>, Marvin Gandall :
>> Whether leftists defend the Iranian leadership along with Yoshie,
> Julio, and LT, or defend Iran while indicting the leadership, as
> Dabashi, Doug, and others do, will have virtually NIL effect on US
> policy towards Iran, or how Americans react to that policy.
>
> ^^^^^^^
> CB: I'm not so sure that U.S. leftists didn't affect Americans'
> reaction to the U.S. policy on Iraq, so we might impact Americans'
> thinking on U.S. policy on Iran.
==================================
The issue isn't whether American opinion can be influenced, but whether the
character of the Iranian regime, which we've been arguing about, has much to
do with that. That's what my statement said, although evidently not
as clearly as it should.
It's apparent that a lot of Americans already oppose a wider war with Iran for fear of the economic consequences, reprisals against them at home and their soldiers abroad, and further damage to the country's international standing. It makes sense then to focus and build on these themes.
Americans won't oppose a war as a result of greater public understanding of the Islamic regime. Call this the Yoshie Fallacy. If anyone has an interest in turning the focus on the regime, it's those trying to whip up support for an attack, not the left.
When the right focuses on the regime, then it's necessary to respond in the careful way Comrade Tomb explained earlier. But the question here has not been about whether the left should respond to distortions about the Islamic republic when that is made an issue, but whether the left should itself try to make it an issue. What made the discussion toxic earlier on was the provocative suggestion that Doug, Dabashi, and other unnamed "Western leftists" who are not sympathetic to the regime and don't want to promote public support for it are, by extension, not really interested in stopping US intervention in Iran. More care needs to be taken in distinguishing between our friends and our enemies when we have sharp disagreements.