Review: Notes On Resistance by Noam Chomsky

Notes on Resistance

I love reading Noam Chomsky till he writes on Kashmir.

He is a voice one must hear, though some, especially the likes of politicians, CIA, NSA etc., will dismiss his views as utopian. Whether his views are idealistic or not, one thing is for sure that he does not mince words when exposing the brutality of imperialism and authoritarianism, espcially American one. This book has been stitched together from a series of interviews he gave on various topics.

It is no wonder that Chomsky never was given too much attention in the mainstream media, unless during thos rare times when he was talking about linguistics.

The book is devoid of any jargons or over the top theories, and brings forth so many diversified examples of imperialism and power-grab that the first time reader of Chomsky might wonder if all of this is actually true (I am not a first time reader of his). But the added dimension is that the reader would be even in more disarray because he/she never read about it in history books. Because history books are not supposed to tell you how Iran’s democratic government was overthrown by U.S. and Britain due to their concerns of oil being nationalized. That India’s armed forces have often resorted to unspeakable violence when dealing terrorism in Kashmir (I told you, I hate Chomsky). However, in cases like Kashmir or Palestine, what Chomsky fails to realize is that just one act of misdirected violence by the forces would result in endless criticism. Whereas the infinite steadfastness of the forces to resist attacking the stone-throwers is never praised. There is no black and white in such cases. Neither side is perfect or imperfect. Grey zone is a reality of life, especially in conflict zones. But still reading Chomsky is a must for most of his critiques are valid and pointed.

However, most of Chomsky’s writings or views do suffer from what is suffered by Roy. There is no solution presented by Chomsky. It is naive to believe that only democracy is the best way to rule over a country. And naive to believe that only American way of democray is the ‘right way’ (Chomsky doesn’t believe this by the way). Wish his critique lead to suggestions and possible solutions too.

A must read book by all means.

Review: America and Iran by John Ghazvinian

America and Iran

Most books or documentaries start with the year 1979 when writing about Iran. And obviously so because they want to vilify Iran. 1979 saw the revolution which overthrew the dyasty and brought in conservative rule. And since then Iran has been consistently portrayed as the ‘bad boy’. But John goes back hundreds of years to write how did Iran really came to be seen as a villian and was it really so since ever? The answer is an emphatic no. As you may have read about my rants against mainstream media and the media cabal in some of my previous posts, reading this book reinforces that view even further.

John writes how Persia (that’s how the West referred to them, until many years later in 1935 the Iranian governenment asked itself to be referred to as Iran and not Persia) was considered a friendly, welcoming country and a land of enchantment. John’s deep research by going into newspapers, books, and even pamphlets show that people and media was smitten by the Persians and their rugs and culture. There is also how Christian missionaries went about converting and even propogating their kind of Christianity (the ‘right kind’) versus the ‘wrong kind’ which was being followed by Assyrians there. However, Persia was also treated as the ‘good one’ because it was Shia and the Turks and Afghans were Sunni. The Turks were especially despised because the Crusade Wars and the Afghans were being supported by the Turks to fight agains the Shias of Persia. And anybody against the Sunnis was good, and hence Persia became the good one. On top of it, the southern region of Persia was controlled by the British and the northern by the Soviets and the rulers of Qajar / Shah dynasty were more than happy to be subservient and let them plunder away the wealth of the country. America was out of such demeaning politicking, however could stay away for long when Reza Shah and his son took an American tilt and the Americans too had their eyes set on oil, the exploration rights of which had been handed over to the British on a platter for the sake of a loan by the Shahs.

I wouldn’t go into the whole political history of what happened after Mossadegh nationalized the oil industry, the coup against him orchestrated by the British and supported by Americans, and finally the 1979 Islamic Revolution which made Iran the ultimate, eternal arch-enemy of US and for Israel too.

This is a book so important that it should be made mandatory for anybody interested in international politics and diplomacy. John consistently shows how the mainstream media (I can’t stop my rants agains them) just parroted whatever the government wanted them to write about Iran and its various political leaders. John exposes how Israel has hyped up Iran as that one country which is an existential threat for the Jews despite of there being no evidence of it. Even the nuclear capabilities of Iran have been blown out of proportion to create an aura of fear so that the politicians like Netanyahu can rake up votes to be in power. This is one of those books which will leave you stunned and astounded at how the whole group of Western countries came together to crush Iran to its knees, making millions of people suffer and reducing their economy to a fraction of what it was earlier. Endless sanctions, American-backstabbing while gaining concessions from Iranian politicians, European malfeasance, and Russian selfishness, have all drained a country which was once vibrant and emerging and a cultural hub in the middle-eastern region.

I cannot recommend this book enough.

Review: Missing Man by Barry Meier

Missing Man

Barry Meier has crafted a thriller in Missing Man, tracking the disappearance of Robert Levinson (Bob), a former FBI agent and who was later working as a contractor to CIA. Bob disappeared when he went to Kish Island from Dubai for a “side trip” to reach a nut head Dawud Salahuddin. The purpose of Bob’s visit was to get information from Dawud about Iraninan regime’s possible methods which may be resorted to in the future in case US imposed sanctions on Iran due to uranium enrichment. Dawud was constantly feeding him how Rafsanjani had spread his tentacles into financial crime and money laundering and had even invested in various projects in Canada. Barry’s narration doesn’t keep you on the edge of the seat, but is more like an undercurrent of suspense which links the whole plot together.

Bob was struggling financially to keep up with the expenses for his family as his childrent (seven of them) went from school to college to their jobs and finally married life. Bob had worked in FBI for multiple decades and had forged strong connections within the intelligene and law enforcement agencies. When he started working as a CIA contractor in the hopes of getting more excitement and possibly better remuneration, he was dishing out copious amounts of reports for his handler Anne Jablonski, who teaches yoga. The financial unit of the CIA wanted dirt on the political elite in Ian and Bob made a connection with Dawud via the journalist Ira.

This book however is also an eye opener that the FBI and CIA are after all two arms of the government, where bureaucracy and red tape have rusted the piston as with any other departments of the government. The details about how Bob used to struggle to get his contracts finalized on time, reaching out to different departments within CIA for additional budget, and even spending money from his own pocket with the hope that eventually the bills would be tabled for reimbursement. But it is also a story we all know too well: government’s shirking away from owning up when things go south. After Bob was reported missing, CIA refused to acknowledge that Bob had gone to Iran (Kish) at its behest. The intelligence agencies were trying (not sincerely enough though) to get information about Bob through other means: Russian oligarchs, Kurdish fighters, Iranian exiles. Then there were people who had contacted the Levinson family through the website setup by them to give them tips. Somebody even sent emails few times from a Gmail id “osman.muhamad@gmail.com” but initially the emails were marked as hoax by the agencies, a decision which came to haunt them later. [The recovery email associated with it is “nsa******@gmail.com”, where the “*” may represent any characters but probably could be 6 characters. However, presence of “nsa” at the beginning of the recovery email might indicate that the person behind both of these email ids is trying to mock the US authorities]

Nobody still knows the complete truth about Bob, though there was a military court order from Iran which was shared by an Iranian exile in Germany. As much as one would want to dig deeper into the mystery, the outline is that Bob was a victim of the worsening relations between Iran and US. He was probably detained as a collateral for bargaining in negotiations. None of it worked though it seems when in 2020 the Levinson family released a statement that they were contacted by the authorities in US to inform them that it was believed that Bob had died while in custody in Iran.

I would highly recommend this book to understand how the world of spies is not as glorious as depicted in movies, and how they too are not above the shenanigans of government inefficiencies and inter-agency rivalries. Then there’s media too which played along the CIA version that Bob wasn’t their agent in the hope that it would be safer for Bob that way in captivity. It would have been a dramatic victory if Bob had been located or even released, but that were not to be (yet).

Review: Black Wave by Kim Ghattas

Black Wave

The recent spate of articles about the assassination of Qassem Soleimani has made many, like Thomas Friedman, to write that his image was being blown out of proportion and he wasn’t that important a man in geopolitics and he was getting undue press coverage way out of proportion. However if one were to read Soleimani’s profiles before his assassination, one would inevitably conclude that he indeed was deeply entrenched in conflicts across the Middle East, from supporting Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, groups in Iraq and Syria against ISIS. But Friedman couldn’t see all of this.

Kim Ghattas’ Black Wave is the latest addition in the plethora of books about the quagmire in Middle Eastern politics. Her focus is on the year 1979, when three epochal events took place: the Iranian Revolution, the siege of mosque in Mecca, and the onslaught of Russian forces on Afghanistan. First half of the book is hinged around this pivotal year, and how these events shaped the future of the region: the rift in American-Iranian relations, the rise of mujahideen and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan fed by CIA money, the strengthening of the grip of the state in Saudi Arabia. The author covers a vast region in the chapters: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan (briefly), Saudi Arabia, Yemen (again briefly), Pakistan, Afghanistan. It is an achievement to weave a common thread through such a vast region, rather than to paint everything in the colours of Sunni-Shia conflict (which does form the basis of the narrative in the second half).

However, the subtitle “Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the forty-year rivalry…” seems to be slightly misleading as the focus of book is a general, accessible history of the region, rather than a focus on the Saudi-Iranian animosity hinged on the centuries’ old Sunni-Shia divide. I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in modern history of the region without delving too much into the theoretical. You would meet Soleimani, Jamal Khashoggi, Ruhollah Khomeini, Musa al-Sadr, Saddam Hussein, Ahmadinejad, Baghdadi, Mohammad Bin Salman, and many others; but you would also read about the struggles of writers, columnists, actors, philosophers and anyone with a rebellious streak against oppression. The author focuses not only on the men in power, but also commoners who suffered due to their policy-making.

Review: Hezbollah – A short history by Augustus Richard Norton

Hezbollah by Augustus Norton

The recent killing of Qassem Soleimani has brought to the front a spurt of articles (1,2,3) across the globe about this man’s enigma and his ability to stand underwater through turbulent times, and never coming in limelight in the front. In fact, one of the articles mentioned that Hassan Nasrallah was warning Soleimani that recent profiles of his in Western media meant a case was being built for wiping him out: a sort of profiling in the minds of the people to serve as a base for justification of his elimination which might happen at a later point in time.

To understand however Soleimani in isolation would not do justice to the historical complexities of the region. The influence of Iran in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq cannot be understood in its entirety without delving deeper into regional power brokers, one of them being Hezbollah in Lebanon. Lebanon is a small country nestled above Israel and to the West of Syria, politically however it is as fraught as the region Middle East itself. As the author mentions, “The modern state of Lebanon won its independence from France in 1943. The defining compromise of Lebanese politics was the mithaq al-watani or national pact, an unwritten understanding between the dominant political communities of the day – the Sunni Muslims and the Maronite Christians”. Each of the “country’s seventeen recognized sects was accorded political privilege…roughly proportionate to the community’s size (original seventeen included four Muslim sects: Sunni, Shia, Alawi, Druze; twelve Christian sects: Assyrians, Syriac Catholics, Syriac Orthodox, Chaldeans, Maronites, “Rome” Catholics, Greek Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, Armenian Catholics, evangelicals, and smaller Christian sects, which are considered as one group; and Jews)”.

The book covers how the Hezbollah party came into existence and its regional power politics with Syria, Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Iran and even Yemen have shaped its influence in Middle East and beyond. The book is brief and majorly covers events till 2006, when war broke out between Lebanon and Israel over the capture of Israeli soldiers. The brief length of the book (around 170 pages) and lack of dense academic treatment of the subject makes it accessible to the general reader. A book which must be read to understand the current forces shaping the tenor of tensions between USA & Iran.