The peace conference will provide the media with the opportunity to bombard public opinion with half-truths regarding those standing for peace and those considered an obstacle to peace.
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By Ramzy Baroud
Special to PalestineChronicle.com
The Middle East peace conference proposed by the Bush administration is clearly a smokescreen, aimed at concealing the true intentions of US foreign policy in the region. In the predictable process of rewarding ‘moderate’ allies and chastising ‘extremist’ foes, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will most likely receive the accolades befitting a peacemaker, while his protagonists in Hamas are reprimanded, demonized and further isolated. But the ultimate goal of this charade is not even so much to isolate Hamas, but rather to set in motion events that will further isolate Iran and Syria.
The significance of the anti-Iran campaign already underway in the US should not be missed in light of the conference next month. The media circus demonizing Iran was unleashed a few years ago, when leading neoconservatives, notwithstanding Richard Perle himself, went on accusing President Bush, some of his advisors and military generals of being ‘stupid’ for failing to recognize the threat posed by Iran. However, more recently, and most notably after the failure of the Israeli military adventure in South Lebanon in the summer of 2006, the war drums sounded by the media began to take on a new and deafening volume, reminiscent of that which preceded the US war on Iraq in March 2003. Those who appreciate the symbiotic relationship between the media and the state in the US can understand well that such a campaign is anything but genuine intellectual concern over the state of human rights in Iran, or the outcome of a sudden realization that Iran is impairing US war efforts in Iraq. Considering the level of determination in Washington and Tel Aviv to confront Iran militarily and the media’s decided role in gathering the public support for such a prospect, it is difficult to imagine a peaceful way out of the crisis.
3 comments:
Nasr, as of yet, you have offered no solution of how to deal with or stop a nuclear equipped, leading world-wide state sponsor of terrorism, Iran. The world is awaiting your great solution. What is it? You know they would blow up Oslo just as easily as they would destroy Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. You seem to be a person of considerable intellect and good-will tendencies, why not use them to argue against the evils of radical Islam?? the real culprit of warfare in the world today.
Brian, I think before I offer my solution to the things you suggest, I will say one thing to you: Try to get the basic facts about your opinions right that underlie your presuppositions and assumptions before you arrive at any reasonable conclusion. If you do that, that will also help you to see things and face the concrete facts in understanding the world situation. For instance, you call Iran a 'nuclear-equipped' country. Where did you get this information from? Perhaps you had mixed countries and things. Did you have in mind USA? Or any other nuclear country in the Middle East that is armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons??
One more point: I do not speak for or support any religious fanatic group or ideology, whether it be radical Islam, Christian Fundamentalism (USA is full of its followers), political Zionism, Christian Zionism or 'born-again' Christians' neo-Fascism.
Since you seem to be much influenced by anti-Islamic movements and ideas, you may find useful a scholarly book The Islamic Threat, Myth or Reality? By John S. Esposito, Professor of Religion and International Affairs, Georgetown University.
If you are an inquisitive person, you will be able to find some way to come out of your fixed and fanatic ideas. It will be for your own good. But you will have to work hard for that otherwise, as I see it, you have no chance. No doubt, the choice is yours.
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