THE ROVING EYE: The US-Iran sound bite showdown
By Pepe Escobar
Asia times,
May 16, 2008
They just can't keep from going at each other's throats.
Just in time for President George W Bush's special guest appearance at
the 60th anniversary of the founding of Israel, his ultimate nemesis,
Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, unleashed another rhetorical
shot across the bow as his own way of "celebrating" the anniversary.
And once again the substance of what Ahmadinejad actually said risks
being lost in (mis)translation.
According to Agence France Presse (AFP), quoting the Fars news agency,
Ahmadinejad, speaking in the Iranian northern province of Golestan in
one of his popular provincial tours, said, "They [Israel] must know
that the nations of the region hate this counterfeit regime. And if
there is the slightest chance, they will uproot this counterfeit
regime."
Reuters had a much more bellicose take. According to its translation,
"They [Israel] should know that regional nations hate this fake and
criminal regime and if the smallest and briefest chance is given to
regional nations they will destroy it."
It is hardly a secret that for a substantial majority of Arab
populations in the Middle East - but not for their unrepresentative
regimes - an Israel driven by Zionism should not have a place in the
region. Thus Israel would qualify as a "counterfeit" regime that
should be "uprooted". But this does not mean that Arabs - or Persians
- are in favor of the actual physical destruction of Israel.
The Associated Press's (AP) version of the quote is even more
apocalyptic. It reads: "The criminals assume that by holding
celebrations ... they can save the sinister Zionist regime from death
and destruction." The AP copy notes, "Ahmadinejad used an Arabic word,
ismihlal, than can also be translated as destruction, death and
collapse." An Arabic expert contacted by Asia Times Online said
ismihlal means basically "to break down in smaller parts". That's not
exactly nuclear annihilation.
We are back to the situation of Ahmadinejad's 2005 alleged threat to
"wipe Israel off the map". What he actually said then, quoting his
personal icon, the leader of the Islamic revolution in 1979, ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini, was that the "regime occupying Jerusalem should
vanish from the pages of time". Yes, this means regime change - as
much as the Bush administration always wanted regime change in Tehran.
It does not mean a call for a nuclear holocaust.
Now, the fact remains that the Reuters translation - distributed to
countless newspapers all over the world - will inevitably be seized by
the Bush administration and assorted armchair neo-conservative
warriors as yet more evidence that Iran wants to "destroy" Israel -
muscling up the case in Wa****ngton for a preemptive US attack on
Iran.
This week, Philip Giraldi published a groundbreaking story on the
American Conservative, according to which the US National Security
Council (NSC) has agreed - in principle - on a cruise missile strike
against an Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force training camp
near Tehran. This would be a sort of "warning" to the Iranian
leader****p. The only NSC member to urge for a delay was allegedly
Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Giraldi carefully noted that Bush
"will still have to give the order to launch after all preparations
are made". But the decision to attack seems to have been made.
Annihilation a-go-go
Juicy extras are inevitable when it comes to Ahmadinejad's runaway
tongue at ease in cozy provincial settings. What AFP translates as
"the Zionist regime is on the verge of dying ... throwing a birthday
party for this regime is like having a birthday party for a dead
person", Reuters prefers to package as "the Zionist regime is dying.
The criminals imagine that by holding celebrations ... they can save
the Zionist regime from death".
But in this case it was up to APTN, the video arm of AP, to provide
the meatier translation: "The criminals wrongly suppose that by
holding celebrations, coming to the occupied lands of Palestine and
sup****ting these criminals, they can save the resented Zionist regime
from death, annihilation and from the claws of Palestinian fighters."
This is as contextual as what Ahmadinejad had said a day before, in a
press conference in Tehran. According to the Deutsche Presse Agentur,
the German news agency, he said, "This terrorist and criminal state is
backed by foreign powers, but this regime would soon be swept away by
the Palestinians." And he added, "As far as the regional countries are
concerned, this regime does not exist." This is better in terms of
framing the anger expressed by Ahmadinejad - as well as the theocratic
leader****p in Tehran, and most of the Arab world for that matter -
towards Israel as a direct consequence of Israel's mistreatment of
Palestinians.
It is interesting to note that for the Iranian press, the references
to Israel were not even on the map. Press TV, for instance, went with
the headline "Ahmadinejad: Tyranny falling from grace", stressing
other parts of the president's speech, for instance when he said that
"tyrannical powers have fallen from grace and the sound of their
cracking bones can be heard".
Whatever Ahmadinejad said, Bush, for his part, totally stuck to
script. Even before his arrival in Jerusalem on Wednesday, Bush
commented that "the message to Iran is that your desire to have a
nuclear weapon, coupled with your statements about the destruction of
our close ally, have made it abundantly clear to everybody that we
have got to work together to stop you from having a nuclear weapon. To
me the single-biggest threat to peace in the Middle East is the
Iranian regime." Once again, a call for regime change.
To add fuel to the fire, Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Saud
al-Faisal - in synch with Wa****ngton - started accusing Iran of
backing a Hezbollah coup in Lebanon. That is predictable, considering
that the Hariri clan in Beirut is a Saudi client. But nothing could be
further from the truth. Last week, Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah
was blunt: "Had we wanted a coup, they [government leaders] would have
woken up to find themselves in jail, or [thrown) in the sea."
Nasrallah was cunning enough to see it would be politically impossible
for Hezbollah to control Beirut - even though they proved they could
do it, on the ground with weapons, in less than 24 hours. Nasrallah
also said last week, "If they told us to come and take over, we would
say 'no thank you'."
There is no evidence the celebrity sound bite showdown will abate any
time soon. Bush appears to want war - to bolster his "legacy".
Ahmadinejad, too, might want war to bolster his faltering
administration. American and world public opinion can only hope the
clock does not run out before a possibly upcoming changing of the
guard in the White House.
Just as the rhetoric between Tehran and Wa****ngton was once again at
red alert levels, former Democratic presidential candidate Senator
John Edwards stepped into the ring to announce his endorsement of
Democratic Senator Barack Obama in the US presidential race - sucking
out the hate waves. "Walls" inside and outside the US may soon come
tumbling down, as Edwards hinted in his speech. But the fact remains
that the hardline faction in the Bush administration centered around
Vice President Dick Cheney still has over five months to fulfill its
agenda of regime change in Iran. And the danger is Ahmadinejad will do
absolutely nothing to dissuade them.
(Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World
is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues:
a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. He may be reached at
pepeasia@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
)
SOURCE: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JE16Ak01.html
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