“Nobody Knows What Is In The President Mind And Mr. Cheney”
Pajamas points us to a delightful interview with Seymour Hersh by our man in Teheran, Mehdi Geramifard, who needs to get a tape recorder.
Semi-fluent notetaking* that gives Hersh’s responses a Persian cast, combined with the reporter’s leading questions and Hersh’s usual rambling, make this a must-read. Despite Hersh’s running disparagement and skepticisim of the administration, his gullibility re the good intentions of the mullahs and his eagerness to throw US interests under the bus, he does a passing job of laying the cases for attacking both Iraq and Iran.
Some gems:
1) In 2002 Congress gave Bush the authority to attack anywhere he pleases, pre-emptively. He can do what he likes. “It did not limit the president authority to just by Iraq.”
2) Hersh states of the Bush: “It seems to be doing exactly what he wants to do. So the politics of the day make very little difference to Bush.” However, he goes on to note that Congress lacks the votes to cancel its 2002 war authorization, despite its best efforts. I’m looking around for a Hersh quote to sum this up. This one’s good: “It was just everybody was a political state man that we don’t like this war on Iraq. I think I have to say that the Democrats so far want running for presidency or even more critical of Iran and some other Republicans.”
3) I’m not sure exactly what Hersh means by this reply. Go ahead, kill Americans?
Question: As our supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei has stated in case of any attack upon us we have got the right to retaliate against American interests and bases at any place of our choice. So doesn’t US administration fear about targeting its bases around our country and its establishments or killing its forces and etc?
Answer:You know I can just tell you it should and again as I wrote in the New Yorker magazine we are doing more than targeting Iran where inside your country.
4) Hersh on why attacking Iraq was a good idea: “You could argue that the neo-cons want to get rid of any threat. They never liked Saddam. He was a threat to the other countries in the Middle East, to Israel.”
5) Hersh on why attacking Iran is a good idea: “I think the President and the Vice President believe that Iran will have a bomb soon and it will give it to Hizbullah and ask them to spread it in America. They believe that Hizbullah has the capability to operate inside America.”
Hersh of course thinks neither of these things is a good idea, and does not believe either Saddam or the mullahs pose(d) a threat, but its nice of him to make a good faith effort to point out why they are.
6) Hersh seems to have been dozing a few years ago when Iran’s reform movement was derailed by hardliners who, in addition to rounding up dissidents, barred candidates they didn’t like from the ballot: “Perhaps what we are doing is for Israel and oil but I don’t think this president believes that he really thinks his mission is to spread democracy in the Middle East, even though, you could argue that Iran is probably the most democratic country.”
Always important to know what your enemies are thinking, and this one’s a twofer!
* With all respect to Mr. Geramifard, whose English is much better than my Farsi. Concerned readers may want to consider passing the hat to get him a digital recorder, as he clearly is ready to take the mullahs’ message onto the international stage.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:40 am on Monday, April 9, 2007
One Response to ““Nobody Knows What Is In The President Mind And Mr. Cheney””
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April 9th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
Perhaps you’re being unfair to Mr. Geramifard. It could be that he was quoting Hersh accurately. Maybe that’s what Hersh sounds like without an editor. He isn’t really that much more coherent with one.