Good guys and bad guys: Hearing directly from the bad guys

OPINION:

In a bygone era of Hollywood, two sides were clearly delineated; the good guys and the bad guys. In old Westerns, the good guys tended to ride white horses and the bad guys wore black hats.

In the cops vs. criminals action phase of Hollywood, Clint Eastwood often played the role of the good guy. Despite his characters’ imperfections and penchant for coloring outside the lines, Mr. Eastwood always achieved justice, however that was defined in any given movie. He was a good guy.

In the contemporary era, Hollywood has taken to weaving more complex characters. The line between good guys and bad guys is often blurred. The flaws, the sins and the struggles of the eventual heroes are highlighted before allowing them to save the day.

America has two distinct countries it has long painted as the world’s bad guys, Russia and Iran. Their flagrant human-rights abuses are regularly highlighted in Western media. The dangers both pose to the rest of the world, and of course specifically to the United States, are featured not only in the news, but in speeches by prominent politicians.

Everyone on Earth needs a boogey man, someone to fear, someone to fight or be prepared to fight against. It is human nature. For the United States, it seems Russia and Iran are all too happy to fill the boogey man role.

While at the Doha Forum in Qatar this week, I had the opportunity to sit in on two one-on-one interviews. One was with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the other with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

Mr. Lavrov is the longtime Kremlin foreign minister. He is fluent in English, has a certain charisma about him and has a gifted ability to deflect questions with charm and humor. Make no mistake, he fits many of the Western stereotypes of the Russian machine, but he is gifted at his assigned task.

The Russian playbook nearly always calls for hitting the United States and its NATO allies in Europe hard, often with extreme claims. Mr. Lavrov did not disappoint.

His opening comment dove headlong into how the west has essentially given up its freedoms. He stated emphatically that this part of the world has sacrificed freedom in an effort to squelch other voices around the globe. He said there is no more free market. There is no longer any competition. The Russian was short on details to back his claims, but dropped enough humor to have many in the room leaning in for more.

He also said modern Western diplomacy is oppressive and self-serving. How ironic that America currently has an administration that mocks the notions of “America First” and “Make America Great Again” but the Russians say our nation is simply self-serving.

To his credit, Mr. Lavrov was the only one in two days of meetings in this Middle East paradise to strongly condemn what he termed as “the terrorist attack on Israel of Oct. 7.” He was emphatic: “we condemn any terrorist attack.” He went on however to say Russia “thinks that taking revenge on this group of people (Gaza residents) is unacceptable.”

Again, the irony is rich. He recognizes as unacceptable the Oct. 7 attack that killed 1,300 Israeli citizens and took hundreds of civilian hostages, but warns there should be no revenge, all while Russia bombards Ukraine for an alleged perceived threat of what Ukraine might do. Mr. Lavrov says theirs is not a war of choice. His claim instead? “Ukraine is being used as a tool against Russia by the U.S. and NATO.”

The best lines from Mr. Lavrov combined total denial of any Russian responsibility for the Ukraine war with the aforementioned tactic of painting the United States as the bad guy.

“It is up to Ukraine to realize how deep of a hole the United States has put them in” said the career diplomat. He then launched into what appeared to be a carefully constructed use of variations on the term “cancel culture.” He made claims of America cancelling Russian television, Russian culture and Russian education and used these claims to justify Russia’s war action.

“What other choice did we have?” Mr. Lavrov asked indignantly. “The war, launched by the United States, using Ukraine, will make Russia stronger.”

How’s that for odd logic? Rest assured, if those are the lines being recited to an international audience, the propaganda being fed to the Russian people is far worse. America is their boogey man.

Iran‘s foreign minister was equally fascinating in his comments. He spoke of the Hamas attack in a way that seems outrageous to much of the west, but is the prevailing attitude throughout much of the Middle East, calling it the “Hamas liberation against occupation” and repeating multiple times the phrase “phenomenon of occupation.”

Mr. Amir-Abdollahian stated emphatically, “We don’t recognize Israel as a state. They are just an occupying force for 75 years.”

He acknowledged that Iran funds Hamas and Hezbollah, but simultaneously claimed that Iran has sat out the 2023 conflict with Israel. Most Middle Easterners in the room seemed satisfied with this explanation.

During the Trump administration, the Abraham Accords brought together certain Arab countries with Israel, economically and socially. It represented the normalization of relations between countries with generations-old conflicts. Had Mr. Trump earned a second term, then intent was to expand such normalization to more countries.

Bringing people together is commonly seen as a good thing, but not to Iran‘s Foreign Minister.

“Normalization of relations with Israel has provided no benefits whatsoever” he stated. Iran literally lives in an alternative universe as the United States. They are so busy seeing America and Israel as their boogey men they see no benefit to peace or to working together.

Mr. Amir-Abdollahian had a long list of complaints about and against Israel, but when asked about Iran‘s human-rights abuses and specifically about certain protesters being jailed in Iran, he quickly deflected, “people who have acted against national interests will be tried in a fair way. Now let’s get back to Palestine.”

Before concluding his comments, Mr. Amir-Abdollahian recognized one point of perceived agreement with Israel.

“Iran does not believe in a two-state solution. It is the only thing we have in common with Israel.”