts of many dictatorial regimes, “it seems apparent that no one agent will be able to dominate cyberspace entirely, but many will be able to push technologies, regulations, and norms that affect it.”

I spent time in Saudi Arabia with leading blogger and activist Fouad al-Farhan. He is a Muslim moderate who campaigns for the establishment of democratic institutions in the US-backed dictatorship. He was arrested in late 2007 and remains imprisoned for unspecified “crimes” but sources suggest it is because he campaigned for the release of jailed activists.

Farhan’s writings provide an invaluable insight into one of the most repressive nations on earth.

Cinemas and music concerts are banned. Women are not allowed to drive or work in most industries. He told me about the ways in which some of his friends and families wanted to embrace gradual change while others desired going to Iraq and fighting the American “invaders”.

Without bloggers in Saudi Arabia, we would have little idea of the nation’s true state.

The internet will not automatically democratise all societies or bring Western-style reform. Many bloggers and activists I met across the world hoped for the exact opposite.

Its uncontrolled unpredictability has proven to the mainstream media that local voices will usually trump their own superficial understandings.

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