Removing the Regime in Iran From the Page of Time?

For anyone who believes the US and her allies have been manipulating the public into supporting military action against Iran, the latest Zogby International poll makes grim reading.

According to this poll, which has an error margin of +/- 3.1%, 52.9% of US voters now believe it is either very likely or slightly likely that ‘Based on what [they] know about Iran’s development of a nuclear program… the U.S. will be involved in a military strike against Iran before the next presidential election?’ Further, when asked, ‘Based on what you know about Iran’s development of a nuclear program, how supportive are you of a U.S. military strike to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon?’, 52.4% said they would either be somewhat supportive or very supportive.

At first glance, this is a little perplexing, particularly against a backdrop of waning support for the invasion of Iraq. But it simply reflects how successful our leaders have been at convincing us that Iran is determined to both acquire a nuclear weapons capability and use it against us. The truth is, we have no hard evidence that they intend to do either. So why are we buying it?

“…if you are going to conclude that we have said the people there have to be removed or they have to be massacred or so, this is fabricated, unfortunate selective approach to what the mentality and policy of Islamic Republic of Iran is.” – Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency

Perhaps this NewYork Times translation of a speech given by Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in October 2005 to an Islamic Student Associations conference on ‘The World Without Zionism’ has something to do with it.

Our dear Imam said that the occupying regime must be wiped off the map and this was a very wise statement. We cannot compromise over the issue of Palestine. Is it possible to create a new front in the heart of an old front. This would be a defeat and whoever accepts the legitimacy of this regime [Israel] has in fact, signed the defeat of the Islamic world. Our dear Imam targeted the heart of the world oppressor in his struggle, meaning the occupying regime. I have no doubt that the new wave that has started in Palestine, and we witness it in the Islamic world too, will eliminate this disgraceful stain from the Islamic world.

This, undoubtedly hostile and inflammatory speech, was quickly interpreted as a call for genocide and specifically, the destruction of the state of Israel.

Naturally, Israel was quick to respond, calling an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council and arguing that Iran should be expelled from the UN. Benjamin Netanyahu went so far as to warn that Iran was “preparing another holocaust for the Jewish state”.

The EU also issued a statement, which declared that “[c]alls for violence, and for the destruction of any state, are manifestly inconsistent with any claim to be a mature and responsible member of the international community”. It later adopted a resolution condemning Ahmadinejad’s comments.

Both Canada and the US linked what they saw as Ahmadinejad’s threat of genocide to what Paul Martin, then Canadian Prime Minister, called its ‘obvious nuclear ambitions.’ The US further argued that it had been shown to be right in seeking to halt Iran’s nuclear programme.

More recently, the US House of Representatives passed a resolution aimed at persuading the UN Security Council to charge Ahmadinejad with violating the 1948 Convention on Genocide and the United Nations Charter. At its core was the oft-repeated claim that Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be ‘wiped off the map’. But when Congressman Dennis Kucinich tried to introduce an alternative translation – ‘the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time’ – into the Congressional record, he was blocked form doing so.

There is clearly a considerable difference between the phrases, ‘Israel must be wiped off the map’ and ‘the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time’. This begs the question, what was Kucinich’s source for this alternative, not to mention unpopular translation, and is it the correct one?

One possible source is Arash Norouzi. In an article from his web site, The Mossadegh Project, Norouzi takes us through a word by word translation of this key phrase.

Imam (Khomeini) ghoft (said) een (this) rezhim-e (regime) ishghalgar-e (occupying) qods (Jerusalem) bayad (must) az safheh-ye ruzgar (from page of time) mahv shavad (vanish from).

Or…

The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.

Norouzi also sets out the context, which he argues is necessary in order to get a fuller understanding of Ahmadinejad’s meaning.

In his speech, Ahmadinejad declares that Zionism is the West’s apparatus of political oppression against Muslims. He says the “Zionist regime” was imposed on the Islamic world as a strategic bridgehead to ensure domination of the region and its assets. Palestine, he insists, is the frontline of the Islamic world’s struggle with American hegemony, and its fate will have repercussions for the entire Middle East.

Ahmadinejad acknowledges that the removal of America’s powerful grip on the region via the Zionists may seem unimaginable to some, but reminds the audience that, as Khomeini predicted, other seemingly invincible empires have disappeared and now only exist in history books. He then proceeds to list three such regimes that have collapsed, crumbled or vanished, all within the last 30 years:

(1) The Shah of Iran- the U.S. installed monarch

(2) The Soviet Union

(3) Iran’s former arch-enemy, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein

In the first and third examples, Ahmadinejad prefaces their mention with Khomeini’s own words foretelling that individual regime’s demise. He concludes by referring to Khomeini’s unfulfilled wish: “The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time. This statement is very wise”. This is the passage that has been isolated, twisted and distorted so famously. By measure of comparison, Ahmadinejad would seem to be calling for regime change, not war.

Juan Cole, President of the Global Americana Institute, agrees with Norouzi, adding:

Ahmadinejad was not making a threat, he was quoting a saying of Khomeini and urging that pro-Palestinian activists in Iran not give up hope– that the occupation of Jerusalem was no more a continued inevitability than had been the hegemony of the Shah’s government.

Whatever this quotation from a decades-old speech of Khomeini may have meant, Ahmadinejad did not say that “Israel must be wiped off the map” with the implication that phrase has of Nazi-style extermination of a people. He said that the occupation regime over Jerusalem must be erased from the page of time.

Perhaps the most surprising source for this alternative translation, however, is The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). Surprising because the institute is led a former Israeli military intelligence officer and has often been accused of distorting selected quotations in order to help present Israeli foreign policy in the most favourable light.

I wonder whether American voters, armed with these alternative translations, would still be so enthusiastic about a pre-emptive strike against Iran.

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