BUSH ELECTED AHMADINEJAD
by David Malone
As the Iranian presidency hung in the balance in the summer of 2005 between a moderate candidate and the militant fundamentalist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Bush Administration intervened to decide the election in favor of Ahmadinejad. In the boldest American neo-conservative military adventure yet, on the eve of the closely contested Iranian election in June of 2005(1) President Bush ordered a proxy-guerilla terrorist bombing campaign against government buildings throughout the country(2), killing ten civilians in the deadliest terrorist campaign inside Iran in the past decade(3).
Six bombs have exploded in Iran, killing at least 10 people, days before the presidential election. . . . A spokesman for the Supreme National Security Council, Iran's top security decision-making body, blamed the attacks on separatist Arabs aided by members of the armed Iraq-based opposition group, the People's Mujahideen (MEK), and remnants of the Baath Party. The spokesman, Agha Mohammadi, told the BBC he was sure the Americans were behind the attacks . . . "Whoever is responsible for this, the target of the blasts is to undermine Friday's presidential elections," said interior ministry spokesman Jahanbaksh Khanjani(4).
The operation was executed by the Iraq-based(5), CIA-backed, anti-Iranian terrorist group(6) called the Mujahedeen el-Khalq (MEK)(7), a notorious offshoot of Saddam Hussein's intelligence service(8) that the Bush Administration had recently publicly supported(9) and privately armed, trained and co-opted at the direction of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for the purpose of gathering intelligence and covertly destabilizing the Iranian government through commando raids and guerrilla terrorist attacks(10). The MEK bombings marked the end of the group's four-year-old cessation of violent acts against Iran, as well as the group's habit of claiming responsibility for its attacks(11), suggesting that the only group in Tehran to have "the operational power to launch something like this"(12) now had been co-opted to serve a new agenda. The Bush Administration offered no official condemnation of the terrorist attack(13), and both the Iranian government(14) and independent analysts like Scott Ritter(15) have denounced the Bush Administration for covertly orchestrating this illegal terrorist attack that led directly to the catastrophic election of President Ahmadinejad.
In concert with President Bush's bellicose statements denouncing the Iranian government(16), the shockingly rare(17) and unprovoked terrorist bombings by the universally despised(18) MEK group in Iran did gravely destabilize the Iranian government by swaying(19) voters on the eve of the closely challenged(20) presidential race into fearfully and patriotically electing the state-sponsored, militant, ultra-conservative voice of opposition to Iran's enemies, a predictable result of such an American attack(21). Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a representative of Iran's conservative supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was bolstered in his presidential bid by an unexpectedly large voter turnout and a last-minute turnaround in support from voters and the regime(22), both events widely credited to a perceived(23) American attack on the election in a country still deeply resentful and fearful of U.S. intervention in domestic politics(24).
The explosions in the days preceding the polls in the Arab areas of Khuzestan near the border with Iraq and in Teheran itself were seen by the people as instigated by the US intelligence agencies in order to destabilise Iran. The voting in the first round is thus seen as a firm message sent by the voters to the US to mind its business and not to interfere in the internal affairs of Iran if Ahmadinejad wins, he would have reason to thank President Bush for his unexpected victory(25).
This psychological-operative weapon for instant regime-change enabled the Bush Administration to control Iran's foreign policy by sabotaging the presidential campaign of former President Rafsanjani, the leading candidate most favorably inclined to negotiations with the West(26), and simultaneously facilitating the election of the apocalyptic President Ahmadinejad. The new firebrand Iranian president not surprisingly unleashed belligerent rhetoric and a bullish nuclear policy that has quickly isolated Iran as an international pariah and served the ultimate purpose of bolstering domestic and international support for the Bush Administration's hawkish Iran agenda(27).
Reminiscent of reports in 2002 about an unfolding American invasion of Iraq, in early 2005 both Seymour Hersh(28) and Scott Ritter(29) warned that the Bush Administration had ordered covert commando missions in Iran to prepare the way for invasion by (according to Ritter) abetting a bombing campaign during the month of "the point of no return", June 2005. After the bombings, Ritter observed the new de facto state of war between America and Iran.
History will show that the US-led war with Iran will not have begun once a similar formal statement is offered by the Bush administration, but, rather, had already been under way since June 2005, when the CIA began its programme of MEK-executed terror bombings in Iran(30).
Like the Iraq War(31), Bush's covert commandos fired the opening salvo in this war many months prior to its official inception. This time, however, the Bush Administration paved the diplomatic path to an official declaration of war by employing the uniquely powerful tool of election-eve terrorism. The efficacy of this tactic far exceeded earlier "tricks" the Bush Administration had tried to use to rally global support for the Iraq invasion, such as illegally escalating the No-Fly Zone conflict with Iraq in 2002 in order to provoke a belligerent Iraqi response and "wrong-foot" Saddam diplomatically(32), and President Bush's proposal to paint false United Nations flags on planes and provoke Saddam to shoot them down(33). The Bush Administration's successful use of this regime-change tool in its global war augurs that future democratic elections will be so hijacked with this terrorist tactic.
Twenty-five years after his father's alleged illicit involvement in an election-eve Iran surprise that swayed the 1980 American presidential election(34), President George W. Bush did the reverse: hatched a plot on the Iranian people to steal their presidential election. However, this next-generation cowboy diplomacy serves a purpose far more ambitious than mere election rigging. The intentional election of an apocalyptic Iranian president is an intolerable global security threat whose emergence can only be understood in the context of the motives and goals of the Bush Administration's neo-conservative ideology, as published in the September 2000 manifesto "Rebuilding America's Defenses" by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). Founded on the myopic Cold War vision that only a superpower successor to the Soviet Union can pose an existential threat to America (as opposed to a global radical Islamic movement or a non-superpower in possession of a "Boomer" submarine), this radical ideology advocates American global domination of the 21st century principally through the expansion of America's military-industrial complex and the seizure of the majority of the world's current energy supply in the Middle East(35) in order to prevent the rise of the next superpower(36). According to the PNAC manifesto, only after "a new Pearl Harbor"(37) had galvanized public support for an expansive military adventure could the war plan be enacted under the guise of retaliation. The first target would be Iraq, followed by the second member of President Bush's "Axis of Evil", Iran(38). Following 9/11 and the Iraq invasion, the PNAC war hawks were desperate to justify an attack on Iran that leads to regime change and were fearful that Iran's new president would successfully pursue peaceful negotiations with the West(39) . Acting on this fear, the Bush Administration used its unprecedented control over America's military and intelligence communities(40) to pursue covertly its longstanding plans to invade Iran(41). The private jubilation(42) of the Bush Administration over President Ahmadinejad's outrageous statements further confirms that the current Iranian presidency is a potential threat that the Bush Administration intentionally created as a temporary ploy to galvanize international support for this imperial decision to invade Iran.
REFERENCES
1) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4084908.stm; http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4105752.stm
2) http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/WATIran2005.htm; http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/US_outsourcing_special_operations_intelligence_gathering_0413.html; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4084908.stm; http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Kucinich_asks_Bush_about_alleged_US_support_for_armed_insurgency_in_Iran; http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Bomb_blasts_kill_several_in_Iran; http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/US_allegedly_committed_acts_of_violence_in_Iran_using_ex-members_of_MEK_during_past_year; http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Bombings_reported_in_southeastern_Iran; http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Bomb_blast_in_Iran_injures_three_civilians; www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=32476&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs; www.commondreams.org/views05/0620-31.htm; http://www.counterpunch.org/hammond07062005.html; http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=42505
3) http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-06-12-iran-bombs_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA
4) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4084908.stm
5) http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=42505
6) The United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union have all designated the MEK as a terrorist organization. The White House even named the MEK as evidence of Saddam Hussein's support for international terrorism prior to the invasion. http://www.hillnews.com/news/040203/terrorist.aspx; www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0808-04.htm
7) http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Bomb_blasts_kill_several_in_Iran
8) http://www.hillnews.com/news/040203/terrorist.aspx; www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0808-04.htm
9) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7369510/site/newsweek; http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030310-4.html#12
10) http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050801&s=klare; www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,671919,00.html?cnn=yes; http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-3-717384,00.html; http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7369510/site/newsweek; http://www.hillnews.com/news/040203/terrorist.aspx; www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0808-04.htm; http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/US_outsourcing_special_operations_intelligence_gathering_0413.html; http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Retired_colonel_claims_U.S._Military_operations_0415.html; http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/US_outsourcing_special_operations_intelligence_gathering_0413.html; http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072706J.shtml; http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/20/872; http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/37/8418; http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042506L.shtml; http://www.antiwar.com/glantz/?articleid=5602; http://www.antiwar.com/orig/singleton.php?articleid=2364; http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=5907
11) http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Bomb_blasts_kill_several_in_Iran
12) http://www.counterpunch.org/hammond07062005.html
13) http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Bomb_blasts_kill_several_in_Iran
14) http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Bomb_blast_in_Iran_injures_three_civilians; http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=7271
15) http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/US_allegedly_committed_acts_of_violence_in_Iran_using_ex-members_of_MEK_during_past_year; http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0620-31.htm
16) www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=29133; www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-3-1661403,00.html
17) http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Bomb_blasts_kill_several_in_Iran
18) http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0808-04.htm
19) http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/WATIran2005.htm
20) http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/WATIran2005.htm
21) http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=18006&prog=zgp&proj=znpp; http://www.antiwar.com/orig/howard.php?articleid=3231; http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Bomb_blast_in_Iran_injures_three_civilians; http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/WATIran2005.htm
22) www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-3-1661403,00.html
23) http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/WATIran2005.htm
24) http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0304-21.htm
25) http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/WATIran2005.htm
26) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/25/AR2005062501009.html; http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-iran-election.html?
27) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/15/AR2005121501428.html; http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=GGBM3J3RMA44LQFIQMFCFFWAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2006/03/14/wiran14.xml; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/25/AR2005062501009.html; http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8359693/site/newsweek/; http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/91109A0C-83F4-438F-9CC1-52DF6936CC6B.htm; http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-3-1661403,00.html
28) http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050124fa_fact?050124fa_fact; "Hersh said. "I think they really think there's a chance to do something in Iran, perhaps by summer . . ." http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/01/16/hersh.iran/
29) http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0330-31.htm - Although Ritter indicates that the June 2005 plan involved the aerial bombardment of Iranian nuclear sites, Ritter implies that the ultimate motivation of the planned military attack is regime change. The U.S.-backed guerilla terrorist bombings that did occur in June of 2005, the forecasted "point of no return" for the Bush Administration's Iran policy, indicates that the Bush Administration correctly anticipated that this covert election-eve surprise would better facilitate the Iran invasion by vilifying the Iranian president in global opinion. As correctly foreseen by Ritter, the Bush Administration prepared the way for an imminent invasion by initiating a de facto state of war with Iran in June of 2005.
30) www.commondreams.org/views05/0620-31.htm
31) http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0620-31.htm; www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1632566,00.html; http://rawstory.com/news/2005/British_U.S._justification_for_increased_prewar_bombing_foun_0804.html
32) http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/837; http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-523-1660300-523,00.html
33) http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/whitehousememo
34) http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102606M.shtml
35) "Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of American Empire", a film documentary produced by the Media Education Foundation; www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm; www.truthout.org/docs_2005/092605A.shtml
36) The keystone document for "Rebuilding America's Defenses" is "Defense Planning Guidance for 1994-99," written by then Undersecretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz and leaked to the press in early 1992. "Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union," the document famously declared. - http http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=92161; "Rebuilding America's Defenses", p.2, available at www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf
37) "Rebuilding America's Defenses", p.51, available at www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf
38) "Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of American Empire", a film documentary produced by the Media Education Foundation; "Rebuilding America's Defenses", p.14, 17, 75, available at www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf; www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm
39) http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=29133
40) http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/01/16/hersh.iran; http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050124fa_fact?050124fa_fact
41) http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060417fa_fact; www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,671919,00.html?cnn=yes