Location Location Location: The Unintended Symbolism of the White House Haft-Sîn

White House Nowruz, 2015 (Photo: The White House)

This week, Michelle Obama hosted the second annual White House Nowruz, a celebration of the Iranian New Year. Though a relatively apolitical affair, the placement of the reception's traditional haft-sîn, however, should have raised some eyebrows.

Nowruz, which literally means "new day" in Farsi, is an ancient festival of new beginnings, deeply rooted in Zoroastrianism, celebrating the first day of Spring and the Persian calendar.

Of the myriad traditions and festivities associated with Nowruz, the most universally recognizable may be that of the haft-sîn (هفت سین‎), a table arrangement decorated with seven (haft) items – each beginning with the Persian letter S (sîn) – and symbolizing renewal, reconciliation, good luck, and prosperity.

The shindig, MC'ed by comedian Maz Jobrani and catered by renowned Persian chef Najmieh Batmanglij, was held on April 6 – a few days after the official holiday season (which lasts roughly 13 days) had actually ended.

The White House, naturally, had its own haft-sîn on display at its Nowruz party. However, its location in the East Room, where the celebration has been held both years, was a bit curious and (probably) unintentionally laden with symbolism all its own.

Nowruz-sevelt

The table containing such traditional items as wheat grass (sabzeh), garlic (sīr), vinegar (serkeh), apple (seeb), wheat germ pudding (samanu), sumac berries (somaq), and dried fruit (senjed) was placed - as it was last year as well - right beneath John Singer Sargent's 1903 presidential portrait of Theodore Roosevelt.

A haft-sîn in the White House's East Room, on April 6, 2016. (Photo: Holly Dagres / @TheIranist)

One of the principal promoters of American imperialism at the end of the 19th century and in the first decade of the 20th, Roosevelt once wrote, "I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one." Roosevelt's belief was, as he told the Naval War College, "No triumph of peace is quite so great as the supreme triumph of war." It is said he carried around a list of six target nations on three continents.

In December 1904, Roosevelt issued his official Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, declaring that the United States would not hesitate to use what he called its "international police power" to destroy and replace regimes deemed hostile to American interests. Though initially used to justify military intervention, invasion and occupation of Western Hemisphere nations such as Cuba, Nicaragua, Honduras, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic, Roosevelt sent a similar message to the entire world in late 1907, when he deployed the nation's Great White Fleet to circumnavigate the globe in a show of American power. The fleet consisted of 16 battleships and support vessels, crewed by 14,000 sailors. It sailed for 14 months, covering over 43,000 miles and made twenty port calls on six different continents.

Just as it is common practice today for U.S. presidents to deliver Nowruz remarks to the people, and sometimes leaders, of Iran, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries "American presidents were encouraged to exchange telegrams with the Shah of Iran on the occasion of the Persian New Year's Day."

"In 1902," note scholars Kamran Scot Aghaie and Afshin Marashi, "President Theodore Roosevelt even presented the Shah of Iran, Muzaffar al-Din, and his brother, Zill al-Sultan, with a copy of his book, Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, recognizing that hunting was a favorite pastime of the Persian royal family as well."

At the time, Iranian leaders saw the United States - which had no imperial presence in the Middle East at that point - as a potential non-interventionist ally against persistent Russian and British encroachment on Iranian sovereignty. Following the Iranian Constitutional Revolution in 1906, Russia and Britain both occupied Iran in 1907 in an effort to dissolve the parliament and prop up the waning Qajar dynasty, dividing the country between them until 1911. Roosevelt remained neutral, however, a position subsequently maintained by Taft and all successive U.S. administrations through World War II, when Russia and the United Kingdom again invaded and occupied Iran to secure wartime supply routes for the Allied Powers and replaced the then Shah, Reza Pahlavi, with his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Kermit's Coup

On August 19, 1953, Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh was overthrown in a military coup planned and orchestrated by the United States and Britain after nationalizing Iran's oil industry. Pro-Shah riots were staged, hundreds were killed, newspapers supportive of Mossadegh were ransacked and shuttered, and the prime minister was arrested and tried for treason.

The main architect of the coup, executed at the behest of British petroleum interests and under the guise of pro-active anti-communism, was the chief of the CIA's Near East and Africa division, Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. - grandson of President Teddy Roosevelt.

The ouster of Mossadegh, and the reinstallation of the Shah, by American intelligence operatives is a seminal moment in Iranian history and political consciousness, setting the stage for a quarter-century of tyrannical dictatorship propped up by torture, corruption and U.S. military aid, as well as establishing the United States as an interventionist power in the region. Popular backlash against the Shah, and his American backers, culminated in his overthrow by the Iranian Revolution, and the establishment of an Islamic Republic in 1979.

Roosevelt's Shadow

By honoring Iranian culture with a haft-sîn table set under the watchful gaze of Teddy Roosevelt - the godfather of American military intervention and the grandfather of the man responsible for Operation Ajax in 1953 - the White House is unwittingly sending a message of continued hostility and imperial hubris toward Iran.

In his annual Nowruz message, delivered right before his historic trip to Cuba, President Obama said that, "even after decades of mistrust, it is possible for old adversaries to start down a new path." At a time when Iran is fully upholding its end of the nuclear accord, while the residual effects of U.S. sanctions continue to cause problems for Iranians, optics remain important.

One possible step on the path to better relations would be to move the haft-sîn to the other side of the room.

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The Mistakes and Missing History of CFR's #ThisDayinHistory Tweet on Iran

As part of its "This Day in History" series on social media, the Twitter account for the Council on Foreign Relations posted the following this morning:

#ThisDayinHistory, 1979: Iran is declared an Islamic republic after 55 years of rule under the Pahlavi dynasty. pic.twitter.com/KvnmSukZmP

— CFR (@CFR_org) April 1, 2016

At first glance a couple things are off about this tweet, admittedly minor, but worth noting nonetheless.

For one, the photo used in the tweet - taken by AP photographer Aristotle Saris, was taken not on "This Day in History" back in 1979, but actually on January 19 of that year, at a massive, million-plus person, pro-Khomeini rally against the government of the recently exiled Shah and in favor of the establishment of an Islamic republic in its place.

Also, "This Day in History" is actually yesterday. The advent of an Islamic republic in Iran was announced by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on Farvardin 12, a date on the Iranian calendar that corresponds with April 1, except in leap years, when it's March 31.

This being 2016 - a leap year - CFR should have posted the anniversary tweet on Thursday, not today.

More importantly, however, the language used in the tweet's text is somewhat misleading. Of course, tweets are, by design, extremely limited in content - not too much context is possible in a mere 140 characters. Still, completely omitted from this quick retrospective is the fact that an Islamic republic replaced the Pahlavi dynasty - and with it millennia of monarchy - through the will of a popular referendum, not merely imposed by dictatorial mandate.

A Transitional Government, Two Referendums and a New Constitution

Just days after returning to Iranian soil after years of exile, Khomeini appointed Mehdi Barzargan as prime minister of the interim government. In a statement read by none other than Hashemi Rafsanjani, who would go on to become (and remain) one of the most powerful political forces in the country, Barzargan was granted not only "the authority to establish an interim government without consideration of any affiliation to parties or dependence on any factional groups," but also to arrange "a referendum and refer to a national public vote the issues of turning the country into an Islamic republic."

Iranians line up to vote to abolish the monarchy and establish an Islamic republic, March 30, 1979

Less than two months after the Shah was deposed, a referendum vote took place in Iran (and at Iranian embassies and consulates worldwide for Iranian citizens in the Diaspora) on March 30 and 31, 1979 to determine the future nature of the nascent post-revolutionary government. Over those two days, millions of men and women, 16 years of age and over, cast their votes.

Perhaps the outcome was never really in doubt. Placards and posters depicting Khomeini and the admonition, "Only an Islamic republic," were ubiquitous. An Iranian political economy professor, writing from Paris the day before the vote, noted that the "majority is expected to vote for replacement of the monarchy by an as yet undefined 'Islamic republic.'" A number of political and ethnic minority groups around the country boycotted the referendum on the reasonable grounds that not enough choices were presented to the electorate.

The ballot was binary, as described in a March 30, 1979 New York Times article entitled "In Iran Balloting, Only Victory Margin Is In Doubt," filed from Tehran by correspondent John Kifner:

The ballot came in three sections, like a perforated ticket. One section was for registration, the other two were the choices: the section in green, the color of Islam, had the word "yes" printed on it; the other was red, with the word "no."

'In the name of the Almighty,' the red and green choices said, enunciating the question on the referendum, which began today, 'to change the previous regime to an Islamic republic whose constitution will be approved by the people.'

...the voters presented a birth certificate or other identification, had it stamped and took the ballot, which was stamped again on the registration section. They would tear off either the green or red section and deposit it in a box on the table...The unused section of the ballot could be discarded or carried away.

The article also notes that, at that particular voting station, a precinct election judge "showed a visitor a wastebasket at the polling place at midday to indicate how the returns were going. Nothing but red 'no' slips could be found among the hundreds of crumpled papers."

The front page of Kayhan showed voters casting ballots on 11 Farvardin 1358 (March 31, 1979) [source]

Voting hours were extended until 10pm and the margin of inevitable victory grew, amidst some reports of seemingly intimidating polling environments and peer pressure. For instance, one observer "criticized the lack of privacy for voters. There were no booths, and voting was done in the presence of Islamic officials, often amid dozens of posters calling for a yes vote." Also, reported The New York Times:

There were many reports of polling officers tearing off the green-colored "yes" portions of the ballots and stuffing them in the boxes on behalf of the voters, who meekly got their identification cards stamped and left. A number of young voters told reporters that they were afraid to openly vote no in the presence of so many others who felt otherwise.

On April 1, 1979, the result was announced.

New York Times reporter Gregory Jaynes wrote that "Ayatollah Khomeini was jubilant over the two-day vote on his proposed Islamic republic," quoting the revolutionary leader's published statement: "I am declaring today the day of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and I would also like to declare that such a referendum is unprecedented in history - to establish a Government of righteousness and to overthrow and bury the monarchy in the rubbish pile of history."

As for the turnout and resulting percentages, Jaynes reported that the referendum commissioner Ahmad Noorbaksh said that "97 percent of the electorate had voted for the Islamic republic, out of the 98 percent eligible to cast ballots," though this was an unofficial assessment. Official results would not be released for a few weeks.

Nine months later, when the new Iranian Constitution was adopted, Chapter 1, Article 1 read:

"The form of government of Iran is that of an Islamic Republic, endorsed by the people of Iran on the basis of their long-standing belief in the sovereignty of truth and Qur'anic justice...through the affirmative vote of a majority of 98.2% of eligible voters, held after the victorious Islamic Revolution led by the eminent marji' al-taqlid, Ayatollah al-Uzma Imam Khomeini."

It has subsequently been reported that the total number of voters was 17,129,896. Of those, a reported 16,821,557 (98.2%) voted "yes" in the referendum, as opposed to the 308,338 voting "no."

Another source reports, "According to published records in this referendum 20,288,000 people voted 'Yes' and 241,000 people voted 'No,'" while yet another claims that 20,147,855 voted 'yes' and 140,996 voted 'no." This figure puts the approval rate at 99.3% of voters.

Overall, the voter turnout has been generally placed at 92%, though obviously this "official" number could be disputed.

Nevertheless, with an "Islamic Republic" founded, Iran now needed a new constitution.

According to Iran Chamber, here's what happened next:

The Ayatollah Khomeini regime unveiled a draft constitution on June 18. Aside from substituting a strong president, on the Gaullist model, for the monarchy, the constitution did not differ markedly from the 1906 constitution and did not give the clerics an important role in the new state structure. Ayatollah Khomeini was prepared to submit this draft, virtually unmodified, to a national referendum or, barring that, to an appointed council of forty representatives who could advise on, but not revise, the document. Ironically, as it turned out, it was the parties of the Left who most vehemently rejected this procedure and demanded that the constitution be submitted for full-scale review by a constituent assembly.

After a month-long campaign, elections for this 73-member body - dubbed the "Assembly of Experts" - were held on August 3, 1979, and a new draft of the constitution combining elements of republican and clerical rule was hammered out by mid-November.

On December 2 and 3, 1979, a second referendum was held to adopt the newly-written constitution. It is reported that the new Iranian Constitution was approved by 99.5% of voters (15,680,218 in favor; 78,516 opposed), with a 71.6% turnout.

A newly created seventy-three-member Assembly of Experts convened on August 18, 1979, to consider the draft constitution. Clerics, and members and supporters of the IRP dominated the assembly, which revamped the constitution to establish the basis for a state dominated by the Shia clergy. The Assembly of Experts completed its work on November 15, and the new Constitution of the Islamic Republic was approved in a national referendum on December 2 and 3, 1979, once again, according to government figures, by over 98 percent of the vote.

Obviously, this is too much information to summarize in a single tweet. But knowing the context is important, especially if we are to understand the revolutionary and political history of a nation that is all too often misrepresented, maligned, and marginalized in our own media.

*****

Pandermonium! At AIPAC, Trump Makes Same Promise on Jerusalem We've Been Hearing Since 1972

Breaking news!

The news media is abuzz today with reports that, speaking before the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference in Washington D.C. - the annual gathering of rabid right-wing Israel supporters - a presidential candidate vowed to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

So who was it this time? Donald Trump.

"We will move the American Embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem," he bellowed, reading from a script written for him by his son-in-law Jared Kushner, publisher of the conservative, pro-Israel weekly The New York Observer. Kushner took over the business from his father Charles, a real estate mogul and convicted criminal once described by The Jewish Week as "one of the marquee names in American Jewish philanthropy."

Donald Trump: We will move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem https://t.co/5Maw9wLgag #AIPAC2016 https://t.co/JlLkpWvFtg

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) March 21, 2016

So why is this news? It's not.

Promising to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's undivided capital and to move the American embassy there is part of Pandering 101 for Oval Office hopefuls. It is one of those litmus test talking points; the thing a politician says to prove the depths of his or her obsequiousness to a minuscule but influential cadre of donors and king (or queen) makers.

Every candidate in the past few decades knows this. It's an easy vow to make, and no one ever pays any political price for inevitably breaking it (since half of Jerusalem remains occupied territory and actually moving the embassy there would be a clear violation of international law (and long-standing U.S. policy, recently upheld by the Supreme Court), which doesn't recognize Israel's claim over the historic city). Making such an absurd promise plays well to the writhing masses at AIPAC confabs, establishes one's Zionist bona fides, and is a quick and easy way to offend indigenous Palestinians living under occupation, apartheid and blockade without actually flipping them the bird.

Nevertheless, the press continues to report on this blustery promise, no matter who utters it, as if it actually merits attention.

While he repeated the promise today for AIPAC, Trump had already said it back in January. And Ted Cruz has too (and even introduced legislation mandating the move in early 2015):

So has John Kasich (though, he's made clear that might not be his first priority when it comes to foreign policy):

And Jeb Bush before him:

So did Mitt Romney in 2012:

And Ron Paul and Rick Santorum the same year before they dropped out of the race:

And Newt Gingrich and Michelle Bachmann (and Herman Cain) before them:

Unsurprisingly, both John McCain and running mate Sarah Palin made the promise back in 2008:

Even Barack Obama participated in this ritual before AIPAC, the day after clinching the Democratic Party nomination for president in June 2008:

Obama's statement was met with instant criticism and he wound up walking it back almost immediately. Five weeks after delivering those remarks, Obama effectively retracted them during an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria, saying, "You know, the truth is that this was an example where we had some poor phrasing in the speech. And we immediately tried to correct the interpretation that was given."

Four years earlier, John Kerry did the same (without the walk-back), while also touting his record of making similar demands during his tenure in the Senate:

Before that was Al Gore and George W. Bush in 2000. As reported by The New York Times in May 2000:

(Supporters of moving the embassy were subsequently disappointed in Bush's failure to act on his promise.)

The year before, while beginning her campaign for New York's Senatorial seat, the then-First Lady Hillary Clinton weighed in on the matter herself:

The next summer, as election day neared, Clinton repeated her pledge, adding that "the embassy should be moved from Tel Aviv before year's end."

Every Republican Party platform in the past 20 years has maintained the fiction that the embassy would be moved to Tel Aviv at the earliest convenience. The 1996 platform even vowed that the next "Republican administration will ensure that the U.S. Embassy is moved to Jerusalem by May 1999," while four years later the party promised that "the next Republican president will begin the process of moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Israel's capital, Jerusalem."

In the mid-1990s, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole and House Speaker Newt Gingrich similarly pandered like pros:

Before that, in 1992, the Clinton/Gore campaign hit the incumbent Bush administration for balking at the official recognition of "Israel's sovereignty over a united Jerusalem." Their campaign promised voters that "Bill Clinton and Al Gore will... support Jerusalem as the capital of the state of Israel."

Even Mike Dukakis tacked to the right of both the outgoing Reagan administration and George H.W. Bush campaign in 1988:

Al Gore, who tried to win the Democratic nomination for president that year, reportedly said in September 1987 that "he would consider moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem."

In April 1984, during a heated Democratic primary season, Walter Mondale and Gary Hart bent over backwards to assure voters in New York City that they too supported moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem (a position even Israelis themselves understood as hollow political posturing).

The New York Times reported at the time:

Walter F. Mondale said he had supported such a move for 20 years, and he asserted that Senator Gary Hart had changed his position on the issue five days ago. In the past two weeks, Mr. Hart has denied that he suddenly changed his position, but has said his position has ''evolved.'' He has said firmly that if he became President, he would move the embassy to Jerusalem.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson is the only one of the three candidates who opposes moving the embassy. The Reagan Administration also opposes such a move because the status of Jerusalem has long been disputed and the United States does not support Israeli sovereignty over the city.

Despite efforts by New York Senator Daniel Moynihan and California Congressman Tom Lantos to introduce a bill mandating the move, Reagan was adamant about not relocating the embassy, as such a divisive policy would, according to his Secretary of State George P. Shultz, "be very bad for the United States" and "damage our ability to be effective in the peace process."

The pandering was so thick, however, that a month later the Reagan administration had to pretend to consider supporting the move in order to stave off losing votes in the upcoming election.

Though the bill eventually stalled, Los Angeles Times syndicated columnist Nick Thimmesch, who called the proposal "one of the dumbest ideas to be advanced in Congress this session," lamented that "some of the election-year pandering in the Republic verges on the obscene" and credited the ill-conceived gambit to the lawmakers' "blind obedience to the Israel lobby (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee)." That was October 3, 1984.

By 1986, another bill was introduced to move the embassy, this time brought to the Senate floor by segregationist Republican Jesse Helms.

During the 1980 presidential campaign, Reagan attacked the Carter administration for abstaining from a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israel's attempted annexation of East Jerusalem and calling upon all countries to remove their embassies from the city.

But even by the mid-1980s, though, this was an old political ploy. The New York Times pointed out that the 1976 Democratic Party platform - on which Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale ran for office - declared:

We recognize and support the established status of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, with free access to all its holy places provided to all faiths. As a symbol of this stand, the U.S. Embassy should be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Before that, on March 17, 1972, Michigan Congressman Gerald Ford, then the Republican Minority Leader, told a Zionist Organization of America regional meeting in Cleveland that the Nixon Administration should transfer the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.

Two years later, after first replacing Spiro Agnew as Vice President and then becoming President himself following Nixon's resignation, Ford backtracked on his previous position. "Under the current circumstances and the importance of getting a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, that particular proposal ought to stand aside," Ford said at his very first presidential press conference on August 9, 1974.

It's been over four decades since then and, sadly, while Palestine remains under brutal occupation, Israeli colonies continue to expand with impunity, and Palestinians are subject to ongoing oppression and violence, election-year pandering and blind obedience to the Israel lobby has become more obscene than ever.

*****

UPDATE:

March 22, 2015 - In his own grotesque AIPAC speech today, Ted Cruz reiterated his promise regarding moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

"On my very first day in office," he declared, "I will begin the process of moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem, the once and eternal capital of Israel," using the AIPAC-approved epithets always used by fawning politicians to describe the historic city.
Nodding with acknowledgement of the fact that this vow is an repeated refrain for presidential hopefuls, Cruz sought to dispel any doubt that he would act on his illegal and immoral promise. "I recognize for years a whole bunch of presidential candidates, both Republicans and Democrats, have said that," he told the assembled Zionists. "Some have said that standing here today. Here's the difference: I will do it."

Thankfully, here's the thing: no, he won't. In fact, since he'll never ever be president, he'll never even get the chance.

*****

UPDATE II:

September 28, 2016 - During a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was in New York City for his annual propaganda stand-up routine before the United Nations General Assembly, Donald Trump again declared his intention, if elected president, to have the United States government officially "recognize Jerusalem as the undivided capital of the State of Israel."

Such recognition would clearly violate both domestic and international law, as Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem in 1967 is considered illegal and illegitimate by the entire world, including the United States.

Trump's declaration - a common campaign promise by presidential hopefuls and constant refrain of AIPAC-funded Congressional blowhards - goes hand-in-hand with another absurd pledge routinely made by politicians: that the U.S. Embassy will be relocated from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

It's a pandering platitude signifying nothing. But what else should we expect from this gilded nightmare?

(Credit: GPO)

*****

Putting A Lid On Clinton's Erroneous Iranian "Nuclear Weapons Program" Talking Point

Hillary Clinton walks onstage at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee before the February 11, 2016 Democratic debate.

(Credit: AP Photo/Morry Gash)

Marco Rubio isn't the only presidential candidate who robotically regurgitates the same irritating sound bite over and over again.

In early July 2015, as negotiations over Iran's nuclear program and international sanctions entered their final stage, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was campaigning at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. "I so hope that we are able to get a deal in the next week that puts a lid on Iran's nuclear weapons program," she told the crowd.

On July 14, the day the deal was reached, she repeated the idiom twice, calling the agreement "an important step in putting the lid on Iran's nuclear program" and telling the press that while the accord "does put a lid on the nuclear program... we still have a lot of concern about the bad behavior and the actions by Iran."

Later that month, while stumping in Iowa, Clinton told a crowd of her supporters, "I don't trust the Iranians, nobody should trust the Iranians. We're not expecting some kind of transformation on their part. This is a hard-headed agreement to put a lid on their nuclear weapons program."

Back in New Hampshire that August, Clinton insisted, "We have a lot of other challenges posed by Iran. But personally as your future president, I'd rather be dealing with those challenges knowing that we have slowed down and put a lid on their nuclear weapons programs."

The following month, the Clinton campaign had returned to Iowa, where the presidential hopeful said, "I support the president's agreement with Iran," adding that "it's the best alternative we have to put a lid their nuclear weapons program."

On the January 17, 2016 edition of Meet The Press, Clinton told Chuck Todd, "Look, I have said for a long time that I'm very proud of the role that I played in getting us to the point where we could negotiate the agreement that puts a lid on Iran's nuclear weapons program."

During the February 4 Democratic debate, she again said the Iran deal "puts a lid on the nuclear weapons program."

At a debate in Wisconsin a week later, Clinton boasted (seemingly to the tune of "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly") that she "put together the coalition that imposed the sanctions on Iran that got us to the negotiating table to put a lid on their nuclear weapons program." She later said, "I think we have achieved a great deal with the Iranian nuclear agreement to put a lid on the Iranian nuclear weapons program."

During a Town Hall last night, Clinton laid out her version of Iranian nuclear history:

They had built covert fuel facilities. They had stocked them with centrifuges, all of that had happened while George W. Bush was president. And we had done, you know, sanctions, and everything that we could think of as the United States government and Congress, but it had not stopped them.

And there were a lot of other countries in the region who said they would take military action if necessary. So I led the effort to impose sanctions on Iran, to really bring them to the negotiating table, the negotiations started under my watch, ably concluded under Secretary Kerry, to put a lid on the Iranian nuclear weapons program.

Clearly, Clinton thinks this particular idiom will resonate with a largely uninformed American public that has been trained to believe that, before her heroic sanctions and the eventual deal, Iran had been desperately trying to build a nuclear weapon. "By 2009," her campaign website reads, "Iran was racing toward its goal—and a lot of Western nations felt powerless to stop them."

But here's the thing: none of that is true.

Iran Doesn't and Didn't Have a Nuclear Weapons Program - and Never Has

International intelligence assessments have consistently affirmed that Iran has no nuclear weapons program. What Iran does have, however, is a nuclear energy program with uranium enrichment facilities, all of which are perfectly legal and protected under international law. All Iran's nuclear facilities and fissile material is under international safeguards, strictly monitored and routinely inspected by the IAEA. No move to divert nuclear material to military or weaponization purposes has ever been detected. These facts have been consistently affirmed by U.S., British, Russian, and even Israeli intelligence, as well as the IAEA. In fact, the IAEA itself has said in the past that there is "no concrete proof" Iran's nuclear program "has ever had" a military component.

Hysteria over an imaginary Iranian "race" toward a obtaining a nuclear bomb has been exploited over the past three decades to justify sanctions, threats and covert actions against Iran in the hopes of overthrowing the government that came to power after ousting the U.S.-backed Shah in 1979.

Even claims that Iran had a dedicated nuclear weapons program before 2003 are dubious at best, and rely on evidence that is most likely completely fabricated and whose authenticity was repeatedly questioned by the IAEA. As former IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei noted in his 2011 memoir, "Age of Deception," U.S. intelligence officials "did not share the supposed evidence that had led them to confirm the existence of a past Iranian nuclear [weapons] program, other than to refer to the same unverified set of allegations about weaponization studies that had already been discussed with the Agency."

In fact, even the "Final Assessment" of Iran's alleged past weapons work, published last December by the IAEA, was a dud. The agency concluded that "a range of activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device were conducted in Iran prior to the end of 2003 as a coordinated effort, and some activities took place after 2003," and that "these activities did not advance beyond feasibility and scientific studies, and the acquisition of certain relevant technical competences and capabilities." Moreover, the IAEA affirmed - as it has for the past decade - that there were "no credible indications of the diversion of nuclear material" from Iran's nuclear energy program to a possible parallel military effort.

After reviewing these findings, former weapons inspector Scott Ritter insisted, "There hasn't been a more meaningless conclusion of such an over-hyped issue since the CIA assessed that Iraq had 'dozens of WMD program-related activities' in the aftermath of the invasion and occupation of that country." Beyond this, Ritter adds that even the supposed "range of activities relevant" to a nuclear weapon "are far less threatening than the ominous description provided by the IAEA would lead one to believe. In every case, the IAEA was either forced to concede that their information was baseless (allegations concerning the manufacture of "uranium metal," for instance), or else could be explained through 'alternative applications' involving Iranian commercial and military activities unrelated to the Iranian nuclear program."

Reading even further between the lines, nonproliferation expert and international law professor Dan Joyner has noted that the IAEA assessment wholly vindicates Iran against allegations that its past activities violated its legal obligations. He wrote that the IAEA has "now given its opinion that Iran has not violated NPT Article II through any of the alleged PMD activities, because none of the assessed activities can be said to rise to the prohibited level of the manufacture or other acquisition of a nuclear explosive device." Also, because there was never any diversion of nuclear material from peaceful to military uses, the IAEA had effectively "determined that none of these activities constituted a violation of Iran’s safeguards obligations. As Article 1 of Iran's comprehensive safeguards agreement makes explicit, the IAEA's safeguards activities in Iran are implemented 'for the exclusive purpose of verifying that such material is not diverted to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.'"

Bet you don't hear that in the press or shouted from podiums often.

Iran Didn't Build 'Covert Fuel Facilities'

Neither of Iran's two uranium enrichment facilities - at Natanz and Fordow - was ever operational without strict IAEA safeguards in place. Both of them were declared to the agency well in advance of opening and long before any nuclear material was introduced to the plants or the centrifuges installed in them. Since coming online, both facilities have been routinely and rigorously monitored and inspected by IAEA personnel. No diversion of nuclear material to weapons work has ever been found or suspected.

No One Was Going to Attack Iran

A common refrain heard consistently for decades now is that the "clock is ticking" and "time is running out" to end the nuclear impasse peacefully because Israel, or the U.S. itself, is on the verge of bombing Iran. This is all bluster and chest-thumping.

It was never actually going to happen - and still won't. Such threats lent credibility to and deflected criticism of successive administrations' negotiations with Iran, nothing more. If the American public thought an attack was imminent, the reasoning went, they'd support diplomacy over war and any negotiated outcome could be seen as a victory for the West. The supposed pending attack on Iran is the ultimate straw man. This is literally how propaganda works.

Clinton Was Part of the Problem, Not the Solution

Hillary Clinton has long been touting her own role in kickstarting negotiations with Iran that eventually led to a multilateral deal. But Clinton did nearly nothing to advance the talks and, throughout her political career has done everything she could to threaten Iran, support confrontation and stall diplomacy.

It was Clinton who, during her time as Secretary of State, held fast to the Bush administration's (and Israeli government's) outrageous insistence that Iran forego its legal rights and curtail all domestic uranium enrichment. Iranian offers to negotiate a deal since 2005 were routinely rejected by the United States government, which long maintained the irrational position that Iran capitulate to the American demand of zero enrichment on Iranian soil.

Clinton also killed a potential deal over a nuclear fuel swap in 2009 because she refused to negotiate minor details with Iran, instead demanding that Iran "accept the agreement as proposed because we are not altering it." What a diplomat.

What made successful diplomacy with Iran possible was not, as so many like Clinton still erroneously claim, the devastating sanctions imposed on the Iranian people or even the 2013 election of Hassan Rouhani, it was the Obama administration's eventual abandonment of the "zero enrichment" demand.

Though Clinton did authorize (at the behest of President Obama) backchannel talks with Iran to proceed 2011 and 2012, no real progress was made toward a solution to the enrichment impasse. As Laura Rozen has revealed, it wasn't until early 2013, after John Kerry succeeded Clinton as Secretary of States, that talks bore fruit.

"At the March 2013 Oman meeting," Rozen reported in August 2015, "then-Deputy Secretary of State William Burns conveyed a message from Obama that he would be prepared to accept a limited domestic enrichment program in Iran as part of an otherwise acceptable final Iran nuclear deal."

This dropping of the "zero enrichment" demand effectively opened the door for acknowledging (albeit implicitly) Iran's right to enrich and for negotiations to move forward productively.

Clearly, the biggest obstacle Iranian negotiators had to deal with on their way to a deal was Clinton herself.

It's about time Clinton put a lid on her own lies.

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Clinton's Efforts Were Detrimental, Not Instrumental, to Reaching a Deal with Iran

"To be successful in the way that I expect, we're going to watch Iran like the proverbial hawk."
- Hillary Clinton, on Meet The Press, January 17, 2016

Ever since the signing of the Iran deal last summer, Hillary Clinton has been taking credit for it.

As the contest for the Democratic nomination for president heats up, Hillary Clinton continues to promote her foreign policy experience, acumen and expertise more and more, dismissing Bernie Sanders' own international affairs chops as either wrong-headed, too idealistic or simply nonexistent.

Surely, in an atmosphere where the specter of her Iraq vote still looms large and her chumminess with war criminals like Henry Kissinger is starting to raise eyebrows, there is still time for Hillary's hawkish record to come back to haunt her this primary season.

In the meantime, though, Clinton is hoping to cash in on - and partially take credit for - one of the Obama administration's signature diplomatic achievements: the Iran Deal.

"Look," Clinton told NBC News' Chuck Todd on January 17, "I have said for a long time that I'm very proud of the role that I played in getting us to the point where we could negotiate the agreement that puts a lid on Iran's nuclear weapons [sic] program."

That evening, at the Democratic debate in Charleston, South Carolina, Clinton said basically the same thing:

I'm very proud of the Iran Nuclear Agreement. I was very pleased to be part of what the president put into action when he took office. I was responsible for getting those sanctions imposed which put the pressure on Iran. It brought them to the negotiating table which resulted in this agreement.

At the next debate, on February 4 at the University of New Hampshire, Clinton went even further:

You know, I did put together the coalition to impose sanctions. I actually started the negotiations that led to the nuclear agreement, sending some of my closest aides to begin the conversations with the Iranians.

By casting her tenure at the State Department as instrumental in laying the groundwork for the nuclear accord, which lifts international and unilateral sanctions in return for the application of strict limitations on Iran's nuclear energy program, Clinton is attempting to rewrite history.

In reality, her lockstep adherence to neoconservative and Israeli demands regarding Iran's safeguarded uranium enrichment program during her four years as Secretary of State put a deal with Iran further out of reach, not closer to happening. It was not until an executive decision was made in the White House to change long-standing U.S. policy about Iranian enrichment - an about-face that Clinton herself opposed but was begrudgingly forced to accept, but never herself articulate - that progress could be made toward ending the nuclear impasse.

It was Hillary Clinton, after all, who scuttled a fuel swap deal in 2009 that would have greatly reduced Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium by delivering deeply patronizing ultimatums to Iran instead of dealing diplomatically and respectfully with a sovereign nation that has interests and concerns of its own.

And it was Hillary Clinton who, during the first Democratic primary debate last October, boasted of making enemies of "the Iranians."

Hillary on the enemies she's proud to have made: "The NRA, health insurance companies, drug companies, the Iranians...and the Republicans."

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 14, 2015

The truth is that the Iran deal was achieved in large part because the Obama administration shifted away from Clinton's hawkish antagonism and reliance on the failed policy of piling on illegal sanctions and so-called "coercive diplomacy."

Sanctions Didn't "Work"

Essentially, negotiations with Iran were able to succeed primarily due to the Obama administration's acknowledgment that Iran would continue to operate a fully-monitored, comprehensively safeguarded domestic uranium enrichment program. It had nothing to do with sanctions, which served only to deepen Iran's resolve to maintain and expand its nuclear program and create resentment toward the United States and harm the health, food security and livelihoods of Iranian citizens.

Sanctions were not only ineffectual from a political standpoint, they actually totally backfired. Forced to diversify its economy, Iran increased its non-oil exports and expanded privatization, in turn growing Iran's middle-class and reducing government control over the economy, thus rendering the pressure of trade sanctions even less effective. As a result, Moody's Investors Service recently reported that, due to its experience under sanctions, the Iranian economy is now far more resilient to low oil prices than other crude exporters and "won't suffer from capital flow volatility amid U.S. interest-rate increases because it has had minimal exposure to external debt and foreign direct investment."

Nevertheless, Clinton's own campaign website boasts about how "she twisted arms in the international community to impose the strongest-ever international sanctions on Iran."

Sanctions did not, as we are so often told, bring Iran to the negotiating table. Iran had been at the table for a decade already, offering its international interlocutors proposals that guaranteed a severe reduction in enrichment capacity, the setting of limits on enrichment levels, enhanced monitoring and inspections, expanded safeguards protocol, and the opening up of its program to international partnership and investment. The only condition consistently insisted upon by Iran before it accepted these stringent terms was the acknowledgement and acceptance of its inalienable right - as affirmed by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty - to a peaceful nuclear program, and full domestic control of its own nuclear fuel cycle, including uranium enrichment.

For 10 years, Iranian offers were routinely rejected by Western negotiators, who long maintained the irrational position that Iran capitulate to the American and Israeli demand of zero uranium enrichment on Iranian soil and refused to acknowledge Iran's national right to enrich uranium.

"We cannot have a single centrifuge spinning in Iran," declared George W. Bush's undersecretary of state for arms control Robert Joseph in early 2006. Such a stance had already scuttled chances for a comprehensive nuclear deal in 2005 and this outrageous precondition - that Iran give up all enrichment capability indefinitely until the West said so - poisoned subsequent talks until the Obama's White House officially changed course in early 2013.

It was Obama's realization that this was a failed policy, not the "crippling sanctions," that led to successful negotiations. That, and John Kerry taking the lead - both during his tenure in the Senate and subsequently as Clinton's successor.

Indeed, as recently as March 2015, Clinton was still indicating her preference for "little-to-no enrichment" in Iran and refusing to recognize Iran's inalienable rights.

Clinton's Backchannel to Nowhere

Despite being given - and eagerly taking - undue credit for laying the groundwork for a nuclear agreement with Iran, Clinton's role is far less impressive than it sounds.

Laura Rozen has laid out the timeline in articles for Al-Monitor, noting that it wasn't until March 2013 that the Obama administration officially let go of the "zero enrichment" demand and signaled that Iran's nuclear rights and domestic control of its nuclear fuel cycle would be respected.

This was the game-changer Iran had been awaiting for close to a decade, not Clinton's tentative and dismissive approach to opening secret talks with the Iranian government.

As former weapons inspector Scott Ritter has pointed out:

Ultimately, it was the United States that was compelled to change course and acknowledging not only Iran's right to enrich, but the fact that this enrichment would be allowed to continue in perpetuity. It wasn't economic sanctions that drove Iran to the negotiating table, but rather the reality of 20,000 spinning centrifuges inside Iran that drove the United States to the negotiating table. And far from capping a non-existent nuclear weapons program, the Obama administration had to surrender to the reality that Iran got what it always wanted — the ability to exercise its rights under the nonproliferation treaty to enrich uranium for peaceful nuclear energy.

This is the truth. But don't expect to hear much about it as this campaign season continues.

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