12-14-06, 9:14 am
If I were a conspiracy theorist, which I am not, I would say that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's far right president, was an agent provocateur of the Bush administration, working to isolate his country from the civilized world and set the stage for a military attack on it. Ahmadinejad seems to think that the best way to advance himself is to seek alliances with open fascists throughout the world while distracting his own people's attention from the high unemployment and inflation that they face, posing as the defender of the Palestinian people and the enemy of the U.S. and the Israeli governments.
Ahmadinejad's government held a 'conference' this week on the Holocaust, as the fascist genocide perpetrated against the Jewish people of Europe during WWII is universally known. The 'conference' was advertised as an event that would present 'both sides' on the issues, which is like saying that one might have a conference on slavery in the U.S. giving both sides, the slaveholders praising slavery's 'positive accomplishments' and denying the millions who perished under its brutal sway as against slavery's critics. Or perhaps a conference on the genocide in the Congo at the beginning of the 20th century, with Belgian colonialists contending that they were providing work for the Congolese and denying and/or explaining away the many millions who perished at the hands as against those who hold the now accepted view. Or even a 'conference' on whether or not Islam is a religion of warfare and conquest whose theology threatens the peace of all non-Muslims (there is a 'scholarship' that takes that position and quotes chapter and verse extensively to uphold it) against those who see all religions as open to many interpretations and uses
But the 'conference' didn't even have any voices defending the accepted historical facts 'Holocaust deniers' dismiss and/or denounce, that is, that the Hitler regime and its allies organized a war of extermination against all Jewish people whom they could hunt down in their occupied areas. That they further used a number of methods to accomplish these goals, from roaming murder detachments to mobile poison gas vans to what became the major and most efficient means of slaughter, poison gas chambers in concentration camps into which millions, transported by the German and European railway system in freight cars, were exterminated and cremated after gold teeth and anything else of possible value was taken from their corpses.
The number six million, which derives from analysis of the Nazis own records, may if anything have been an underestimation. But the numbers really aren't the central point. Neither are the pseudo-technical contentions once more on display at Ahmadinejad's 'conference' that the gas chambers could not have been built, that many died 'accidentally' as a result of disease, etc., 'interpretations' that Hitler fascist supporters have subsidized for decades and which has come to be called Holocaust Denial.
The central point seems to be that Ahmadinejad believes that he can reach out to the American people by bringing to Teheran David Duke rather than the peace activists (a number of them of Jewish background) who have actively opposed Bush administration maneuvers to launch a war against his country. Or perhaps he believes that the Muslims of the world have something in common with former KKK leaders and open defenders of the Hitler regime. If he does, that is truly a great insult to all of the world's Muslims.
If he were interested in 'helping' the Palestinian people, why did his government block a Palestinian lawyer (who also happens to be an Israeli citizen) who heads an Institute to study the Holocaust and its effects on Israeli-Palestinian relations and was prepared to challenge directly the motley crew of 'Holocaust deniers' from Europe, Australia, and the U.S? Why did Ahmadinejad in effect greet and try to legitimize thinly disguised racists and fascists from many countries as if he were their patron and supporter, even though most of them espouse theories that would portray virtually all of the Muslims of the world, including his own people, as 'racial inferiors'?
From everything that Iranian friends tell me, Ahmadinejad's government is very unpopular in Iran because of the deepening economic crisis and his repressive policies, including the arrest of labor leaders, suppression of student opposition, and general identification with the most reactionary sectors of the society. The people who voted for Ahmadinejad did so in the hope that he would alleviate the economic crisis that many identified with the previous government's improved economic relations with the great capitalist powers. From what I can gather, he has made the economic situation worse.
Although Ahmadinejad is the leader of a clerical regime, he is not himself a cleric and many see his religious politics as political opportunism. Some have contended that he identifies with pro Nazi ideologues in the Court of the Shah in the 1930s (the old Shah who tilted toward and perhaps sought to ally himself with Nazi Germany to break the hold of British oil interests on his nation before WWII). In 1941, Soviet and British forces ousted that Shah, whose actions were clearly aiding the fascist Axis, and replaced him with his son, as a constitutional monarch. Had this not happened, Hitler might have declared the Iranians 'honorary Aryans' as he did his Japanese allies.
In holding his conference this week, Ahmadinejad was inviting fascist elements from many countries to become his allies. Perhaps he will follow in Hitler's footsteps and declare them 'honorary defenders of the faith.'
In 1953, the CIA with British support overthrew the elected prime minister, Mossadegh, and in effect made the Shah into an all powerful dictator, savagely suppressing the Tudeh Party (communist) and all secular center and left forces in the society. In the political vacuum created by the dictatorship, a section of the Islamic clergy became a center for opposition and when the Shah was overthrown in 1978, a clerical 'Islamic Republic' was established.
What would Iran be like today if Mossadegh had not been overthrown and the oil wealth of the nation used for social development. What would Iran be like today if the Reagan administration had not supported Saddam Hussein's war of aggression against the clerical regime after the overthrow of the Shah? It is very doubtful that the Iranian people would be suffering today under the regime of Ahmadinejad, just as the Iraqi people would probably have been able to dispense with Hussein in the 1980s had it not been for the Reagan administration's support of his regime.
Anti-Jewish racism, which the world has called anti-Semitism since the late 19th century, has little resonance in the history of the Iranian people, or in the Muslim religion for that matter, although the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has enabled rightwing elements to highlight anti-Jewish statements in Muslim religious texts and peddle anti-Jewish racist works, including The Elders of the Protocols of Zion, in Arabic speaking countries under the pretext of fighting Israel and Zionism.
Like David Duke, for whom anti Jewish racism, anti-Black racism, anti-whatever the market calls for racism, has been something like a racket for over thirty years, Ahmadenejad has 'invested' his government in anti-Jewish racism or anti-Semitism, hoping perhaps to 'corner the market' and become the leader in this niche of the racist business. In the process, he has hurt and insulted his own people and their progressive traditions. He has, along with and insulting all Jewish people regardless of their religious sentiments and views of Israel, insulted the Palestinian people who struggle against Israel's oppressive policies he has sullied by identifying that struggle with the crude lies perpetrated by supporters of Hitler fascism.
I started this article in a semi-serious way that if I were a conspiracy theorist, I would accuse Ahmadinejad of being a Bush agent. Actually Ahmadinejad has helped Bush more than if he were an agent. He has on his own given the Bush administration a propaganda victory against his country that millions of CIA dollars could not have accomplished. If he continues on this path he may even top Saddam Hussein as a paragon of political wisdom.
--Norman Markowitz is a contributing editor of Political Affairs and can be reached at
