Land Destroyer Report
In
a cycle of habit borne out repeatedly in the mainstream western media,
demonization and fear mongering against Iran is picking up pace again in
the face of attempts by the new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to
rebuild relations with the west and work toward international
cooperation. The techniques and methodologies used by the west in
perpetuating the geopolitically-motivated, neo-imperialist, agenda
against Iran often come across in the media as clumsy and awkward in
their reasoning. Before delving into the hard geopolitical reality, a
much needed word on the disingenuous leveraging of human-rights against
countries such as Iran is critical.
Iran and the Western “Human Rights Card”
In a recent Fox News report,
Iran’s human rights record is criticized by Benjamin Weinthal, a
Berlin-based fellow of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).
His arguments are employed to argue against the feasibility of pragmatic
negotiations with Iran as according to his logic, Iran is not a regime
“worthy” of practical negotiation with. To use the reported human right
violations against religious minorities and Christians and particular as
geopolitical leverage to argue against diplomacy and negotiation with
Iran wreaks of compromised, corporate-financier motivation, especially
when juxtaposed with the intimate collaboration of the United States and its allies with one of the most repressive regimes in the Middle East (and the world), Saudi Arabia.
While
Iran is often berated for its short-comings, these short-comings pale
in comparison to the atrocities perpetuated by the Saudis. In Saudi
Arabia, no Jewish or Christian worship is allowed and possession of a
Bible could warrant you various brutal punishments. Saudi Arabia has
been notorious for rigid campaigns against Bible possession and religious symbols, especially in airport customs searches including the shredding of any Bibles found and in one case, harassing a nunwho was passing through Jeddah on a transit flight.
Saudi Arabia, in cooperation with the United States, is currently promoting a sectarian-extremist-driven destabilization campaign
in Syria whose byproduct has resulted in nightmarish lives for people
across religious lines which can be described as nothing less than premeditated genocidewith
former CIA official Robert Baer predicting campaigns against Christians
in Syria and Lebanon during an interview with Seymour Hersh for his
excellent 2007 article, “The Redirection.”
