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01 Doublespeak, Iran and the status of the Western project
One of the features of the War on Terror (WOT) is the constant challenge of trying to understand the neo-Orwellian doublespeak coming out of Washington and London. For instance, when America and Britain talk about an international consensus on anything from containing Iran to stabilising Iraq, what they actually mean is that as long as they both agree, and carry with them some other western countries, this equates to an international consensus. Other uses of doublespeak state that as a result of greater 'democratisation' in the Muslim world, the west is gaining ground in the battle of ideas.What elections have showed (by the way elections are not a monopoly of secular democracies) is that secular parties have been increasingly trounced in Iraq, Egypt and Lebanon with a similar trend forecast to occur in Palestine. Tony Blair and George Bush continually parade the fact that 10 million Iraqis voted in the last parliamentary elections, but what they are quiet about is who most Iraqis voted for. Parties representing secular Shiites fared poorly in December's parliamentary elections compared with an Islamist coalition and this trend is repeated across the Muslim world.
Other examples of doublespeak that have entered the WOT lexicon are the terms 'extraordinary rendition' (illegal CIA kidnapping and torture), 'collateral damage' (a wanton recklessness towards the protection of civilian life) and 'nuclear non-proliferation' (only applies if you are not an ally of western states).The latter term has been used with renewed vigour with respect to Iran and her alleged intentions to pursue a nuclear programme for nonpeaceful purposes.The problem with doublespeak is that when repeatedly used, it eventually catches up with you, eroding your credibility and exposing your political objectives, as the case of Iran proves. At present Iran is fulfilling her NPT obligations while America and Britain are not, since the treaty calls for existing nuclear states to reduce and eventually eliminate their own nuclear arsenals. Both the US, through its intention to build mini-nukes, and the UK, through the anticipated replacement for Trident, are actually moving in the opposite direction to the treaty. Secondly, Iran has every right to pursue a nuclear programme to defend itself, due to the hostility of the neighbourhood it finds itself in. Both Israel and the US have threatened to strike Iran, the US has stated more than once that it wants the Iranian regime to disappear off the map, both nations are nuclear and America has 170,000 troops in the region and numerous air bases in the Gulf.The final myth is that Iran would use a nuclear first strike against Israel, and this doesn't even pass the laugh test. Unless a nuclear bomb has been invented that distinguishes between Israeli citizens and Palestinians or between Israelis, Egyptians, Syrians and the Lebanese, millions of Muslims would also die as a result of a nuclear strike by Iran.
What is needed therefore is to rid the world of doublespeak. We need to build up a coalition of the willing who are prepared to engage in a pre-emptive strike using surgical precision and smart bombs.Though this may lead to some collateral damage with respect to speech, the world will be a better place without the tyrants of doublespeak and their weapons of mass deception.
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