 This presentation is based partly on a summary of a

The Iranian
recently completed book that was published in 2008 by
Revolution and the
Routledge:

US Policy
The Unitedof Dual
States and Iran
Sanctions, Wars and the Policy of Dual
Containment
Containment
(http://www.routledgemiddleeaststudies.com/books/The-United-States-and-Iran-
isbn9780415773966)

 The presentation provides an outline of the US

government policy toward Iran and, by association, Iraq
since 1979.
Sasan Fayazmanesh
 To the extent that this policy must be understood in its
historical context, I will examine the historical background
 This presentation is based partly on my book:

The United States and Iran

Sanctions, Wars and the Policy of Dual
Containment
http://www.routledgepolitics.com/books/The-United-States- and-Iran-isbn9780415773966

 The presentation provides an outline of the US policy

toward Iran since the revolution of 1979.
 To the extent that this policy must be understood in its
historical context, I will examine the historical background
for the formation of the policy.
US-Iran Relations: A Brief Historical Background

An analysis of US-Iran relations often starts with

some “original sin”:
 The events of 1979, according to some
American analysts
 The events of 1953, according to many Iranian
analysts
Since the events of 1953 led to those of 1979, one should
start with the former.
1953: “Operation AJAX”

In 1953 the CIA staged a coup

d’etat in Iran, overthrowing the
constitutionally elected
government of the Iranian
Prime Minister, Dr. Mossadegh.
See Mark Gasiorowski, 1987, “The 1953 Coup D’ Etat in
Iran,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 19, 261-
86.

James Risen, “Secrets of History:

The CIA in Iran,” The New York Times, Sunday April 16,
2000.

Stephen Kinzer, All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and

the Roots of Middle East Terror, 2003.

Sasan Fayazmanesh, “In Memory of August 19, 1953: Mossadegh at the UN, 1951
What Kermit Roosevelt Didn’t Say,” CounterPunch, August
18, 2003.
With the help of British agents, the CIA brought
back the self-exiled Mohamed Reza Shah.
What followed was a cozy and symbiotic relationship
between the US and the Shah for a quarter of a
century.
For the US, the relationship meant:
 Economically, the Shah maintained the interests of
the US corporations, particularly the oil companies,
aerospace industry, and financial institutions. This
included recycling petro-dollars into purchasing
military goods and Eurodollar deposits (by the mid
1970s, the Shah was the largest buyer of US military
goods).
It should be noted that in the 1970s, the US told the Shah
to expand Iran’s non-oil energy base by building a number
of nuclear power plants. One such plant, which started to
be built in the mid 1970s is in Bushehr:
 Politically, the Shah acted as the gangster of the
Persian Gulf, stifling any aspiration for independence
or democracy (e.g., he put down the revolutionary
movement in Dhofar in 1973-76).

“His Majesty” Sultan

For the Shah, the relationship meant maintaining an
absolute monarchy combined with a theater of the
absurd.
For the Iranian populace, the relationship meant:
 An uneven economic development, characterized by
corruption, waste, skewed income distribution, and
ultimately high rates of unemployment and inflation by the late
1970s.
 A dictatorship characterized by:
 Lack of the most basic freedoms, including the
freedom of expression, speech, and organization,
 The existence of massive secret police (SAVAK)
trained and maintained mostly by the CIA & Israeli
Mossad,
 Jails overflowing with political prisoners,
 Disappearances, torture, and executions.
Note that the US had no
problem with the lack of
basic human rights in
Iran. Even as late as 1978,
on the eve of the Iranian
Revolution, President
Carter, the champion of
“human rights,” traveled
to Iran and said:
“Iran is an island of stability in one of the more
troubled areas of the world. This is a great tribute to
you, Your Majesty, and to your leadership and to the
respect, admiration and love which your people give
to you. There is no leader in the world for whom I
feel such deep gratitude and personal friendship as
the Shah.”
The New York Times, January 1, 1978.
An “island of stability,” Iran was not!
In 1979, Iran exploded in revolutionary turmoil.
Masses of people, from every segment of society, poured
into the streets to end the rule of the Shah.
Shah’s dictatorial rule had managed to eradicate
effectively every organized opposition to his rule
except one—the clergy whose lives were intertwined
with the fabric of the society.
Thus, when in 1979 Iran exploded, one organized force
managed to come out on top—the clergy, led by one
exiled grand Ayatollah, Khomeini.
In the showdown between the Shah and Khomeini,
the former lost.

He went into exile once again and after traveling

about for a while, he arrived in the US for “medical
care.”
Shah’s arrival in the US triggered “students following the
line of Imam” to attack the “nest of spies,” the US
Embassy, in November 1979 and take 52 Americans as
hostages in exchange for the Shah.
 
A few days after the takeover of the US embassy, the
Carter Administration invoked the International
Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to freeze all
Iranian government assets and properties.
This act was initially instituted in 1977 to protect
the interest of US corporations, particularly the
financial institutions, such as the Chase Manhattan
Bank.
After many months of negotiations, the US and Iran
signed the Algiers Accord in 1980, setting up the Hague
Tribunal to settle all financial claims between the US and
Iran.

Iran agreed to release the hostages and pay

reparations to the US corporations. The US agreed to
unfreeze the Iranian assets and not to interfere in
Iran’s
Alerassool, affairs again.
M. (1993). Freezing assets. New York: St. Martin Press.
Fayazmanesh, S. (2003). “The Politics of US Economic Sanctions,” Review of Radical Political Economics.
 In 1980 the US government, led by Zbigniew
Brzezinski, started a new policy that would later be
called the “dual containment policy.”

This policy consisted of trying to “contain” both Iran

and Iraq economically and militarily in favor of the
US’s client states in the region, mainly Saudi Arabia
and Israel.
The relationship between Iran and Iraq had been a stormy
one during the Shah’s reign.
 The Shah had tried to destabilize the Iraqi
government in 1972 on behest of the US and Israel.
 Iraq had territorial claims over entire Shatt al-Arab
(Arvand river)

Saddam Hussain and the Shah of Iran during the Algiers Agreement, 1975
 It appears that the Carter Administration, and in
particular, Zbigniew Brzezinski, used the tense relation
between Iraq and Iran to start a war between the two.
 Both Carter (Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President)
and Brzezinski (Power and Principle: Memoirs of the
National Security Advisor, 1977-1981 ) deny this
accusation.
 Actually, when Iranians first made such allegations,
many months before Saddam’s invasion of Iran,
Brzezinski called them “lunatic assertions.”
 But there is plenty of evidence to show that the Carter
Administration played a great role in starting the war:
The reporter, Robert Parry, who worked as a
correspondent for the Associated Press and Newsweek in
the 1980s has posted on his website a document which he
contends shows the Carter Administration’s complicity in
Saddam’s invasion of Iran. The document, Perry contends,
is a “two-page ‘Talking Points’ prepared by Secretary of
State Alexander Haig for a briefing of President Reagan”
after Haig’s first trip to the Middle East in April 1981:
(http://www.consortiumnews.com/2003/haig-docs.html)
(Haig:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2003/haig-docs.html)
Haig:
“Both Sadat and Fahd provided other useful
intelligence (e.g. Iran receiving military spares for
U.S. equipment from Israel). It was also interesting
to confirm that President Carter gave the Iraqis a
green light to launch the war against Iran through
Fahd.”
 Haig has refused to talk about this document
and, therefore, its authenticity has not been
confirmed.
 Also, the US government has not allowed
documents related to Iran-Iraq war to be
declassified.
But even without access to official documents, one can
show by reading the US and European newspapers of the
time that Iranian allegations were not “lunatic assertions”
and that the US:

1) Intended to overthrow the Iranian government and,

as such, was warming up to Saddam Hussein even
though Iraq was on the list of “terrorist states,”
2) Saw the war as a possible way of releasing the US
hostages, and
3) Used Iranian exiles, such as the former general of
the Shah, Oveissi, as a go between to carry
messages to Saddam and to encourage him to attack
Iran.
Note:
General Gholam Ali Oveissi, Shah’s former ground
forces commander, “on Sept. 8, 1978, opened fire on an
anti-shah demonstration, killing hundreds in what has
come to be known as the Black Friday massacre” (The
Washington Post, May 17, 1980).
In September of 1980 Saddam declared Shatt al-Arab
“totally Iraqi and totally Arab” and invaded Iran.

He further claimed
that 3 Islands in the
Persian Gulf belong
to Iraq.
After starting border skirmishes with Iran, on
September 23, Saddam attacked 10 Iranian
airfields.
The war was on!
President Carter declared “strict neutrality in the conflict
”on the part of the US. However:
The US rushed to help Saddam by sending
 4 AWACS and
 a number of support personnel
to Saudi Arabia 6 days after Saddam’s invasion.
Saudi Arabia and Kuwait were the main allies and
financiers of the Saddam Hussein.
The Iran-Iraq war was one of the longest, costliest and
most brutal wars of the 20th century. It lasted 8 years
and was conducted in the style of WWI, using masses
of people in the trenches.
The war had catastrophic consequences in terms of
human toll and economic loss.
In late 1983 Saddam, unable to win the war, started to
use chemical weapons against the Iranians and, later
on, against Iraq’s own Kurdish population.
Question: Who supplied Saddam with chemical
weapons and gave him the green light, to use them?
Answer: The United States of America.
It has now become common knowledge that:
 the US supplied much of what Saddam
needed in building chemical weapons,
including anthrax (see, for example, Denver
Post, October 10, 2001, Washington Post,
December 30, 2002).
 Donald Rumsfeld, the Middle East envoy,
met Saddam right after the first use of
chemical weapons. Video: Saddam-Rumsfeld December
20, 1983, Meeting:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/
In 1983, it was written in The Christian Science Monitor
(December 21, Wednesday) that:

“White House envoy Donald Rumsfeld arrived unexpectedly in

Iraq Monday for the first visit by a senior US official in 16 years
and discussed bilateral relations and Mideast issues with Foreign
Minister Tariq Aziz “in a cordial and frank atmosphere,” the
official Iraqi news agency said.

The agency did not mention any possibility of restoring diplomatic

relations severed in 1967 after the Arab-Israeli war. . . Iraq and the
US have recently renewed contacts at high levels, the most
important being a meeting in Paris in May between Mr. Aziz and
Secretary of State George Shultz. The US government has
removed Iraq’s name from a list of countries alleged to support
terrorism.”
Not only did the US remove Iraq from its list of “terrorist
nations,” but it did the following:
 In 1984 the US established full diplomatic relations
with the government of Saddam Hussein.
 In the same year, it started to provide Iraq with direct
military information. Saddam acknowledged this by
saying, on May 12, 1984, that “we have benefited from
the AWACS in Iraq.”
 Also in the same year, Iran was put on the list of
terrorist nations, so that it would not receive arms from
any country (this was part of “Operation Staunch,”
launched in 1983).
(See Fayazmanesh, “US Foreign Policy and the Persian Gulf Wars,” Fall 1991, JUSUR, The UCLA Journal of Middle Eastern
Studies. )
In general, between 1984-87 the US passed at least
three sanction bills against Iran with the hope of
preventing it from winning the war against Saddam
Hussein:
 The January 13, 1984 designation of Iran as a supporter
of international terrorism, invoking a ban on any foreign
assistance, loan or transfer of arms to Iran;
 The executive order of October 29, 1987, stating that no
goods of Iranian origin may be imported into the United
States;
 The November 17, 1987, Iranian Transactions
Regulations, setting forth detailed licensing procedures
for goods exempted from the import ban;

Fayazmanesh, (2003), “The Politics of US Economic Sanctions,” Review of Radical Political Economics.
Yet, despite all US help, Iraq could not win the war.
Thus, when in 1986, Iran scored victories in Iraq’s Faw
peninsula, the US engaged Iran directly. For example:
 it re-flagged Kuwaiti ships,
 it sunk Iranian boats and oil platforms, and
 USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian civilian plane,
killing 290 on board.
The shooting down of the Iranian civilian airliner by the
US was the beginning of the end of the Iran-Iraq War.

Iran reached the conclusion that they could not win a

war against the US and Iraq. They therefore accepted a
ceasefire in 1988.

Note that all US

actions were
contrary to the
Algiers Accord.
Question: Was the US satisfied with the result of the Iraq-
Iran War?
Answer: Not exactly!
The “dual containment” policy that was started by
Brzezinski, and continued afterward by the likes of
Brent Scowcroft, was a delicate balancing act that meant
to “contain” both Iran and Iraq.
Thus, at times during the Iraq-Iran War the US
acted as a double agent, supplying Iran with
 Military information, and
 Arms through Israel (“Iran-Contra
scandal”—
more on this later).
Ultimately, the April Glaspie affair, Saddam’s invasion
of Kuwait and the US war against Iraq must be
understood in the context of the “dual containment
policy.”
In the famous conversation between the two on July
25, 1990, the US Ambassador seemed to express a
sense of indifference on the part of the US toward the
way Hussein would settle his problem with Kuwait.
In response to Hussein’s comment that Kuwait is
waging an “economic war” against Iraq and that Iraq
needed higher oil prices, the Ambassador said that
“I know you need funds. We understand that and
our opinion is that you should have the opportunity
to rebuild your country. But we have no opinion on
the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border
disagreement with Kuwait.” (The Washington Post,
September 13, 1990)
The Role of Israel
As mentioned earlier, similar to the US, Israel had a
symbiotic relationship with the Shah as well. The
relationship included:
 Economic deals, including the export of oil
from Iran to Israel;
 Military relations, including helping the
Shah with missile technology to counter Iraq;
 Intelligence services, including Mossad and
Shin Bet helping the notorious SAVAK put
down dissent and training internal security.
Indeed, the last representative of Israel to Iran (1978),
Uri Lubrani, was the former head of Israeli security
service Shin Bet.
(See Samuel Segev, 1988, The Iranian Triangle: The Untold Story of Israel’s Role in the
Iran-Contra Affair, Free Press, p. 107).
(On the relation between Israel and the Shah and the policy of the “alliance of the
periphery” see also Avi Shlaim, 2000, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World, New
York: W.W. Norton & Company).
There were, however, certain differences between the
Shah’s relation with the US and Israel. For example,
 The Shah had an open relation with the US.
 With Israel, however, the Shah tried to keep the
relation secret:
 Israel had no embassy in Iran and there
were no signs on its mission building.
 Many Israeli officials arrived in
Iran’s airport late at night and in
disguise.
Many Iranians, however, knew of the close relation
between the Shah and Israel and despised the Israeli
support for the Shah’s rule.
This resentment came into the open on a number of
occasions. For example,
 In the Asian soccer games in Tehran in 1968,
a crowed attacked an effigy of Moshe
Dayan,
 Spontaneous demonstrations took place after
Yom Kippur War,
 El AL Office was attacked in Iran in 1977.
The “Islamic Revolution” ended the cozy relation between
the Shah and Israel.
 1500 Israelis residing in Iran were evacuated in
haste,
 Bilateral military relations stopped,
 The flow of oil to Israel was cut off,
 Israeli mission was closed and the Palestinian flag
was raised over it.
Israel now saw both Iran and Iraq as enemies that must be
destroyed. Similar to the US, it also adopted a “dual
containment” policy of trying to destroy both countries by
prolonging the war. But there was one difference:

As Thomas Friedman once observed, Israel wanted

to see the Iran-Iraq war continue, but reasoned that
“my enemy’s enemy is my friend”
(1986, “ Israel sorts its interests in outcome of Gulf War,” The New York Times,
November23, p. 3).

As such at the beginning of the Iran-Iraq War, Israel sold

arms to Iran and did the same during the “Iran-Contra
Scandal.”
As the war progressed and an Iranian victory became a
distinct possibility, Israeli reasoning shifted to “Iraq
has no common border with Israel, while Iran, through
her messengers and her religion, is actually on our
border” and that the “rule of ‘My enemy’s enemy is
my friend’ does not hold when my enemy’s enemy is
also my enemy.” (Friedman, 1986)
With the conclusion of the Iran-Iraq war, the first US
invasion of Iraq and destruction of the country, Israel
turned its attention mostly to overthrowing the Iranian
government.

In addition to direct cooperation with the US, Israel

used its powerful lobbies, such as
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC) to underwrite US foreign policy in the Middle
East.
On AIPAC see:
Edward Tivnan, 1987, The Lobby, New York: Simon and Schuster,

John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, 2007, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, New York: Farrar,
Straus and Giroux.
 Who We Are
Our Current Agenda
What We’ve Recently Achieved
What They Say About Us
Press Releases
When the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) began in the 1950s, only
one name was associated with the newly formed organization -- Si Kenen -- founder and
Washingtonian. Today, AIPAC has 65,000 members across all 50 states who are at the
forefront of the most vexing issues facing Israel today: stopping Iran from acquiring
nuclear weapons, fighting terrorism and achieving peace. And above all, ensuring that
Israel is strong enough to meet these challenges.
For these reasons, The New York Times has called AIPAC the most important
organization affecting America's relationship with Israel, while Fortune magazine has
consistently ranked AIPAC among America's most powerful interest groups.
Through more than 2,000 meetings with members of Congress - at home and in
Washington - AIPAC activists help pass more than 100 pro-Israel legislative initiatives a
year. From procuring nearly $3 billion in aid critical to Israel's security, to funding joint
U.S.-Israeli efforts to build a defense against unconventional weapons, AIPAC members
are involved in the most crucial issues facing Israel.
AIPAC, as its website states, manages to pass just about
every Israeli sponsored legislation dealing with the Middle
East, particularly those against Iran.
For example, you see such “take action” announcements
on a daily basis on AIPAC:
In the wake of Iran's nearly 20 years of secret development of nuclear
weapons and ongoing efforts to undermine the work of U.N. arms inspectors,
Congress has passed legislation aimed at halting Tehran's nuclear program.
The Senate unanimously passed a resolution condemning Iran's failure to
adhere to International Atomic Energy Agency agreements and continuing
efforts to develop a nuclear capability. This resolution (S. Con. Res. 81),
introduced by Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Richard
Lugar (R-IN), and Joseph Biden (D-DE), urges the U.N. Security Council "to
address the threat to international peace and security posed by Iran's nuclear
weapons program and take such action as may be necessary." Earlier this
year, the House passed similar legislation calling upon signatories of the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including the United States, to use all
appropriate means to deter, dissuade, and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear
weapons. Thank your Senators and House members for supporting these
resolutions.
Note:
In late August 2004 FBI discovered a spy network in
the Department of Defense (under Paul Wolfowitz and
Douglas Feith) which passed confidential documents
on Iran to AIPAC and from there to Israel
But nothing happened to AIPAC.
Indeed, representatives of both Presidential candidates,
namely, Condoleezza Rice and Richard Holbrooke,
appeared at AIPAC’s “Largest-Ever National Summit”
on October 24-25 in Hollywood, Florida, to pay
homage to an agency that was accused of involvement
in spying.
But AIPAC does not really need spies to conduct its
business.
It has an associated “think tank,” The Washington
Institute for Near East Policy
(http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateI01.php),
which actually formulates just about every US policy
toward Iran. (AIPAC set up the Institute in 1985 as a
front for Israel).
Many of the Washington Institute staffs and advisors
are or have been policy makers in the US.
(See: http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC11.php?
CID=133&newActiveSubNav=Board%20of
%20Advisors&activeSubNavLink=templateC11.php%3FCID
%3D133&newActiveNav=aboutUs .)
Since the early 1990s various factions in the Washington
Institute have been working within the US
administrations to shape the US policy toward Iran.
The first such individual was Martin Indyk.

Indyk is an Australian native who

had at one point served as press
advisor to Yitzhak Shamir.
Subsequent to his arrival in the US, he held the following
positions
 Executive director of the Washington Institute (1985);
 Position paper writer on dual containment;
 Adviser to Dukakis, Bush, and Clinton;
 Senior director for Middle East matters at the National
Security Council (1992);
 Special Assistant to President Clinton;
 Ambassador to Israel (1995);
In 2000 Indyk was accused by the FBI of mishandling
classified material.
At the behest of Israel, Martin Indyk formulated and
pushed forward three reasons for continued US
sanctions against Iran:
 Iran’s support for “international terrorism”;
 Opposition to the peace process in the Middle
East;
 Pursuit of “weapons of mass destruction.”
 These three accusations have been used by both the
Clinton and the current administration in order to
overthrow the Iranian government and replace it with a
US-Israeli friendly one.
 The difference between the policies of the two
administrations are as follows.
The Clinton Years
 During the Clinton Administration the US and
Israeli governments relied mostly on US sanctions to
bring down the Iranian government.
 Numerous sanctions passed against Iran, each
tougher than the next.
For example:
  The Iran-Iraq Arms Nonproliferation Act of 1993, banning
any transfer that aids Iranian or Iraqi attempts to acquire
chemical, biological, nuclear, or destabilizing numbers and
types of advanced conventional weapons;
 The executive order of March 15, 1995, which prohibited a
US citizen from entering into contracts for the financing or
overall management or supervision of the development of
petroleum resources located in Iran or over which Iran
claims jurisdiction;
 The executive order of May 6, 1995, prohibiting
exportation from the United States to Iran of goods,
technology or services, including trade financing by US
banks;
(See Fayazmanesh, “The Politics of the US Economic Sanctions against Iran,” Review of Radical Political Economy, 2003.)
 The last major sanction enacted in 1996 was called the
“Iran-Libya Sanctions Act” (ILSA) or “D’Amato’s act.”
 It was named after the senator from New York,
Alfonse D’Amato, who was closely associated with the
Israeli lobby groups.
 ILSA imposed secondary sanctions against any third
country investing in Iran.
However, after ILSA, the intensity and frequency of
sanction bills slowed for the following reasons:
 US sanction laws had become too extreme and
non-enforceable,
 Madeline Albright became Secretary of States and
replaced Warren Christopher, who had personal
grudges against Iran,
 US corporations started to play an active role in
opposing sanctions.
This last reason was, indeed, fundamental.
These US corporations, which for years had been trying
to get back to Iran, but were prevented by the Israeli
lobby from doing so, included some of the most well-
known figures in their corporate lobbies.

For example,
 the oil lobby brought out Zbigniew Brzezinski,
Brent Scowcroft, John Sununu, Richard Cheney,
James Baker and Lloyd Bentsen.
 the agricultural lobby brought out Representatives
Lee Hamilton and Phil Crane, and Senators
Richard Lugar, Larry Craig, and Byron Dorgan.
The US corporations also helped to create a number of
fronts in 1997 to fight sanctions, such as
the American Iranian Council (AIC) and the
Iranian Trade Association (ITA).
And, in 1997, they finally banded together to create an
umbrella lobby group called
“USA*Engage,” an offshoot of the National
Foreign Trade Council (NFTC).
 
The heavy weapons that US industries brought into
action against US sanctions slowed the advancement
of Israeli forces in articulating the US foreign policy
toward Iran.
The result, however, was a chaotic policy that
took no particular direction.
We can see the chaotic nature of this policy by
looking at the speeches and actions of some of the
members of the Clinton Administration.
In 1999 Clinton himself gave a famous speech, in
which he said:
“Iran has been the subject of quite a lot of
abuse from various Western nations. I think
sometimes it’s quite important to tell people,
look, you have a right to be angry at something
my country or my culture or others that are
generally allied with us did to you 50 or 60 or
100 or 150 years ago.”
I feel your pain!
This was, of course, the same President who four
years earlier had said in front of the World Jewish
Congress:
“Iran is the inspiration and paymaster to
terrorists.”
Or:
“You simply can’t do business with people
by day who are killing your people by night.”
The greatest admission of guilt, however, came in March
2000, when Madeline Albright gave a speech in front of
the AIC in which she stated:
“In 1953, the United States played a significant
role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran’s popular
prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh…
the coup was clearly a setback for Iran’s political
development and it is easy to see why so many
Iranians continue to resent this intervention by
America in their internal affair.”
She further stated:
“As President Clinton has said, the United
States must bear a fair share of responsibility
for the problems that have arisen in US-
Iranian relations. Even in more recent years
aspects of US policy towards Iraq during its
conflict with Iran appear to have been
regrettably shortsighted, especially in light of our
subsequent experience with Saddam Hussein.”
The Bush Years
When President Bush was first “elected” he brought into
power a number of people who are known as
“neoconservatives” (neocons)

On the origin of the term “neoconservatism” see Leo Strauss and the American
Right, by Shadia B. Drury, 1997.
See also Reflections of a Neoconservative by Irving Kristol, 1979.

On the web see:

http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/neocon101.html
Or RightWeb:
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/
Many of these neocons served as advisors in the Bush
Administration.

You can find the profile of their key figures and their
writings on the web. For example,
http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/index.html

You can also see the institutions they are affiliated with on
the web. For example,
http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/spheresInfluence.html
When these neocons came to power in the first Bush
Administration, The Jerusalem Post wrote a lengthy article
about some of them and stated that (December 8, 2000):
“Both Perle and Wolfowitz have been especially
outspoken critics of Clinton’s policy toward Iraq and
the peace process. . . Both Perle and Wolfowitz are
the type of candidates the pro-Israel lobby is
pushing.”
And again, in January 19, 2001, in an article entitled “All
the president’s Middle East men,” Jerusalem Post, after
enumerating how many people Israel has in the new
Administration, wrote:
“Paul Wolfowitz . . . The Jewish and pro-Israel
communities are jumping for joy. . . He has been one of
the loudest proponents of a tough policy toward Iraq
focused on finding a way to bring down Saddam
Hussein’s regime.”
The Jerusalem Post then prophetically wrote:

“What you will have are two institutions

grappling for control of policy.”

It then added:

“It is no secret in Washington–or anywhere else

for that matter–that the policies will be
determined less by Bush himself and more by his
inner circle of advisers.”
 The Jerusalem Post was right!
 Neocons, such as Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz,
Douglas Feith, John Bolton, etc. found a perfect
President in the White House to pursue their policies, a
President who was not known exactly for his immense
knowledge of the Middle East, superb intellect and great
aptitude.
 See “Bush Bloopers”!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBm5ZSWbD14
Q: How were the policies of the neocons different than the
policies of those who came before them?

A: The basic difference is in form, rather than substance.

Their policies were aggressive, ruthless and Machiavellian
in character.

Given these policies, all they needed was a “catastrophic

and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.”
( See “Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources” -- A Report of
The Project for the New American Century September 2000)
“The Catastrophic
and
Catalyzing Event”
September 11, 2001
9/11 gave the “neocons” a perfect opportunity to carry
on their policies.
With regard to Iraq they put forward many reasons for
invading it:

 Building WMD, particularly nuclear

weapons
 Supporting terrorism
 Harboring Al-Qaeda
 Lack of democracy
 Violating human rights
 Invading Kuwait and Iran!
Having used chemical weapons against Kurds
and Iranian!
But the two main reasons that the “neocons” used for
invading Iraq were:

 Saddam’s WMD
 Saddam’s relation with Al-Qaeda

They mostly settled on WMD.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, in May 2003, and after
having found no WMD, Wolfowitz said:

“for bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one

issue—weapons of mass destruction, because
it was the one reason everyone could agree
on.”
Shock and Awe!
The War Was On
 But long before the invasion of Iraq, the Israelis and
“neocon” counterparts where targeting other countries in
the Middle East as well, particularly Iran.
 This was especially necessary since right after 9/11, the
Iranian government, Europeans and the State Department
actually found an opportunity to improve relations
between Iran and the US.
 Israelis and “neocons” moved quickly to kill this
rapprochement in the bud.
On September 21, 2001, The Jerusalem Post wrote:
“Former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu,
testifying before the House Government Reform
Committee, said yesterday that if the US includes
terrorism-sponsoring regimes like Syria, Iran, or the
Palestinian Authority in a coalition against
worldwide terrorism, then the alliance ‘will be
defeated from the beginning.’ . . Netanyahu,
aligning himself with those like Deputy Secretary of
Defense Paul Wolfowitz– who would like the US war
to include action against Iraq, a terrorist-sponsoring
state bent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction–
warned that a failure to preempt acquisition by Iraq
or Iran of such capabilities would lead to hundreds of
thousands of casualties.”
 On October 12, 2001, The Jerusalem Post wrote:
In his visit with President Bush, Sharon warns him
of “existential threats to Israel emanating from
Iraq and Iran.”
 On November 16, 2001, The Jerusalem Post writes:
“Israel has loudly protested any signs of US cuddling up
to Iran and certainly would fear any expansion of Iranian
influence over Afghanistan in a post-Taliban world.”
On January 4, 2002, The Jerusalem Post quoted
Netanyahu to say:
“American power topples the Taliban regime in
Afghanistan, and the al-Qaida network there
crumbles on its own. The United States must now act
similarly against the other terror regimes–Iran, Iraq,
Arafat’s dictatorship, Syria, and a few others. Some
of these regimes will have to be toppled, some of
them punished and deterred.”
Similarly, in an interview with Ariel Sharon, The Times
of London (2/5/2002) wrote that according to Sharon:
“Iran is the center of ‘world terror,’ and as soon
as an Iraq conflict is concluded, he will push for
Iran to be at the top of the ‘to do list’ . . . He sees Iran
as ‘behind terror all around the world’ and a
direct threat to Israel.”
Then, of course, on January 6 came the Karine-A affair!
(See The Jerusalem Post, January 6, 2002)
In short, the Israelis and their “neocon” counterparts in
the US government changed the direction of the US
foreign policy toward Iran:

On January 30, 2002, President Bush gave his

famous State of the Union Address, in which he
referred to Iraq, Iran and Korea as the “Axis of
Evil.”

In the speech he said: “Iran aggressively pursues

these weapons and exports terror, while an
unelected few repress the Iranian people’s hope for
freedom.”
David Frum, a “neocon” speech writer, took credit for
writing the segment of speech dealing with the “axis of
evil.”
 The 2002 State of the Union Address made it clear
who had the President’s ear.
 The “neocons” and the Israelis were now in full
charge of the US policy towards Iran.
 The Bush Administration’s Iran-policy was now
identical to that of Likud Party.
A campaign now began to do to Iran what had been done
to Iraq.
The campaign involves just about all the accusations
leveled against Iraq:
 Building WMD
 Supporting terrorism
 Harboring Al-Qaeda
 Helping insurgency in Iraq
 Lack of full democracy
 Violating women’s right
 etc.
But, similar to the Iraq case, for “bureaucratic reasons,”
the neocons and Israelis settled mostly on one issue:
Iran’s “development of nuclear weapons”

This charge has been repeated almost on a daily basis

for the past few years.
In my book I trace the history of US-Israel accusation that
Iran is developing nuclear weapons. I point out that:

• In 1984 the “neoconservative” Kenneth L. Adelman (the

US Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament
Agency at the time) argued Iran will have a nuclear
weapon in two years.
• The Jerusalem Report of March 26, 1992, stated: “Israel
keeps a wary watch on Teheran’s march to the Bomb. By
the year 2000, Iran will almost certainly have the Bomb.”
• In 1992 the CIA Director Robert Gates had told a
House Armed Services subcommittee that Iran could
have a nuclear bomb “by the year 2000 if the West does
not prevent it” (The Washington Post, November 17,
1992).

• Actually, beginning in 1992 the Israeli sources started

to contend that Iran already has 3 or 4 nuclear warheads,
all purchased from former Soviet Republic of
Kazakhstan.
The alleged purchase of nuclear warheads by Iran
continued well into the late 1990s:

• On April 9, 1998, The Jerusalem Post stated “Iran

received several nuclear warheads from a former Soviet
republic in the early 1990s and Russian experts
maintained them, according to Iranian government
documents relayed to Israel and obtained by The
Jerusalem Post.”

• On April 10, 1998, The Jerusalem Post stated “Iran paid

$25 million for what appears to have been two tactical
atomic weapons smuggled out of the former Soviet Union
in a highly classified operation aided by technicians from
Argentina.”
• All such news were, of course, complete fabrication.

• But the US and Israel continued to manufacture these

news with more frequency after the US invasion of Iraq.

• Each time, the fabricated news became more

sensational.
For example,

On September 23, 2004, in the U.N. General Assembly

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom stated:

“The international community now realizes that Iran–

with missiles that can reach London, Paris, Berlin and
southern Russia–does not only pose a threat to the
security of Israel, but to the security and stability of the
whole world.
Indeed, Iran has replaced Saddam Hussein as the
world’s number one exporter of terror, hate and
instability.”
On October 25, 2004, in the Israeli Parliament, Sharon
stated:

“Iran is making every effort to arm itself with nuclear

weapons, with ballistic means of delivery, and it is
preparing an enormous terrorist network with Syria
and Lebanon.”
On August 17, 2004, at the Hudson Institute, John Bolton
stated:
“Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons capability is
moving it further and further down the path toward
international isolation. We cannot let Iran, a leading
sponsor of international terrorism, acquire nuclear
weapons and the means to deliver them to Europe,
most of central Asia and the Middle East, or beyond.
Without serious, concerted, immediate intervention by
the international community, Iran will be well on the
road to doing so.”
“As Condoleezza Rice told Fox News two weeks ago,
‘The Iranians have been trouble for a very long time.
And it’s one reason that this regime has to be isolated
in its bad behavior, not quote-unquote, ‘engaged.’”
 In my book I show that not only such allegations
became more frequent but that with each day passing and
no nuclear weapons, or even evidence of development of
such weapons, showing up, the ever-changing prediction
of the doomsday appeared to be pushed forward into the
future.

 Throughout, of course, the International Atomic Energy

Agency (IAEA) has maintained that there is no evidence
of diversion of nuclear material in Iran.
 But the US and Israelis did not take no for an answer.
 On an almost daily basis they repeated their accusations,
beat the war drums and threatened Iran with military
attacks.
For example,

On January 21, 2005, Dick Cheney stated:

“Israelis might well decide to act first, and let

the rest of the world worry about
cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards.”
On January 27, 2005, Shaul Mofaz, Israeli Defense
Minister, stated:

“We know that Iran has a very high desire to achieve

the goal of possessing nuclear power. The fact that in
Iran there is an extreme regime and that they already
have long-range surface-to-surface missiles, means that
having a nuclear power will create a threat to the free
world. . .

“Iran is very close to the point of no return, which

means the enrichment of uranium, and we believe that
the leadership of the U.S. together with the European
countries should stop as soon as possible this military
nuclear program in Iran.”
On February 2, 2005, in his State of the Union Address,
Bush stated:

“Today, Iran remains the world’s primary state

sponsor of terror – pursuing nuclear weapons . . . The
Iranian regime . . . must give up its uranium enrichment
program and any plutonium reprocessing, and end its
support for terror.”
On February 16, 2005, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan
Shalom stated:

Iran is “trying very hard to develop the nuclear

bomb. . . The question is not if the Iranians will
have a nuclear bomb in 2009, 10 or 11, the main
question is when are they going to have the
knowledge to do it. . . We believe in six
months from today they will end all the
tests and experiments they are doing to have that
knowledge.”
According to The Washington Times, on February 21,
2005:

“Members of the Israeli parliament publicly

have called for pre-emptive strikes now.”

On February 22, 2005, Bush stated:

“This notion that the United States is getting

ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous.
Having said that, all options are on the table.”
 Much of the double talk or military threat was
posturing and engaging in psychological warfare.
 A military attack against Iran is difficult and could
have long term consequences.
 Therefore, such an attack has never been the first-
choice option of the US-Israel.
What the US and Israel tried to do was to repeat the
Iraqi scenario, that is
 Pass severe UN economic sanctions against Iran.
 Wreck the Iranian economy and weaken the
Iranian government.
 Overthrow Iran’s government afterward.
Ultimately, they succeeded in passing three UN sanction
resolutions against Iran:
Security Council Resolution 1737 in December 2006
Security Council Resolution 1747 in March 2007
Security Council Resolution 1803 in March 2008
Among other things, these resolutions demanded that
Iran halt all enrichment-related and reprocessing
activities.
They also imposed financial sanctions against certain
individuals, organizations and banks.
In addition, they asked states to be vigilant against the
entry of certain Iranians into their countries.
Iran has defied the resolutions, arguing that they are
illegal, since they violate Iran’s right under Article IV of
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty:

“Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as

affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the
Treaty to develop research, production and use of
nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without
discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II
of this Treaty.”
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/Others/infcirc140.pdf.
Attempts by the Bush Administration to pass a fourth
UN sanction resolution against Iran ran into
difficulties for a number of reasons.

In particular, the rising oil prices, followed by a

massive economic downturn, slowed down the US
policy of containment of Iran.

In the end, the Bush Administration ran out of time to

do to Iran what it had done to Iraq.
The Obama Years
Stay tuned!