Kourosh Ziabari – Brian Cloughley is an Australian of British origin author, journalist and political commentator. Cloughley specializes in South Asian affairs. He mostly writes on military and political affairs and his articles are published on different newsletters and websites such as CounterPunch, Antiwar.com and Pakistani papers such as the Nation, Daily Times and Dawn.
Cloughley is opposed to the U.S. militarism and its military expeditions around the world. With regards to Iran, he says that Israel is forcefully persuading the United States to launch a military strike against Iran, while the people at the White House know that Iran doesn’t have any intention of producing nuclear weapons.
He believes that Israel has an enormous influence over the U.S. Congress and mainstream media. “The prime minister of Israel received 29 standing ovations from the U.S. Congress in May last year. The President of the US received 25 when he delivered his State of the Union Address. On leaving America Netanyahu declared he will go back to Israel feeling that we have great friends in Washington,” he writes.
What follows it the text of Tehran Times’ interview with Brian Cloughley in which a number of topics including the Iran-U.S. relations, Arab Spring and the future of Israeli-Palestinian conflict are discussed.
Q: The American public knows Iran in a very one dimensional way, for example, in terms of the hostage crisis and the nuclear dispute. How far is the Western media’s portrayal of Iran from reality? How is it possible to change these misconceptions?
A: The paranoia of successive U.S. administrations concerning Iran will not be modified until there is a complete change of government. The U.S. wished the corrupt regime of the Shah to continue because it favored U.S. business interests and provided military bases for the purpose of menacing Russia. There is no possibility of neutralizing misconceptions about Iran because mainstream media and the Israel lobby in the U.S. will not move from present policy of denigrating Iran at every available opportunity. The only case in the world of a civilian airliner being deliberately shot down is the one in which 290 innocent people, including 66 children, were killed when a U.S. ship-fired missile downed Flight IR665 on 3 July 1988. The U.S. refused to apologize for the gross error, and the perpetrator of the attack, the captain of the USS Vincennes, was awarded the Legion of Honor for “exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service as commanding officer.” This was a deliberate insult to the dead and to the Iranian nation.
Q: What’s your analysis of AIPAC’s role in influencing United States policy in the Middle East and Iran? Had AIPAC contributed to the animosity between Tehran and Washington? Was AIPAC responsible for the recent letter sent by U.S. Congressmen to Obama, calling for abandonment of diplomacy with Iran.
A: The prime minister of Israel received 29 standing ovations from the U.S. Congress in May last year. The president of the U.S. received 25 when he delivered his State of the Union Address. On leaving America Netanyahu declared he will “go back to Israel feeling that we have great friends in Washington.” There is hardly a requirement for further observation to show that almost the entire Congress of the United States is in the hands and does the bidding of the Israel lobby. Last summer recess 81 members of Congress visited Israel. Israel wants to attack Iran and maintains its policy of encouraging the U.S. to do so — not that either Congress or the Pentagon need much encouragement. The senators’ letter to Obama was merely a reflection of the hold that Israel possesses over the United States of America, which is a humiliating state of affairs for the world’s greatest democracy.
Q: The European Union’s unilateral oil embargo against Iran has started to take effect. What do you think will be the consequences of such an embargo for the two sides? Will it affect the EU’s crisis-hit economy as much as Iran?
A: The EU economy is in a perilous state and any interference with oil supplies cannot possibly help it. But this doesn’t matter to the U.S., so long as Washington can maintain its policy of trying to destroy the Iranian government at any cost to the rest of the world. Iran won’t be affected too much because such countries as China simply ignore the sanctions.
Q: What’s your viewpoint on the Western and Arab media’s propaganda against Iran? We have just witnessed a concerted effort by the U.S. and some Arab nations in the Middle East to distort the name of Persian Gulf. What’s your analysis?
A: It’s part of the pattern. The U.S. and Israel seek every opportunity to denigrate Iran and cause it international and economic discomfort. It is a sick joke that the help of demonstrably undemocratic and totally corrupt Persian Gulf countries has been enlisted in support of the U.S. and Israel in their campaign to try to destroy Iran. Paranoia makes for strange bedfellows.
Q: Kofi Annan and Russia have insisted that Iran should be part of a comprehensive solution to the Syria crisis, but the U.S. has dismissed their calls and refused to invite Iran. Will the Syrian crisis find a definitive solution without Iran’s involvement?
A: The Syrian crisis will not be resolved definitively. The only ending will be chaos, in one way or another. Iran should of course have been involved, as a most important regional country and a direct neighbor of Syria, but when Washington minds are closed to common sense, they take a long long time to open.
Q: What do you think are the implications of the Arab Spring for the United States and Israel?
A: The Arab Spring means nothing to the U.S., so far as the countries are concerned in which there have been revolutions. The oil will continue to flow. The problem for Washington will be when Bahrain collapses — as it will — and the Pentagon loses the major base from which it threatens Iran. There will be no alteration in the foreign policies of either Israel or the U.S., if they can be said to differ very much, and the emphasis will continue to be on domination of the Arab world and the destruction of Iran.
Nonetheless, discussions have already begun regarding the use of unmanned drones. The U.S. media is now fomenting fears among Americans, perhaps in preparation for a military campaign led by the U.S. and its Western allies, under an African umbrella. “Extremist Islamists have wrested control of a region the size of France in northern Mali and proclaimed an Islamic state,” reported ABC News on July 23. Of course, little is being said about numerous other factors, including the fact that it was Western intervention in Libya in March 2011 that saturated a poor region with a massive amount weapons that are now being intercepted throughout Africa.
Mali is now ripe for another violent episode, the scope and nature of which are yet to be revealed. While Western powers and their regional allies are calculating their next move, hundreds of thousands of impoverished people are roaming the Sahara seeking water in one of the world’s most unforgiving terrains.
Q: What’s your prediction for the future of Israeli-Palestinian conflict? If the United States supports Israel unconditionally, will it be impossible for the two sides to find a viable solution?
A: There will be no civilized solution in Palestine, whose people are condemned to live as untermenschen (sub-humans) forever. Israel will continue to ignore UN Security Council resolutions and treat with contempt all suggestions that Palestinians be given rights to the land that was stolen from them. Western nations do not wish justice for Palestinians, and will take no action whatever to alleviate the appalling plight of the Palestinian people. It would be verging on political suicide for any U.S. member of Congress to support the Palestinians. And Britain isn’t much better, as the Israel lobby has bought quite a number of members of Parliament.
This interview was originally published on Tehran Times daily.