Koch brothers and iran

[Prospero]

So the puppet masters and prime funders of the tea party movement - rallying the ordinary people of the US against government and in support of big business - have been caught out trading with iran. They've managed to fool a lot of the people a lot of time, but as the old saying going, you can't fool all of the people. Wake up folks - these are the people who are persuading you to campaign for lower government spending on the poor so they and their billionaire buddies can line their pockets.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...n-2365181.html

[Bobby Domino]

great article, Prospero. I'm going to see how much coverage this gets today and the rest of the week. Cheers & great signature!!!!

[Silcc69]

Something something blah blah blame George Sorros.

[Prospero]

erm... what was your point exactly, Silcc69?

[Stavros]

The real story here is the one that doesn't get discussed: the USA and Iran locked in mutual denial. There are complex reasons for this:

1) the USA's anxiety over the export of the Iranian revolution and Iran's interference in the internal politics of Bahrain, Syria, Lebanon and most recently, Iraq and Afghanistan (although the last two were presented to Iran by the Bush Presidency); and

2) Internal disputes in Iran: the death of Khomeini re-ignited the internal debate about the relationship between the clergy and the state, the group around Khamanei intent on perpetuating the theocracy while the reformers around Rafsanjani wanted more efficient government and thus one a few degrees away from religion: unfortunately this became a power struggle that intensified when Khatami won the elections in 1997.

Khatami could see the landscape clear enough: an enemy of the West to Iran's west (Iraq), an unstable threat to the security of India to its east (Afghanistan) -two states also hostile to Shi'a Islam. Khatami convened secret talks with the Clinton administration mostly through Oman, and Clinton's team were keen to progress them but were stuck with the attack on the Khobar Towers in 1996 -although a group called 'Saudi Hezbollah' claimed responsibility for the attack on the US Air Force barracks (19 dead) the US eventually had evidence that it was the work of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

On the one hand there was an opportunity to break this impasse and avoid US retaliation against Iran; on the other hand, Khatami was fighting his own battles with the Revolutionary Guards and the hardliners around Khamanei. Although Clinton concluded the Khobar Towers was part of an internal Iranian conflict over political direction designed to undermine the reformers and make life hard for them, the risks for both parties at the time were too great and the talks came to nothing.

A renewed attempt by Khatami to repair relations with the US began after 9/11, loudly condemned by his Presidency, but which led to nothing -according to current head of MI6 John Sawers, John Bolton, the USA's Ambassador to the UN said something to the effect that the US would talk to Iran 'over my dead body'.

For Iran the problem was that Khatami winning two terms raised anxieties about an emerging generation of Iranians restless for change and less religious interference in their lives. It may be that the elections which saw Khamanei's protege Mahmoud Ahmadinejad win shored up the clergy's position, but in the last 18 months Ahmadinejad has fallen out with his masters and earlier this year there was the possibility that he would be thrown out before his term ends.

Obama had an opportunity to upset the balance of opinion in the region by taking on all of the sacred cows: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Afghanistan: his advisers such as Dennis Ross have tended to place the interests of Israel above all of these with the consequence that Obama's regional policy is purposeless, meaningless, and obviously fruitless. There is no hope for change at the moment. Ironic given Iran's Jewish community has fairly close tied to Israel.

But what the Koch brothers represent is the fact that Iranians both want and need foreign capital to boost their economy. The opportunities for change are there, but Obama's Middle East policy is made in Israel, and the GOP challengers have tended to state publicly that they are so in love with Israel that nothing and nobody else matters.

Links:
The secret talks with the Clinton administration here:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB318/index.htm

A general overview of attempts at US-Iran rapprochement, here:
http://americanforeignpolicy.org/ove...ost-revolution

Michelle Bachmann's hymn to Israel is here

[Silcc69]

erm... what was your point exactly, Silcc69?

I was quoting a republican talking point.

[Ben]

The Koch brothers believe in "free" markets. Ya know, the "freedom" to do business with theocracies. The "freedom" to break laws.
Their father Fred Koch had business dealings, as it were, with the Soviet Empire.
As Adam Smith said: Business is about deception and control. He pointed out that a major goal of business is to deceive and oppress the public.
And when your sole objective is to maximize profits, well, you'll do whatever it takes. Dick Cheney and Halliburton come to mind --

[robertlouis]

Has this story picked up any mileage in the US media yet?

[onmyknees]

Has this story picked up any mileage in the US media yet?

Ha ha hha ha ha ha ...You're kidding right Robert? Maybe with Rachel Maddow and her gigantic audience of 75,000. These fools have blamed everything from Cancer to Global Warming on the Koch Brothers. And you Brits might not be aware of this but the guy behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz was actually a Koch Brother. LMAO. It's a huge yawn. Recall when their battle cry was "HALLIBURTON, HALLIBURTON" ..Well that pretty much fizzled out when every investigative body looking into the charges found no wrong doing. So it's onto the Koch Brothers. It might have some traction with those morons protesting something near Wall Street, but the rest of us would gladly accept a job with a Koch Brothers company. All this is geared to deflect and distract from the colossal failure of Obama's economic policies. We're about 6 months away from becoming Greece.
If you're into real substantive investigations with sworn statements on the record, ( but more often it's pleading the 5th !) in front of Congressional committees, google "Fast and Furious", and or Obama/Green Energy and this is a real beauty....google "Solyndra". These pathetic hypocrites seemingly have no opinion on the Obama Administration pissing a half a billion in tax payers money down a rat hole, to a company run by big Obama donors, but give them a distraction like the Koch Brothers, and they'll figure out some conspiracy theory to match it.

And to add to the comedy of the left....we have the Dems passing Dodd/Frank to stick it to the banks. We'll show them. So naturally the banks take the costs of Dodd/Frank and pass it on to customers...then the left stands up in Congress and tells citizens to "take thier money out of these banks"...You can't make this shit up. A freshman economics student understands more about free markets and how they operate then these buffoons. Be afraid...be very afraid.

[Silcc69]

Ha ha hha ha ha ha ...You're kidding right Robert? Maybe with Rachel Maddow and her gigantic audience of 75,000. These fools have blamed everything from Cancer to Global Warming on the Koch Brothers. And you Brits might not be aware of this but the guy behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz was actually a Koch Brother. LMAO. It's a huge yawn. Recall when their battle cry was "HALLIBURTON, HALLIBURTON" ..Well that pretty much fizzled out when every investigative body looking into the charges found no wrong doing. So it's onto the Koch Brothers. It might have some traction with those morons protesting something near Wall Street, but the rest of us would gladly accept a job with a Koch Brothers company. All this is geared to deflect and distract from the colossal failure of Obama's economic policies. We're about 6 months away from becoming Greece.
If you're into real substantive investigations with sworn statements on the record, ( but more often it's pleading the 5th !) in front of Congressional committees, google "Fast and Furious", and or Obama/Green Energy and this is a real beauty....google "Solyndra". These pathetic hypocrites seemingly have no opinion on the Obama Administration pissing a half a billion in tax payers money down a rat hole, to a company run by big Obama donors, but give them a distraction like the Koch Brothers, and they'll figure out some conspiracy theory to match it.

And to add to the comedy of the left....we have the Dems passing Dodd/Frank to stick it to the banks. We'll show them. So naturally the banks take the costs of Dodd/Frank and pass it on to customers...then the left stands up in Congress and tells citizens to "take thier money out of these banks"...You can't make this shit up. A freshman economics student understands more about free markets and how they operate then these buffoons. Be afraid...be very afraid.

But the Koch brothers are no different than George Sorros. Spend a shitload of money to get Obama out of office just like Sorros tried with Bush. Billionaires with right and left wing agendas.