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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Dude, you are so full of shit.
Glenn, are you actually concerned that Obama will attack Iran?
Of course I'm "concerned." During the campaign, he repeatedly used the standard language for threatening an attack when talking about Iran's nuclear program (that it is unacceptable, that he would use all means at his disposal to prevent it, etc. - those are paraphrases, but the actual quotes are close to it).
Do I think it's likely that he will? No. Impossible? Hardly. And the fact that he's promoting the central claim that would justify such an attack -- Iran is seeking nuclear weapons and we can't let them have them, it's a top priority, etc. -- should make anyone concerned. I'm not staying up at night worrying about it because I think it's unlikely, but how could anyone not be concerned.
Do you think - notwithstanding Obama's prior commitments -- that it's basically impossible that Obama would attack Iran, even if they seem close to acquiring a nuclear weapon? If so, what accounts for that impossibility?
Obama Won't Have to Kiss AIPAC's Ring -- Progressive Alternative to Hawkish Mideast Policies Emerges
A new wave of progressive Jewish activists are challenging the dominance of AIPAC and other hawkish groups on Gaza, Israeli settlers and even Iran.
By Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet. Posted January 12, 2009. (see sig)
Normally, a very constricted beltway political wisdom on Israel, as embodied by AIPAC, would set and guard the parameters of the debate over these questions. But the landscape of organized Jewish political power in America is changing. Even as John Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt were coming under heavy fire for their 2006 analysis of the traditional American Israel Lobby, a liberal pro-Israel countermovement was forming in utero. Today, that movement is not only walking and talking, it is mounting a vigorous challenge to the dominance of traditional groups like AIPAC and the Anti-Defamation League. Together with a growing number of voices within the foreign policy community, it is pushing Obama to initiate a strong and fresh approach to the region during his busy first 100 days.
As we wait to see how this debate shapes up, it's worth revisiting what we know about Barack Obama. In his personal life, he has exposed himself to both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide like few other incoming presidents. At the University of Chicago, he cultivated a friendship with the Palestinian-American scholar Rashid Khalidi, through whom he also came to know the late Edward Said. He visited the slums of Ramallah in the West Bank on his own initiative, after which he told an audience in Muscatine, Iowa, “Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people.” During the primaries and presidential campaign, these facts fueled the hopes of Palestinians and Americans hungry for a more balanced approach to the region. It also became grist for Republican (and Likud) fear and smear campaigns that warned Obama was an Israel-hating stalking horse for Hamas and a kissing cousin of Louis Farrakhan.
Obama neutralized these smear campaigns all too effectively. Terrified that the attacks would go viral faster than his dismissals, Obama famously tracked hard right upon clinching the Democratic nomination. His first act as nominee was to visit AIPAC and affirm his commitment to the U.S.-Israeli “special relationship,” cemented by $30 billion in no-strings military aid over the next decade. After one of Obama's informal advisors, the highly respected Robert Malley of the International Crisis Group, came under rightwing assault for holding meetings with Hamas officials, he was quickly and quietly allowed to “resign.” In November came Hilary Clinton's appointment and word that the hawkish former Middle East envoy Denis Ross is a leading candidate to fill that position again.
[…]
As explained most eloquently by Bernard Avishai in an October essay for Harper's, “Obama's Jews” are a different breed than the hard-line Likudniks that have traditionally claimed to represent the American Jewish community. “Obama's campaign exposed the fault lines among Jews, which are serious, while implicitly challenging the great silent majority to repudiate ... neoconservative celebrities like William Kristol ... whose militant simplicities purport to represent them -- and don't,” wrote Amishai, noting that 70 percent of American Jews support exerting pressure on both Israelis and Palestinians. “Obama's campaign is an implicit opportunity for a new leadership to emerge, a contemporary equivalent of Rabbi Heschel locking arms with Dr. King.”
That new leadership is guardedly confident that Obama will call for a cease-fire upon taking office and begin the tortuous work of reviving the peace process. Just as important, they are hopeful they will have a voice in the debate over the evolution of U.S. policy. Last month, senior Obama transition officials met with an unprecedented array of American Jewish organizations, including pro-peace outfits that have been completely shut out during the last eight years. Present were groups at the core of what might be called “The Lobby 2.0.” This new wave of beltway Jewish activism is challenging the traditional dominance of AIPAC and the ADL on everything from a Gaza ceasefire to West Bank settlers to diplomacy with Iran.
The best known of these groups is the newly minted J Street, which since its founding in early 2008 has grown to threaten AIPAC as the most influential voice of American pro-Israel Jewry. In the last cycle, J Street's PAC raised more money for liberal, pro-peace candidates — nearly $600,000 — than any of the more established PACs in the hard-line AIPAC constellation. Although J Street has no direct links to the incoming administration, organizers say they intend to have impact through their web of connections in the capitol, extensive media outreach, and an organizing email list of 100,000 supporters and growing.
[…]
Whatever the particulars of the administration's forthcoming plan, a chorus is growing for a vigorous U.S. re-engagement with a problem that has been allowed to fester and is now burning. From the foreign policy community to the new Jewish netroots, the call for bold action, and change, is clear.
“During its first several months, the Obama administration will have to make a choice,” says Ben-Ami of J Street. “Either continue with the status quo of a low-level peace process on the back burner, or turn the current crisis into an opportunity to redefine American foreign policy and achieve a settlement."
Let the newly enlarged conversation begin.
http://www.alternet.org/audits/119050/?page=entire
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