September 27, 2019
You’ve hear a lot about the US withdrawal – never mentioned that it was an international law violation – from the nuclear deal with Iran (JCPOA). But you have probably not seen a couple of those Americans who are most responsible, on a day-to-day basis, for carrying out what is de facto an attempt to strangle Iran, its people and some of its leaders.
In short, to undermine and in the long run destroy Iran.
The two people are Sigal Mandelker of the US Treasury & Brian Hook, US State Department’s “Iran Action Group”. And the video below offer you insights in how they think – and how they justify what they do. It is a dialogue that took place recently at AIPAC.
AIPAC is the acronym for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee which is one of the most influential and well-financed lobby groups in the world whose task is to promote Israeli policies in the United States and seeing to it that the U.S. serves Israel as effectively as possible.
AIPAC has been analysed by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in a large book but in this issue of the London Review Of Books you may read a shorter version of their main arguments.
It seems to me to be a fairly good illustration of a modern-day political “Herrenvolksmentalität” – Master race philosophy – Washington style.
They appear proud – and the audience applauds them – of how well they carry out their duties and serve their country
If you didn’t know better, you’d believe that what they do is legal and morally OK given the monster Iran they have invented (presumably and subconsciously to live comfortably with their own crimes).
There is not an ounce of doubt to be seen, not to speak of a little empathy with those who suffer as a consequence of the policies they implement.
They are proudly just doing their job.
In the service of a higher good, representing a higher moral actor fighting a low-moral actor who deserves only contempt.
Within their constructed framework, the two personalities seem rationally goal-oriented and effective – rather than driven by sadism, hatred and a belief, it seems, in the Übermensch quality of God’s own country that they represent and do their utmost to serve.
I hope you are half as scared as I.
Note
Here is The Atlantic’s article about Sigal Mandelker who resigned on O
Wretched people being proud of strangling Iran added by JO on
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