Kissinger: ‘Iran Is a Natural Ally of the United States’

Cybercast News Service ^ | October 13, 2014 - 11:49 AM | Melanie Hunter

[Olog-hai]

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “Iran is a natural ally” of the U.S.

“As long as Iran is ruled by the ayatollah and bases itself on its sectarian philosophy, we have to be careful. But basically, as a country, Iran is a natural ally of the United States. It’s the ideological, religious component that makes it an antagonist,” said Kissinger, who served as Secretary of State for the Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford administrations. …

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"The Shah in fact publicly said that he was gradually moving towards a more open democracy, and clearly indicated that his son would run a different government. It had to take time."

The problem was he announced this too late. His regime was crumbling. If he would have done it before 1979 it might have worked. I agree with you that most of the people now are very unhappy with the Mullahs. Iran's modern intelligence service (VEVAK) by most reports are as bad or worse than SAVAK..

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"Please, don’t compare Iran with Iraq. That’s so very different ballgame."

Every situation is unique. I was comparing them in the sense that there was a coup de tat (just like the Iranian revolution) and the people in both cases were not ready for a liberal democracy. In one case, the people got the religious mullahs. In the other case, the people got a nascent liberal democracy that they are currently in the process of throwing down the drain.

[odds]

I can't blame the Shah for what SAVAK did. The Shah wasn't overseeing every single department personally. SAVAK had a mandate to keep commies subdued. Obviously it didn't do a good or effective job.

I agree the Shah made major mistakes, announcements, and other moves, including not wanting bloodshed just before he chose to leave Iran rather than unleash the military on agitators. Partly thanks to Carter and his 'personnel'.

We are where we are now. And, the mullahs regime has learned a lot from how America, basically Carter betrayed the Shah.

[odds]

The situation in Iraq is very different, more so because Iraq has really never been a ‘country’ per se, unlike Iran. Other points taken.

[Olog-hai]

Please tell me you aren’t really this ignorant.

• Nikki Keddie, university professor. Also wrote Debating Gender, Debating Sexuality. Quite a read, that one; very pro-Marxist.
• Since Wright, your alleged “historian”, cites Keddie in his own book (amazing that I cannot find anything about him anywhere), I am forced to presume that he is as far left as she.
• Sam Ghandchi is openly “sympathetic to the left” (his own words); lots of leftists claim to be against the USSR and the Tudeh Party. He is claiming that SAVAK still exists and is working for the Mullahs. He is also involved with FAS and calls them “highly respectable”.
• The same Jack Anderson that did a Snowden on the CIA in their plans to assassinate Fidel Castro? Yes, it is him.

Yes, they are all left-wing ideologues. Claiming that they are speaking “simple facts” is mendacious, again with all due respect.

You threw another left-wing bomb here too, “sit around … and listen to talk radio to get my opinions”—you clearly like to read and cite left-wing sources though.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"The situation in Iraq is very different, more so because Iraq has really never been a ‘country’ per se, unlike Iran."

In that sense, you are correct. Iraq is a made up country brokered by the European powers after WWI. Britian mainly had it's hand in creating Iraq. They didn't create it along any ethno-religious lines. They just sort of shoved it all together. That's why I always have to laugh at the Europeans looking down their noses at the nieve Americans and us butting into everyone's business. Most of the time, we are attempting to clean up messes that the old European imperialist empires created!! Iran is the historical Persian empire and has always been a country/kingdom.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"He is claiming that SAVAK still exists and is working for the Mullahs."

They are, it's called VEVAK. Most of the leaders in SAVAK were killed, but VEVAK performs the same purpose. By many accounts they are worse than SAVAK.

"The same Jack Anderson that did a Snowden on the CIA in their plans to assassinate Fidel Castro? Yes, it is him."

Is it true? Yes it was. The CIA tried many times to assinate Castro. Including with an exploding cigar by some accounts. Which brings me back to my point, just because left wing sources have brought some of this stuff to light does that mean it is to be dismissed? I understand that some things that the CIA does for our protection has to be done in the dark, but overall I like transparency in government. If that makes me a liberal, so be it. However, traditionally it has been men of the left who like secrecy in government and applying organizations that spy on their own citizens.

Let me flip this around to you. You dismiss everything I have put out there because you claim it is all left wing. Can you provide any right wing sources out there that defend SAVAK?

The original point still stands. You asked why the Iranian people did not rise up and defend the Shah. The answer is because he wasn't such a great guy. He had serious faults including a secret intelligence apparatus that was terrorizing innocent people as well as communists. To include anyone that spoke out against the Shah. Do you have a right wing source that claims all the things about SAVAK are untrue and that they were just rooting out communists who were trying to overthrow the Shah?

[odds]

Well, now you’ve Saudi Arabia, its satellites, including Qatar for your allies, all U.S. backed while they spread “Radical Islam” around the globe. ISIS their creation. It’s the “ideology” that needs to be dealt with (as a British General recently said in linked article) not simply bombs. Deal with it. — http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/11140860/Qatar-and-Saudi-Arabia-have-ignited-time-bomb-by-funding-global-spread-of-radical-Islam.html

[Olog-hai]

I don’t “claim” your sources are left wing; they are left wing. I really would like to see some unbiased viewpoints here. The Shah was beset, ever since the Mossadegh debacle, by Islamists and communists; he was in a very precarious position and I do not know what else he could have done to defend it.

To exchange the Shah for the Mullahs is, again, not indicative of an alleged “pro-Western” majority of Iranians. I think you agree with me on that score; I’m not sure. It certainly is a chicken-egg reversal if anyone implies that the Shah instituted SAVAK when the country was not in danger—and it still speaks volumes that his fall came with the US pulling support out from under him.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"To exchange the Shah for the Mullahs is, again, not indicative of an alleged “pro-Western” majority of Iranians. I think you agree with me on that score;"

I don't believe I said that they were pro western. If I did, what I meant was to say that they were more anti-Shah than anything else. I doubt most of them are pro Mullahs right now. It's just that they don't want to be carted off somewhere and never heard from again. For the Iranian people, they merely traded one form of totalitarism for another more religious form of it.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"Well, now you’ve Saudi Arabia, its satellites, including Qatar for your allies, all U.S. backed while they spread “Radical Islam” around the globe."

Yes, the wahabism that somes out of the Sunni brand of Islamofascism needs to be dealt with. They are the ones that attacked us on 9/11.

"It’s the “ideology” that needs to be dealt with"

I agree, but the wahabism needs to be dealt with as well as the so called "twelvers" (for the twelfth imam beliefs in Iran) need to be dealt with also. I call all of this toxic mix of religious fanaticism Islamofascism. To me that's what all of this is. Don't forget, the pre-cursor to Hezbollah are who bombed the Marine barracks in Beirut. Who are they backed by? The Iranian government. So we need to deal with all of them.

As an aside, in one week will be the 31st anniversary of the bombing. Please all, keep their families in your hearts and minds.

[odds]

Don't forget, the pre-cursor to Hezbollah are who bombed the Marine barracks in Beirut. Who are they backed by? The Iranian government. So we need to deal with all of them.

I know how atrocious Iranian mullahs can be. Remember before Beirut happened, the same regime executed thousands of Iranians first, starting at the beginning of the so-called revolution.

For decades, among Iranians in Iran in particular, a mullah supporter is commonly known as "hezbollahi", that says volumes.

The mullahs regime says they've to do what they can to protect their interests, because 85% of muslims in the muslim world are sunni. The rest, 15% are shia. Very uneven match. You can figure out the rest.

I personally like to see both the mullahs Shia regime and the Sunnis, now ISIS eradicated.

Fact is the Mullahs regime, Now, in Iran at least largely tolerates its religious minorities, i.e. does not indiscriminately behead or kill them.

Based on what we've witnessed with ISIS, ISIS certainly is a 1st class savage & absolutely subhuman.

So, your guess is as good as mine, should it come to war. It may just be a matter of survival for some.

The 31st anniversary is kept in my heart and mind. My heartfelt sorrow and condolences to the families.

[Eleutheria5]

“Iran would only be a threat to the SAudis”

You mean, after they annihilate Israel, as they have promised to do? Or after they are done propping up the Assad regime and murdering thousands in Syria? Or after they have virtually annexed what’s left of Iraq? Or after they’re done beating down ‘their’ Kurds, a truly oppressed ethnic group that really does deserve its own state? They happen to also be a threat to the Saudis, who at least are concerned with their profits on the oil market, which makes them predictable.

Kissinger views the world from the tunnel vision of diplomacy. See Lin Yu Tang Between Tears and Laughter, Doubleday, 1940, for a very well done parody of diplomatic thinking.

[odds]

So, do you prefer ISIS as your neighbor in Israel, instead of Assad?

[odds]

Because if you do. It either means Israel has a hand in propping up ISIS & has been supporting, indirectly at least, ISIS’s genocide in the region (including the Kurds), and thinks can cut a deal with ISIS, after all. Or that you’re genuinely uninformed, which I doubt.

[Eleutheria5]

The threat of Assad is in his alliance with Hizbollah and Iran, which is a real threat.

DAESH (or ISIS) wants to forcibly Sunnify Iran and annihilate Hizbollah. I wish them well in that endeavor, and wish Iran and Hizbollah well in repulsing their attempt, and hope I don’t run out of popcorn.

But I’d prefer a free and independent Greater Kurdistan, Alawitia, Zoroastria, Yazidia and an Eastern Christian enclave, with whatever remains being divided into Shiite and Sunni regions, to either Assad or DAESH as a neighbor. As for these things called Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan, I don’t particularly care for preserving their artificial borders, originally imposed by the UK for its own nefarious purposes. Let them all melt and re-converge along the lines I’ve described above, together with Iran.

[odds]

But I’d prefer a free and independent Greater Kurdistan, Alawitia, Zoroastria, Yazidia and an Eastern Christian enclave, with whatever remains being divided into Shiite and Sunni regions, to either Assad or DAESH as a neighbor.

Interesting perspective! Will not happen. Keep popcorn coming, your way. :)

[odds]

My friend, must say it is very kind of you to think of “Zoroastria” in the mix :)

[Eleutheria5]

“Will not happen.”

EMA is inevitable. It must happen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBgV0DK_FP4

[Eleutheria5]

Typical of Kissinger and his ilk to believe that Iran’s ideology is like a bad cough that will simply go away with antibiotics, hot tea and bed rest, ‘dealt with’. This is confusing wishful thinking with reality. The reality is that they are simply Brand X in the Sunni commercial, and Sunni is Brand X in the Shiite commercial, for a product that will destroy western and eastern civilization and bring about heaven on earth, when all mankind returns to sheep herding and tribal skirmishes. Iran is more formidable than the Saudis, but then Iranians have more formidable minds than Arabs, but they are still devoted to the same goal.