Cacophony on the Left

The US power elite are united on the points that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, is out to destroy Israel, supports "terrorist organizations" abroad, and is killing US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that therefore it must be stopped. They repeat these points over and over and over again, and they are beginning to stick. No one in the audience, presumably educated people, laughed when Columbia University President Lee Bollinger, a liberal man, hammered on them as if they were well established facts.

Leftists, in contrast, have no such unity.

How many opinions exist on the Left regarding Iran's nuclear program alone?

• "[C]ountries like Iran should possess nuclear arms to constrain the global hegemony of the United States." -- Slavoj Zizek


• "[U]nambiguously oppose any nuclear energy development in Iran." -- Reza Fiyouzat

Between these two extremes are more nuanced voices like these:

• Iran's nuclear energy program makes economic sense, and "[a]s long as the IAEA has not found Iran in violation of its international obligations towards nuclear weapons, the global community must not give in to unreasonable pressure by those nations that use international treaties as tools to advance their and their allies' agenda." -- Muhammad Sahimi


• "We believe that the way out of the current crisis passes through transparency of all the decisions made and actions taken towards achieving nuclear technology, winning the trust of the International Atomic Energy Agency with respect to the extent and goals of advanced industries in Iran, avoiding any provocative statements and actions towards the countries of the region, and planning the foreign policy of the country based on the acceptable and established principles of international policy." -- Tudeh


• "Countries don't get nuclear weapons to use them. They get them to strengthen their bargaining power, and to protect themselves from others. . . . Nuclear weapons are better relegated to the scrapheap of history, to be sure. The world would be a better place without them. There is no guarantee that they will not be launched, perhaps accidentally. But the potential that Iran will build them, and after that the possibility that it might use them, provide no reason to go to war against Iran." -- John B. Quigley

And so on, and so forth. The public would be hard-pressed to figure out what exactly those in opposition to Washington want. Contradictory voices do not add up to a powerful coherent discourse that can effectively counter the US power elite's propaganda.