NYT's & WaPo..... Up to the Same Dirty Tricks!

[KoKo]

Think Again: Another Unnecessary War? Another Media Misstep?

By Eric Alterman

May 3, 2007

Despite the uniformly catastrophic results of the Bush administration’s (deceptively defended) decision to invade Iraq, an American attack on nearby Iran remains a significant possibility. Most Americans are undoubtedly having trouble making sense of why and whether such an attack is necessary as the news of the “Iranian threat” arrives piecemeal, helter-skelter, and without much in the way of useful context.

Watching, listening to, and reading the news, we hear bits and pieces of a frustrating diplomatic kabuki dance around critical issues such as alleged WMD development and terror connections, faux negotiations and accusations, and counter-accusations. It’s almost too terrible to quote Yogi Berra about “déjà vu all over again,” but there, I did it.

The latest occasion for alarm is the upcoming ceremony in sunny Sharm El Sheikh (in the Sinai), where Iran will convene with other interested parties in a conference on the future of Iraq. But all the excitement over the possibility that Condoleezza Rice might have a substantive chat with her Iranian counterpart at the Sharm breakfast buffet misses an essential element in the history of the conflict between these two nations.

What almost all news outlets miss in their coverage of the diplomatic dance is the recent history of Iran’s offers to the United States to settle the two nation’s differences peacefully, including addressing literally all of our legitimate security concerns.

Writing in The American Prospect last year, diplomatic historian Gareth Porter dissected some of the problems with the American public’s debate on Iran. Of course, leading his debate is the Bush administration narrative: “Iran’s ‘mad mullahs’ want nuclear weapons to destroy Israel and can only be stopped by the threat or use of military force.” To support this view, Porter reports that State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters that Bush and company did not see “‘anything that indicates the Iranians are willing to engage in a serious diplomatic process’ on the nuclear issue.”

Per usual, the truth is exactly the opposite. Former administration official Flynt Leverett was one of the first people to reveal a little-known Iranian offer of diplomacy. In a January 2006 New York Times op-ed. Leverett reported on three separate opportunities the United States had to engage Iran: when we fought the Taliban and Iran offered support in 2002, when Iran offered bilateral negotiations to resolve the countries’ differences in spring 2003, and when the Bush administration declined to join in a European diplomatic initiative that included the suspension of Iranian nuclear enrichment later in 2003. Each chance was refused by the Bush administration.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/05/unnecessary_war.html

[acmavm]

1. Of course, of course