Obama picks co-founder of AIPAC and Fox News commentator as advisor on Iran policy

Stephen Kinzer, a former Middle Eastern correspondent for The New York Times and author of All the Shah's Men, says the first Americans to venture into what was then Persia were missionaries, including Howard Baskerville, still considered by many a Persian martyr. He was killed in 1909 while leading revolutionaries who were rising up against the British-backed Shah.

They went on to establish a constitutional monarchy in Iran and cemented America's reputation as having no imperialistic intent on the Iranian people.

That reputation was lost soon after World War II, as Washington became mindful of the threat of Communist expansion in the Middle East. Iran had become increasingly important to Britain as its major source of oil. Integral to Britain's prosperity was the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, owned by the British government.

Crisis erupted in 1951 when the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammad Mossadeq, announced plans to nationalize the company's assets. Then Prime Minister Winston Churchill sought help from a wartime ally in Washington, newly elected President Dwight Eisenhower, who was worried about losing Iran in its entirety to the Soviet Union.

And so Eisenhower sanctioned a CIA-orchestrated coup in 1953 that toppled Mossadeq and helped His Majesty Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi to take control. The Shah soon abolished the multi-party system and instituted two decades of repressive violence.

The Shah was eventually overthrown in the Iranian Islamic Revolution. For having backed the Shah, in 1979 America's embassy in Tehran was stormed by militants, who took about 70 people hostage.

After working for five US presidents, Dennis Ross has resigned his position as President Obama’s chief Middle East advisor.

Presidents Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II and Obama, all arrived at the White House determined to recast the nation’s role in finding a permanent peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Sometimes immediately, sometimes later, one man was involved in shaping how the US dealt with peace between Israel and the Palestinians. At first his role was small; but by the time he went to work for Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, he had became the key player in the process.

That man is Dennis Ross, a non-lawyer, who has been called “Israel’s lawyer”, by former State Department official, Aaron David Miller.

Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University, and a former colleague of President Obama’s at the University of Chicago, was asked by the Institute of Middle East Understanding (IMEU) for his reaction to Ross’ departure. His response:

Quote:

Since the Reagan administration, Dennis Ross has played a crucial role in crafting Middle East policies that never served peace, which is today farther away than ever.

His efforts, which contributed to the growth in the number of Israeli settlers in the occupied territories from under 200,000 in the 1980s to nearly 600,000 today, were marked by a litany of failures.

It is long overdue for him and the bankrupt policies he represents to be shown the door.

Diana Buttu, former legal advisor to Palestinian negotiators and a current Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, told IMEU:

Quote:

Dennis Ross has done more to undermine the rights of Palestinians and set back their struggle for freedom and equality than any other American official.

...

When Ross leaves the White House at the end of this month, he will return to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a spin-off agency created by AIPAC.

Ross worked with a variety of titles for five US presidents. But wherever he hung his hat, his Zionist loyalties were clearly evident to those he served and shaped, in the media/religious/political leadership bubble that shields American decision makers and decision-shapers, from seeing any Middle East reality except the Zionist version.