Re: role of Third.. Ayatollah/CIA ?

1/2/2001, Geoff Holland wrote:
        rkm: >> The shifts in the relationship with the periphery
        are best described by Huntington, in 'Clash of
        Civilizations', and are exemplified by the US installation
        of the Ayatollah in Iran....

    > Did I miss something ?  Can one really argue that the
    Ayatollah was installed in Iran by the US - given the US/UK
    support of the Shah, the US hostage crisis etc ?  

Yes, one can really argue that the Ayatollah was installed
by the U.S.

Not because the U.S. wouldn't have preferred to keep the
Shah, but because the Ayatollah was preferable to a
non-subservient secular regime.  When the Shah's demise
became inevitable, then U.S. media began to feature the
Ayatollah (e.g., on the cover of Time magazine) as the
one-and-only representative of the opposition.  No mention
was made of any other focus of opposition, of which there
was considerable.  Even the "Oxford Companion to World
Politics", an elite revisionist-history organ, admits that
the initial leadership of the revolt was 'secular opponents
to the regime'.

My home library is limited, but I recall reading reports
(not in the mainstream media) about how France and the U.S.
ferried the Ayatollah over to Iran just in time to take
command of the revolution, much as German intelligence
ferried Lenin to the Finland Station, to ensure that that
revolution would cease pursuing the war against Germany.


    > We know about the Iran-Contra deal, and the way Carter was
    brought down by the hostage crisis.  But surely this was
    some ad hoc opportunism by the CIA and Co.

On the contrary.  The U.S. Embassy in Tehran included a
heavy contingent of CIA operatives, under various diplomatic
covers, and they knew very well that the Embassy would be
invaded if the Shah were admitted to the U.S.  Kissinger met
personally with Carter and lied to him that the Shah must be
admitted for health reasons, and that the Embassy would not
be taken over.  In fact, the doctor who treated the Shah was
then flown in from Canada, and the Embassy was promptly
invaded - as Kissinger well knew it would be.  Carter was
successfully duped by the CIA, and the planned hostage
crisis succeeded in getting Reagan elected.  This was a
major coup, following so soon after the shameful resignaton
of Nixon and what had seemed like an overwhelming political
tide toward liberal progressivism.


      > The Ayatollah was installed by an Islamic revolution which
    was a response by Islamic Civilisation to their domination
    by Western secular society (libertarian, individualist,
    materialist, roots in Christian/Protestant Civilisation).
      > Perhaps we need to acknowledge the major (slow-motion)
    clash between Islam and Christianity first (paradigmatic),
    then the political-economic systems clashes layered on top
    (strategic)

You seem to be paraphrasing Huntington line-for-line. Have
you read "Clash of Civilizations"?  Do you agree with it?


.  > The Iran-Contra saga was no more than theatre.
 
It was much more than theater, and in _this case it _would
be fair to characterize the episode as 'ad hoc opportunism
by the CIA and Co.'

The saga was a _brilliant propaganda victory, accomplishing
several important objectives:
    1) Attention was deflected from the Iran deal itself.
    2) Attention was narrowed to one episode, and the many other examples
       of US-Iranian collaboration went unmentioned.
    3) Public opinion was generated in support of the Contra terrorists.
    4) Congress was prevented from dealing with the real issue:
       the unconstitutional usurpation of authority by the Exectutive,
       and the direct Executive violation of standing legislation against
       aiding the Contras.

---

1/2/2001, Richard N Hutchinson wrote:

    > If you have evidence that the U.S. installed Iran's
    Islamic regime, you shouldn't hide it from the rest of us. 
    That claim flies in the face of what the rest of us know,
    which is that with the Iranian Revolution, the U.S. lost an
    important strategic puppet state.
    
    > As for Amin's analysis of the collapse of regulatory
    mechanisms, it's a good example of going beyond the
    headlines.  

Dear Richard,

I find it amusing that you repeatedly accuse me of having a
view limited by 'headlines', when at the same time the
interpretations that you cite can be taken directly from the
New York Times or Wall Street Journal. I suggest that I do a
lot more digging for news-behind-the-news than most folks on
this list.

I suspect that what you really mean by your accusation is
that I don't employ a doctrinaire 'materialist' analytical
framework.  I am aware of that framework, and I find that
it has little to offer in today's tightly-controlled and
highly-centralized world political situation.


    > The Bretton Woods system broke down back in the
    early 70s -- the onset of floating currencies, no longer
    pegged to the dollar, pegged to gold, was a key step in the
    decline of U.S. financial power (see MacEwan's "Debt and
    Disorder" on MRP for more on this).  With the rise of
    inequality in the core countries, the capital-labor pact
    broke down, which had been a bedrock of social stability
    since WWII.  Of course labor is down, if not totally out,
    but the assumption of common interests has been shattered. 

You describe these events as if they 'just happened' and
caught our elite regime by surprise.  My analysis is that
these events were quite intentional, and laid the
foundations for the neoliberal global regime.  You may
disagree, but I DIDN'T GET THE ANALYSIS FROM 'HEADLINES'.  I
welcome rebuttal, but you are simply restating conventional
mainstream notions.

When you use the phrase "decline of U.S. financial power",
you are failing to make the critical distinction between
U.S. economomic power as-a-nation, and the economic power of
U.S.-based capitalists.  You are missing the whole meaning
of globalization, and ignoring that capitalists have shifted
their base of power from nations to their new global regime.
You are stuck, it seems, in an outdated, pre-1945, world
view.
    

    > And the whole TINA mentality (There Is No Alternative to the
    market, coined by Thatcher?) can sound desperate at times,
    coming from people like Thomas Friedman in the NYT, who is
    absolutely clueless about the real nature and motivation of
    the "anti-globalization" movement.

I suggest that 'arrogant' is a more appropriate word than
'desperate' as regards 'TINA'.  Thomas Friedman clueless?? 
Do you presume he is sincere?  Can you not recognize crafty
propaganda when you see it?   If he was so clueless, then
the thrust of his arguments would not be so well-directed. 
If he were to address the complaints of the movement
directly, he would be on shaky ground, since they are right
and he is wrong.  Instead, as do all effective debaters, he
shifts the ground of debate.  His audience are those who
know little of the movement, but who may be questioning the
virtues of neoliberalism.


    > As both Joseph Nye, imperialist strategist, and Noam
    Chomsky both observed as the Soviet Union collapsed, the
    world is left with one military power, the U.S., but 3
    economic powers, the U.S., W. Europe, and Japan (hence,
    Trilateralism).  That is an ongoing reality that will
    quickly seem more salient once the inevitable U.S. recession
    finally takes hold, and talk of the U.S. as the Hyperpower
    will seem, well, hyperbolic.  And one consequence will be
    that imperialist mechanisms including the IMF and WB will
    appear less monolithic, because the European and Japanese
    voices in their directorships will be strengthened.

Again, we see here an analysis based on pre-1945
geopolitics.  This is one of Chomsky's few blindspots
(another being his attitude to conspiracies), and it limits
his usefulness to an effective anti-capitalist movement.  
As for Nye, and other 'imperialist strategists' of the CFR
ilk, their stuff is propaganda aimed at deluding middle and
lower echelons of the U.S. establishment into thinking that
the neoliberal path is good for American national interests.

More specifically, there are many flaws in your paragraph
above.

When you say "one military power, the U.S.", you are again
hypothesizing a world system in which nations are the only
significant actors.  You are ignoring the globalist layer
that has been inserted at the top of the pyramid.

When you refer to "3 economic powers", you refer to a frozen
moment in time, a moment which is fast receding into
history.  China has already risen to the point where it will
soon overtake Japan as an economic power, and the demise of
Southeast Asia shows how ephemeral economic power can be
when the global regime decides to make changes.

What of a U.S. recession, or a global recession for that
matter?    A recession is simply a necessary adjustment in
the capitalist economy, as Marx and others have argued for
quite some time.  It gives an opportunity for Big Money to
further concentrate its ownership, as it picks up bargains
in depressed markets.  Money is a game of relative numbers;
ownership is real.  And what does a recession change
politically?  Will it diminish the power of the U.S. Air
Force or Navy?  Will the losses be taken out of the U.S.
military budget?  I don't think so.  And the US military, as
well as the growing European military, have both been
coopted in service of the global regime.

As for an increased Japanese voice, I see little evidence
for that.  What I do see is _considerable evidence that
Japan is going to be played off against China.   China is
openly seeking Asian hegemony, and Japan is the lightening
rod which will bear the brunt of Chinese expansionist
ambitions.  When the inevitable final confrontation occurs
between the US and China, the US will be quite happy to let
Taiwaan and Japan be the target of intial Chinese volleys -
just as the U.S. was quite happy to let Europe and Russia
bear the brunt of Nazi expansionism, and China bear the
brunt of Japanese expansionism (both of which expansions
were assisted by massive U.S. investments and technology
transfers). The game is called "You and him fight, and I'll
step in at an opportune time to pick up the marbles."

---

The relationship between the U.S. and Germany is the
interesting one to watch.  Germany is currently
consolidating its control over the EU (with the expansion of
majority-voting and the retention of a German veto, at the
recent EU summit), and is this very moment finalizing the
effective acquisition of Russia, based on an exchange of $14
billion in Russian debt for ownership in key Russian
industries and resources.  (I can post the news article if
anyone is interested.)

What we seem to be seeing is the emergence of a bipolar
geopolitical layer, lying beneath the globalist layer. Under
this scheme, Germany gets hegemony in Europe, including the
Balkans and Russia, while the U.S. gets hegemony on the
American continents, Middle East, and presumably Asia.  The
fate of Africa remains to be seen, but it will be a fate
which includes only a decimated black population.

Does this forbode an ultimate confrontation between Germany
and the U.S.?  I don't see any reason to expect that.  Both
governments are committed to the global regime, and both
nations are eagerly signing over their economic sovereignty
to that regime.  Europe (under German control) is being
_encouraged by the U.S. to take a stronger geopolitical role
- that increased role cannot be interpreted as an
anti-American move.  What we are seeing is a partnership
between American and German elites, where each manages its
sphere of influence - in service of global capitalism.

And just in case of a possible German power grab, the U.S.
is clearly retaining its own overwhelming strategic
superiority in nukes, naval power, command-and-control
systems, etc.

Have you seen all this already in 'the headlines'?

rkm