Norman Solomon

Media Flagstones Along a Path to War on Iran

On Tuesday, big alarm bells went off in the national media echo chamber, and major U.S. news outlets showed that they knew the drill. Iran’s nuclear activities were pernicious, most of all, because people in high places in Washington said so.

It didn’t seem to matter much that just that morning the Washington Post reported: “A major U.S. intelligence review has projected that Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years, according to government sources with firsthand knowledge of the new analysis. The carefully hedged assessments, which represent consensus among U.S. intelligence agencies, contrast with forceful public statements by the White House.”

By evening -- hours after the Iranian government said it would no longer suspend activities related to enriching uranium -- American news outlets were making grave pronouncements...

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Iran in Washington's cross hairs

For those in Washington who are eager to confront Iran, the surprise election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a godsend. Iran's new president is a perfect foil for neocons long eager to move ahead with scenarios for regime change in Tehran.

After a White House meeting on Monday, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said that his country, along with Great Britain, France and the United States, will be pressuring Iran on its nuclear program...

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Also, Norman Solomon was interviewed on Democracy Now (audio and video online).

Voluntary Amnesia in the Service of War

Forget it!

That seems to be an unstated motto for American media coverage of the Iranian presidential election. The axiom comes down to: “Don’t let history get in the way of spin.”

Evasion smooths the way to the next war.

For maximum propaganda effect, the agenda-setting must be decoupled as much as possible from clear truths -- about the current president’s mendacity in connection with Iraq, and about the record of U.S. government actions toward Iran.

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The Killing Street Memo

Keep them behind the war curve.

While some Americans are exposing the deception for the latest war, steadily lay the groundwork for the next one.

Focus plenty of news reports on alienated youth in Iran, spotlighting despair that borders on nihilism. Meanwhile, give scant media attention to the growth of civil society, with many thousands of Iranian young people and their elders striving to create a diffuse yet coherent social movement for democracy and human rights.

Make it easy for the U.S. public to forget -- or remain ignorant of -- key elements in the United States history with Iran. Such as the U.S.-organized 1953 coup that overthrew the democratically elected Iranian prime minister, democrat Muhammad Mussadiq, and installed a brutal shah who ruled for a quarter century. Or the U.S. government's record of aiding the Saddam Hussein regime in its eight-year war with Iran after Iraqi troops attacked Iran in 1980.

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Gains for Democracy Could Jolt Iran's Theocrats and America's Neocons

Iran's most repressive clerics and the USA's most militaristic neocons share a common interest: They're very eager to see the failure of Iranian activism for democracy and human rights.

On the surface, no outlook could be farther from Washington's reigning mentality than the ayatollah-led chant of "Death to America" that I heard at a big prayer service in Tehran last Friday. But the hardliners in both countries need each other. Theirs is a perverse, mutual dependency that dares not speak its name.

In Iranian politics, extreme anti-American rhetoric is part of a theocratic package that seeks to affirm and boost repression in Iran. The more hostility that the Bush administration expresses toward Iran, in word and deed, the more the reactionary clerics like it. And "Death to America" chants -- as well as reports of human rights violations in Iran -- are music to the ears of the Bush neocons, who are working hard to foreclose any kind of détente between Washington and Tehran.

For their own reasons, the rulers in both countries refuse to acknowledge the vital significance of support for presidential candidate Mostafa Moin, now the most prominent voice for democracy and human rights in Iranian politics. The Moin campaign drew 10,000 people to a rally at a Tehran stadium Tuesday night. A number of speakers emphasized that the campaign is aiming to lay groundwork for a movement -- and this election is just the beginning...

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Letter From Tehran: In Washington's Cross-Hairs

Washington keeps condemning Iran's government and making thinly veiled threats. But in Iran, many people are in the midst of challenging the country's rulers, in the streets and at the ballot box.

The June 17 election for president could be a turning point or a hollow spectacle -- no one knows which -- but the Bush administration is eagerly trashing the whole thing. ''The United States has not waited for the first ballot to be cast before dismissing Iran's presidential election as rigged,'' Agence France Presse reported over the weekend.

But Iran's election is not rigged. There is a fierce electioneering battle underway here, with some significant differences between candidates. Meanwhile, hindered rather than helped by the bellicose statements from Washington, courageous Iranian activists have begun a new wave of actions against the status quo of theocracy.

On June 12, in front of the University of Tehran, nearly a hundred courageous women sat down to demonstrate for human rights in a society where women literally and figuratively are compelled to sit at the back of the bus. ''Stop Bias Against Women,'' said one handheld sign...

Read the full article and Iran's Presidential Election.

Photos of the campaign posted by a number of people in Iran.