The Salesmen of Death

My wretched mood continues, though there is a break in the rain now.

It is around two hours past the time, 17:00 Tehran, that Sunday’s protests were supposed to begin. Calm prevails, so far. According to TNYT, protest leaders are talking about off-street demonstrations. Good. Street protests only will end in corpses. I hope this day’s peace continues and offers a respite from death.

There is no respite from the commentators who are paid to promote the interests of the ruling class from their deskchairs. Their bodies are not in the line of fire.

“There’s a very basic lesson here: For great powers, studied neutrality isn’t an option,” wrote Mark Steyn in The National Review.

This is the basic lesson of a sixth-grade school child. For great powers, often the best choice is to do nothing; let events on the street play out, and then work with the results. This is the difference between great powers and brutal thugs. Steyn and his cadre were brought up on the Rambo school of diplomacy: kill them before they kill us. They are employed to be the salesmen of death. For the gains in the end will be too small for the many priceless lives spent.

These salesmen of death are the most wretched of men.


“… faux elections because while the regime may have counted the votes accurately, it tightly controlled who could run. The choices were dark black and light black,” wrote TNYT Thomas Freidman in this morning’s paper.

For this you support a revolution? Do these people not understand how many worms will compost the protestors’ corpses?

Nearly anything an American President is politically allowed to say will push Ayatollah Ali Khamenei deeper into a corner. When you corner rulers who are perfectly capable of great brutality (that means most rulers in the history of civilization), they will react predictably. The first responsibility of anyone who rules any country is to keep in power. That is an unavoidable fact. The salesmen of death know this and want to use this fact to force Iran into a downward spiral of chaos. They would then feel justified calling, in their constant chorus, for the hard line tactics they believe can force Iran back under the control of the American Empire.

“I’ve also argued that, although repressive, the Islamic Republic offers significant margins of freedom by regional standards. I erred in underestimating the brutality and cynicism of a regime that understands the uses of ruthlessness,” wrote Roger Cohen in TNYT on June 14. (He is bravely reporting from Tehran.)

Cohen did not make an error. Both are true. In 1979, when American hostages were held in Iran, protestors were heard shouting death to the great satan at the television cameras. Then, they would turn away, and, with equal fervor, express friendship for Americans. Nations and people are complex, especially a nation and a people as old as Iran.

All rulers are capable of great banality and cynicism. All rulers understand ruthlessness, else they would not be in power. Al Gore did not become president because George W. Bush understood these lessons and Gore either did not, or he chose a gentler path. I cannot tell which. The outcome was the same, in any case.

Remember that our elections are faux, too. Americans are only more sophisticated in our methods than clumsy rulers elsewhere. Election districts are drawn to maintain elected officials in power. Only a great deal of money elects rulers here. Power does not come from the barrel of a gun in America as from the pocket of a billfold. (Do not be fooled. Rulers here are perfectly capable of ruling by the gun when circumstances allow.) Even the simplest checks on the new, computerized voting machines, those hackers’ delights, are voraciously fought against by those whose interests are in controlling vote counting. There is no limit to the ruthlessness of any nation’s ruling class.

Khamenei has no choice but to support the election. If he annuls the election he admits the process is a farce. If there is a recount and Hussein Moussavi wins, the election will be revealed as a farce. If there is a recount and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is still the winner, the recount will be called a farce. America should be wise enough to recognize this. Any rhetorical behests from American officials only serve to harden Khamenei’s resolve to use brutal means to keep power.

It is the apex of wretchedness to push Iran into such chaos.

“Shouts of outrage are fine by folks like me on the web, but the U.S. government should never forget that its primary task is to do no harm,” wrote Gary Sick on Gary’s Choices. “It may be hard to hold your tongue, but then nobody ever said foreign policy was easy.”