There are different ways media talk about how you can’t trust Iran. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, for one, went straight for bigotry: “These Persians lie like a rug,” he wrote in 2009.
The New York Times took a slightly different route on Saturday (4/14/12): Maybe Iran can’t be trusted because their religion permits—or perhaps even encourages—duplicity.
“Seeking Nuclear Insight in Fog of the Ayatollah’s Utterances” was the headline over the piece by James Risen. It’s hard to know what the fog might be; the Iranian leader who actually has control over the nuclear program–supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—has been fairly clear in stating that his country is not pursuing a weapon, and that such weapons violate his religion.
Risen sees things differently:
Ayatollah Khamenei’s remarks are sometimes contradictory, and always subject to widely different interpretations.
So what’s the evidence? Khamenei has talked about Libya’s experience as a lesson:
For evidence, analysts can point to remarks Ayatollah Khamenei made last year that it was a mistake for Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya to give up his nuclear weapons program.
Referring to Colonel Qaddafi, Ayatollah Khamenei said that “this gentleman wrapped up all his nuclear facilities, packed them on a ship and delivered them to the West and said, ‘Take them!'”
“Look where we are, and in what position they are now,” he added.
It is not entirely clear how far Libya’s nuclear program has developed, but they did not have a weapon. In any event, the point about Libya would seem to an obvious and uncontroversial observation: If other countries think you might have a nuclear capabilities, or a weapon, they’re less likely to invade your country.
But Risen’s main case seems to be that Shiite Muslims have some kind of pass when it comes to lying:
Complicating matters further, some analysts say that Ayatollah Khamenei’s denial of Iranian nuclear ambitions has to be seen as part of a Shiite historical concept called taqiyya, or religious dissembling. For centuries an oppressed minority within Islam, Shiites learned to conceal their sectarian identity to survive, and so there is a precedent for lying to protect the Shiite community.
Blogger and University of Michigan professor Juan Cole—an expert on Shiite history—wrote a helpful corrective (4/16/12) explaining that taqiyya, which dates back hundreds of years, had a specific purpose:
For Shiites, who were often a minority in early Muslim societies, the doctrine of pious dissimulation was permission to say that they were actually Sunni Muslims if saying that would save their lives or their big property.
As Iran became Shiite-majority (over the last 400 years), there was little need for taqiyya. Cole explains:
Imam Ruhullah Khomeini, who led the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, demanded that taqiyya be abandoned in favor of holy war or jihad. Shiite expert Rainer Brunner argues that pious dissimulation has “completely lost its importance” in contemporary, Shiite-majority Iran.
So the idea that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the theocratic leader of a Shiite-majority Islamic Republic, would give a dishonest fatwa about a key principle in Islamic law (the prohibition on killing innocent non-combatants in war) is a non-starter.
So who are the “some analysts” the Times believes could argue that Shiites are strategic liars? It’s hard to figure; the article’s main source would seem to be former U.S. diplomat Dennis Ross. Cole derides this Shiites-are-likely-liars idea as “just some weird form of Islamophobia, and policy-makers and analysts can safely disregard it.” That would be easier to do if it weren’t in the pages of the New York Times.
It’s worth noting that you find similar doctrines allowing lying in Judaism–and in the writings of Martin Luther and some other Christian thinkers. (See http://www.jlaw.com/Articles/hf_LyingPermissible.html .) So Risen, to be consistent, should cite Jewish tradition as a reason to be skeptical of anything Israel–or Denmark, for that matter–says.
(Of course, anti-Semites actually do make this argument about Judaism–see http://www.adl.org/presrele/asus_12/the_talmud.pdf –just another one of the remarkable parallels between anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.)
The “smoking gun” fires blanks.
Now, while the whole taqiyya thing may be so much Islamophobiosity (Shia subsection), I’m still not willing to accept Khamenei’s proclamations on faith, because … well, because he’s a person with great power, and placing trust in such persons flies in the face of any concept of empiricism, don’t you think?
I’m not saying he’s being duplicitous. I’m just saying it wouldn’t come as any shock were that to be the case.
But the larger point is that the media mouthpieces for the leadership of a “Christian” country (and for all the talk about secularism, the US is in great measure defined by its religious pedigree) disparage the morality of adherents to another religion, while the actions of those leaders contradict in the most egregious manner the teachings of the central figure of its own faith.
WWJD?
Don’t go by what these “Christians” do.
If you listen to wingnut radio, you will often hear this argument. It is a good example of the way the most bigoted, idiotic theories of the right infiltrate “liberal” discourse.
Why do these writers believe that they alone know the only truth- by gosh, humanity has been creating litany’s of lies since the first stories were told around the cook fires.
Both the so-called “right” and the so-called “left” accept the premise that Iran shoud not have nuclear weapons while Israel, India, Pakistan, the US, and all other nuclear powers should. Nuclear power and energy are dangerous and nobody should have them. But If one country can have them, so should all other countries. This is especially true if a country is singled out and forced to prove a negative as the condition for not being attacked. This is all an excuse. The Empire rules almost all countries in the Middle East and South Asia by proxy, e.g. Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Egypt (again). Iran has an excellent strategic location (it connects the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf) and it still has a lot of oil and gas. Iran also supports those who resisit the occupation of Palestine. The Empire will not rest until it regains rule over Iran the way it did with the old puppet (the Shah). The government of Iran is an illegitimate ruthless patriarchal theocracy. But the US and Israel are colonial powers who are using the nuclear issue as an excuse to change the regime in Iran. The only way to discredit them is to question the very hypocritical double-standard.
What truth can be found in the corporate media’s flurry of unsubstantiated words?
Such comfort these propagandists must find in the Straussian “noble lie”, when it is truth that subverts the ideology of this multinational state.
Must the verification of fact be left forever to be found only in material conditions and the blood shed that produced them?
First of all – Zionists don’t represent Judaism. Most of Zionist leaders have made most Jew-hating statements than Christian or Muslim leaders may have made. As far the religious “duplicity” is concerned – there are millions of Jews around the world who pretend to be Christians or Muslims – but practice Judaism in their private lives – known as ‘Crypto-Jews’. One has to find a Muslim who pretends to be a Judeo-Christian but practices Islam.
Last year, pro-Israel Jewish group, ADL, published its survey among ten European nation – showing that over 74% of participants believe that Jews living in those countries give priority to Israeli interests.
Canadian Rabbi Wolf Gunther Plaut in his book ‘The Man Who Would Be Messiah’ wrote that Frankist Jews committed the Holocaust and blamed it on Nazis and Catholics.
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/rabbi-frankist-jews-committed-holocaust/
Our great MSM says Iran is bad, most of Congress says Iran is bad, the neocons and Zionists say Iran is bad, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, et al say Iran is bad.
Anyone who agrees what that bunch of worthless pieces of crap should shoot themselves.
LOL! This is coming from the home of the hypocrite, the land of the duplicitous! And the Christian Taliban strikes again.
If religion is a propaganda function of tribalism, instead of a genuine attempt to understand the purpose of creation…
Free Spirit sums it up quite well (above). Soon we will witness a betrayal of the Egyptan democracy movement by their military with our billions in military aid perfectly placed to assure that the next leader is ‘someone we can deal with” Gaza suffers, the West Bank gets gobbled up and our US media in abject fear of offending the pro-Israel lobby and Neo-Cons primes the public with racist bilge to prospectively quell any guilt tendencies should we decide to try a little ‘shock and awe’ on a few dozen Iranian targets with all that messy collateral damage that seems to often accompany such actions.
The most deliciously spectacular irony award however must go to the fact that 2 highly reputed scholars, Mearscheimer and Wash, one from Harvard, the other the U of Chicago write a well researched essay to the effect that American media is far too controlled by groups of American Jews and others who exercise a seeming censorship in the discussion of all things related to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and other matters affecting Israeli interests and …….ready for this(?)……..(drum roll, please)…..they can’t get it published in the US. Their argument would not have ever been heard outside of academic circles were it not for the London Review of Books. Give that a moment to sink in.
Also worth mentioning that dissembling on the matters of nuclear weapons – known as maintaining “nuclear ambiguity” or “nuclear opacity” – is official Israeli policy.
It’s ok to lie when you are the good guy.
i’m not a believer but thank god i can see through all their lies
Lets understand that all this talk is just that.So much talk.I will rely on what the intel show us( Obama).That is the real guide post. Verification.To actually trust the words of anyone in this high stakes gambit would be folly.
An Israeli minister gloated recently that Israeli propaganda of Iran’s nuclear program being ‘existential threat’ has diverted world’s attention from Israel-Palestinian conflict. He was proven right during Obama-Bibi White House meeting on March 5, when both men only talked about Iran and Obama did not raise the illegal Jewish settlement as he did during his last year meeting with Benji Netanyahu.
2012 being US election year, Bibi, has recreated his role as the ‘kingmaker’. US media had reported that Obama offered Bibi additional military aid (Israel receives $3 billion worth military aid each year) if Bibi promise not to ruin Obama’s victory by attacking Iran before November 3 presidential election.
The terrorist panic has boosted Israel’s airport monitoring (ICTS) business ten-fold. This monitoring system existed at all four US airports from where the so-called ’19 hijackers’ boarded the planes involved in 9/11. Israeli army personnel are involved in training security services in the US, Britain, India, Spain, Thailands, Burma, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, etc. in ‘counter-terrorism’, a technique they have perfected by terrorizing Native Muslim and Christian Palestinians……
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/irans-nuclear-hoax-is-good-for-us-and-israel/
Rehmut I would wager you could tie any conversation back to Israel and those damn Jews.Tomorrow Rehmut tries to prove Jews sunk the Titanic.Goldberg…Iceberg same thing.Stay tuned
You did say one thing though that is true.The bit about BAM asking Israel to hold off doing anything until after the elections.I don’t know if that is commonplace in election cycles(hope not) but that, and reports in other quarters seem to point to this being the norm….WITH HIM.Of course he was caught on tape saying the same thing to Russians secretary of state.
I loved that whole bit about those damn jews perfecting their anti terrorist technique.How dare they?You would think they actually had terrorism directed against them.Of course they were terrorizing native muslims and christians.Let me tell you…I would fly El air any day of the week.FANTASTIC job.
Not surprising, was writing a paper on Taarof and found this NY Times article, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/weekinreview/06slackman.html?pagewanted=all
It’s like they haven’t changed at all in 6 years.
Nino147
Thanks for that fascinating information.I understand that their ideas on things are very nuanced.I hope they understand that we(and Israel)are blunt to the point of discourtesy.Are you attempting to build a nuclear weapon ,yes …….or no?”Fudging”the truth can sometimes be a bad thing.I feel they should learn the meaning of “the truth,the whole truth,and nothing but the truth”.
Nino147, your article proves my point about dehumanizing the “enemy” before attacking. What does a Jewish American man know about the subtleties of the Iranian culture? The concept of “taarof” is so subtle that I as an Iranian cannot describe in one or two paragraphs. But I tell you, he got it totally wrong. Consult an Iranian or two before propagating misinformation!
As far as hiding your feelings, how many bigoted Americans do you personally know who hide their prejudice against blacks, Jews, Muslims, or the LGBTQ? Read some of the documents that WikiLeaks has published and tell me that the US government is all honest about its affairs!! All people are good at hiding their feelings if they want to. To single out one group as an exception demonstrates utter ignorance and/or willfully self-expedient manipulation.