The Iran apologists have been around for a long time
Here’s a tremendously informative article in Commentary on the “give Iran a chance” wing of the left, and how long they’ve been trying to influence our foreign policy—essentially, ever since the 1979 Iranian revolution that ushered in the theocracy there. Please read the whole thing.
I’d like to focus on one particular person, however: Richard Falk. In a way it’s an odd choice of mine, because he is not really on the same page as the Obama administration on Iran these days. Falk has been an Iran apologist off and on for decades, as well as a consistent pro-Palestinian (and a 9/11-truther, by the way), but he disagrees with the Obama administration’s approach because Falk would like to see the entire Middle East de-nuclearized (see this) and would like the administration to focus on achieving that end—which of course at this point would mean forcing (or “convincing”) Israel to give up its nuclear weaponry.
What interests me most, however, is how successful and influential Falk has been in his long, long career. One of the earliest players of that Iran apology game, he was a Princeton professor who wrote a well-known op-ed in the New York Times in 1979 called “Trusting Khomeini.” In it, Falk offered all sorts of excuses for Khomeini’s actions in the early stages of his taking power, and Falk saw much potential for “nonauthoritarian humane governance” in Iran. Again, please read the whole thing; it’s really quite something.
If I or any other blogger had made that large an error, we’d be hanging our heads in shame for a long time afterward. But Falk has never shown repentance, and he still has respect in the international community—which probably does not care if he’s right or wrong, as long as he’s on the right—that is the left—side of things. And remember that the left supported Khomeini back then, and some still support his successors.
Falk is a communist, or at least was one quite openly back in the 1950s, and certainly is a man of the far far left today. His entire history reads like a primer of leftist causes and attitudes, and his most recent appointment was to the UN, although Obama did not make the appointment:
On March 26, 2008, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) appointed Falk to a six-year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on “the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.”…
The appointment of Falk was reached through a consensus decision by the 47 members of the UN’s Human Rights Council. Despite attempts from Jewish groups to persuade the EU and Canada to publicly oppose the appointment the EU remained silent, while Canada chose not to oppose the consensus, instead issuing a statement distancing itself from the choice.
According to a UN press release, then Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Itzhak Levanon strongly criticized the appointment stating that Falk had written in an article that it was not “an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with the criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity”, arguing that “someone who had publicly and repeatedly stated such views could not possibly be considered independent, impartial or objective”. According to the The Jewish Daily Forward Falk actually said: “Is it an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not.”
The most intriguing thing about Falk is not his political position, which is clear and consistent, but the fact that he has taught with great honor at Princeton since the early 1960s and is now affiliated with the University of California at Santa Barbara, and that the Times was presenting him as a seemingly objective expert on Iran in 1979. When you think about it, it’s no surprise that generations of students were influenced by the kind of thinking espoused by Falk.
Looking backward with the perspective of time, here’s what Falk had to say in 2012 about that 1979 article of his in the Times on Iran:
I am inclined to think that my response to what took place in Iran was authentic at its various phases, reflecting my best understanding of the unfolding circumstances, adjusting my evaluations phase by phase. I prefer such a view, even in retrospect, to indifference to the Shah’s oppressive regime, while realizing that drastic change, especially in a country endowed with abundant oil reserves, is almost certain to be a rocky road. Should I have been immediately more suspicious of Ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic dimensions of the revolution? Probably, but it was not clear at the time”¦
But it was plenty clear at the time, to those who wanted to see. Just as Iran is clear today.
But Barack Obama is now in charge, along with John Kerry. And as the author of the Commentary piece, Sohrab Ahmari (who came to this country from Iran at the age of 13), writes, “We have come full circle. The apologists are now running the show, even if the Obama administration feels compelled to lie about the fact.”
[NOTE: Ahmari had a bit of a run-in with the Iranian regime himself, before coming to the US in 1998:
As a child, he was interrogated by security officials about his parents and faced disciplinary action for accidentally bringing a videocassette of Star Wars into school at a time when Western films were officially banned in the country.]
” I prefer such a view, even in retrospect, to indifference to the Shah’s oppressive regime …”
Think about what he is actually admitting to here, and the kind of “reality” he has created for himself in order to be able to say it.
He’s not just mealy-mouthing self-exculpating qualifications and provisos, and woulda coulda shouldas. He’s expressing a particular view of reality, or of what reality means and how it is to be responded to.
He prefers his construction, to that old reality; and the pseudo-reality he has created for himself absolves him of any responsibility to do anything but express his preferences; deceptively tricked up though they may be as “facts”.
“So he was wrong?” he might ask. So what? It doesn’t mean he was wrong, much less discredited. Dreaming the dream is virtuous in itself. And isn’t that all anyone could ask?
I think we underestimate the effect subtle mental illness, as opposed to simple and outright moral degeneracy, has on our politics.
Suppose all the depressives and substance abusers just migrated off somewhere and didn’t show up to vote or on the media. What would our social world look like?
Anyone but me realize that under the ideas of progressives and fabians, the bomb in the hands of iran who uses it IS what they want?
Many of the early 20th century progressives were themselves Fabians. So understanding the Fabian society has relevance to understanding progressivism.
ie. the author of that statement doesnt know that revolution and violence is not the communist thing, its the bolshivik communist thing, and that they won over the menshiviks by killing them.
but in the west its the menshiviks, as violent overthrow is off the table given the destruction and what you would gain if you used it.
however, the more interesting part and more pertinent thing as to the fabian window is the OTHER message that is also embedded in it imagry.
the red earth being hammered into a new shape upon an anvil… the man with green robes is holding on to the heated earth in world war type crisis (too hot to handle), and the communist red robed man is beating it to a new shape when its hot with crisis.
above the window it reads
“Remold it near to the heart’s desire.”
at the bottom:
“Pray devoutly, hammer stoutly.”
the whole idea that the left does not want war is one of the biggest lies told over and over, which causes peope to vote for them, enable them, and think that that is what they actually mean.
AFTER the soviet revolution and the spread of marxism/communism/socialism/fascism/anarcho marxism/ feminism/fabianism/fascism/ etc… most wars were orchestrated with the idea of remolding the world!!!!
looking at the largest wars (more than 100k peoples killed), from around 1917 onwards and see what you get. pretty much all of them are directly or indirectly socialist in some form…
Polish-Soviet War 1919 – 1920 [communist]
Russian Revolution and Civil War 1917 – 1922 [communist]
Northern Expedition 1926 – 1928 a military campaign led by the Kuomintang (KMT) from 1926 to 1928.[fascist]
Kuomintang vs Gansu Rebels 1928 – 1928 [fascist]
Kuomintang vs warlords [fascist]
Communists vs Koumintang 1930 – 1935 500,000 [communist vs fascist]
Chaco War 1932 – 1935 [fascism – Nacionalismo bolivianista
Socialismo]
Spanish Civil War [communists orchestrating anti fascist war]
The Winter War in Finland 1939 – 1940 [communist]
Third Sino-Japanese War 1937 – 1941 [fascist/imperialist]
World War II [fascists and communists team up]
Poland and Soviet Union vs Ukrainian Partisans 1945 – 1947 [not 100k, but also communist]
Indian Partition Communal Violence 1947 – 1948 [not socialist – the exception]
Chinese Civil War 1946 – 1949 [fascists vs communists]
Korean War 1949 – 1953 [communists]
First Indochina War Comm. vs France 1946 – 1954 [pre vietnam communists]
Bizerte Crisis 1961 – 1961 [religion and anti imperialist]
Vietnam Civil War 1955 – 1964 [communists]
Nigerian Civil War 1967 – 1970 [religion]
Hutu Rebellion 1972 – 1972 [anti imperialist]
Vietnam War 1965 – 1975 [communist]
Cambodian Civil War 1967 – 1975 [communist]
Chinese Cultural Revolution 1967 – 1976 [communist over fascist]
Iran vs Iraq 1985 – 1988 [religion]
Lebanese Civil War 1975 – 1990 [religion]
Ethiopia vs Eritrean Separatists ELF/EPLF 1964 – 1991 [communist]
Rwanda Civil War (Hutus vs Tutsis) 1990 – 1994 [communist fomented]
Afghanistan Civil War 1978 – 2000 [communist]
Angolan Gvt vs UNITA Guerilla 1975 – 2002 [communist]
Mozambique Govt vs RENAMO and FRELIMO 1977 – 2013 [communist]
Uganda Civil War 1980 – 2013 [communist]
reducing wars to one or two words is not all that accurate, but even if i messed up a few, the majority of the most deadly conflicts on the planet have been started, instigated, supported, or orchetrated by some form of revolutionary marxism, or passive marxists funding
and yet, we are to believe that they dont want war?
yes, people willing to rip apart babies for fun and profit (they are smiling in the videos) are peacniks who would never ever want a war they could profit from…
Falk reflexively believes people who also hate the US, and western civ in general, must be allies. In his failure of imagination, he can only think that they dislike the West for the same reasons he does. (Not on the surface, you see, but deep down, deep down, they must just be unhappy about capitalism. They just need nice American communists to explain that for them.)
Scratch Falk deeper, and you will find that what toques him off is not wealth and status, but that the wrong people get rich and famous.
Put the two together and you see that Falk’s drive is not so much political as personally narcissistic. He’s not the only one. Unfortunately, the political consequences of narcissism are enormous.
Fine post, though you have more faith in blogger ethics than I do. That’s a quibble, but one that I thought needed saying.
Falk is a swine. But an elderly one, now 84. He is symbolic of where we have been, politically and academically, for the last half-century.
Jim Miller:
I don’t think it’s so much blogger ethics as the blogger audience/commenters and the blogosphere itself. You know, that “we factcheck your ass” business.
A big part of what we’re facing is that some people have a real taste for evil. Seeing it, they lick their chops. Most of them are drawn, in these times, to the Left.
They do not want what we want.
Falk is a particularly nasty specimen.
(One would be tempted to refer to him as an extremely sick little puppy, as well, but that would not be terribly useful….)
That such a miserable, toxic, crazed personality was appointed by the UN in that particular post speaks volumes about that organization.
(Volumes already well known to anybody with any sense.)
That his wife was appointed to replace him (by the same benighted organization) after his dismissal—Falk went too far even for the UN—speaks volumes more.
File under: Trash-talk Falk.
}}} But Falk has never shown repentance, and he still has respect in the international community–which probably does not care if he’s right or wrong, as long as he’s on the right–that is the left–side of things.
Neo, one name: Ehrlich.
The man was and STILL IS about as wrong as any human has ever been on a single topic, and yet he still commands 5-figure speaking fees.
If you’re spouting what the PostModern Libtards want to hear, you walk on shit without getting your feet dirty… as far as the PMLs can tell, anyway…
When the Left has a fully engineered and working logistical chain, of course they have the money to fund their front line troops like Ehrlich. It’s just how an organization would operate if they had the funds for it. Someone has to pay the bills. A bunch of jobless, incomeless, bums would not make a good Revolutionary Army.