Lying Our Way to Tehran (Part 2)

In Part One of this post we caught R. James Woolsey in a blatant lie designed to undercut the authority of the December 2007 National Intelligence Estimate.

Part Two presents a more important lie because it represents, if relied on by the Administration, the very foundation of the argument for the attack on Iran. This is the argument that we must act to prevent nuclear weapons falling in to the hands of Muslim fanatics bent of world destruction.

AHMADINIJAD AND HOJJATIYA

The matter of the NIE was problematic and had to be dealt with some way and, it appears, that a straightforward lie was all that was available. The alleged link between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinijad and the Islamic fundamentalist group known as Hojjatiya is more subtle, but also vastly more important. It is here that we will be asked to find to existential threat to justify our pre-emptive bombing.



Woolsey’s version of Hojjatiyah is truly frightening and anybody might be tempted to take extreme measures to protect themselves from such fanatics. Woolsey tells us that Hojjatiyah believes, along with many Shia, that the end of the world will be preceded by the return of the Twelfth Imam (or “Hidden Imam” or “Mahdi”). Unlike ordinary Shia, according to Woolsey, the Hojjatiya believe that the coming of the Twelfth Imam can be hastened:

“if you can just work to get about 1/3 of the people in the world killed and another third to die of pestilence then the cries of pain will be great enough that the Hidden Imam will hear them . . . he will then return with Jesus as his Shiite deputy and lead the battles that will end the world.” (Woolsey’s speech here, 1:10-1:37 on the timer)

Head of the Hojjatiya, again according to Woolsey, again delivered as if this stuff was the most routine, common understanding among knowledgeable people, is the Ayatollah Mezbah Yazdi. Mezbah Yazdi, says Woolsey, is so extreme he was banished to the holy city of Qom by the Ayatollah Khomeni in 1979 for being too radical. Woolsey’s expression here suggests that it is almost impossible to imagine anyone too radical for Khomeni.




Mezbah Yazdi is, according to Woolsey, the spiritual mentor of President Ahmadinijad, and now the horrific picture begins to take shape.

If Mezbah Yazdi’s student Ahmadinijad gets his hands on nuclear weapons, the Hojjatiya will try to execute their insane apocalyptic scheme to destroy a third of mankind and bring back the Hidden Imam. If we are tempted to think this scheme is too crazy to be real, Woolsey solemnly reminds us of Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

The only problem with Woolsey’s foundation and analysis is that, once again, it is all false.

We are not scholars of Iranian society, nor of Islamic theology. Thanks to the internet, we need not be and a few googles and keystrokes away we find the Encyclopedia Iranica, which has been in existence since 1979 and is a highly regarded project of Columbia University in New York.

As Woolsey offered not a scrap of evidence for any of his assertions we are content to rely on this much admired and scholarly work to refute him on virtually every point he made. Unless otherwise noted, everything that follows is drawn from the Iranica article on the Hojjatiyah

We could not find any evidence at all, in the Iranica or elsewhere, that Hojjatiyah holds the apocalyptic views Woolsey describes. In fact, they are described in Iranica as holding a “quietest” view that “while advocating . . . ‘awaiting’ the savior, discourages active revolt in order to hasten the appearance of the Mahdi.” Iranica, here.

This view of Hojjatiyah is supported in a long piece from the New York Times of October 10, 2006, where Noah Feldman reported:

“One small, semi-secret Iranian organization, the Hojjatiya Society, was banned and persecuted by Khomeini’s government in part for its quiescent view that the mahdi’s arrival could not be hastened.”

Later in the same paragraph the point is made again in connection with Ahmadinejad’s alleged link to Hojjatiyah:

“Rumors, possibly spread by Ahmadinejad’s enemies, have tied him to the outlawed Hojjatiya — a link mistakenly interpreted outside Iran as evidence that he might want to bring back the imam by violence, rather than that he might prefer to wait piously and prepare for the imam’s eventual return on his own schedule.”
(Both these quotes appear in the ninth paragraph of Section V.)

There is nothing in the Iranica, nor anywhere else that Google could take us, that supports Woolsey’s characterization of Hojjatiyah as a sinister cabal bent on unprecedented bloodshed in pursuit of fanatical goals. All the evidence is to the contrary.

Mr. Woolsey is an intimate of the people who designed and delivered our present war on Iraq. Whether the lies outlined here are the final foundation for the Iran attack remains to be seen. They are, at least, evidence of the lengths the neocons are prepared to go to realize their deadly ambitions regarding Iran.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. We now stand on the brink of being fooled twice. If we permit this to happen we will stand without excuse in the court of world opinion.

Forewarned is forearmed. This article is offered to prepare anyone who is interested to meet the arguments of those who want to bomb Iran. Assuming any arguments are offered.