***Take Action: Tell Congress and Obama: No War On Iran! Sign the petition at www.occupyaipac.org***
An AIPAC Policy Conference panel titled “Stopping Iran” had some unexpected speakers: activists with Occupy AIPAC and CODEPINK who stood up and “mic checked” Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Israeli Ambassador Jeremy Issacharoff. At about 2pm on March 5, four activists called out AIPAC for pushing for American support for an Israeli attack on Iran. One activist was violently attacked by an AIPAC member who used his tie to strangle the peaceful protester. Later in the afternoon two activists unfurled a “Don’t Bomb Iran” banner inside the AIPAC hall. Security promptly pushed them out of the hall, and also forcefully removed an AIPAC delegate who had nothing to do with the action, but was taken out for being a bystander.
The full People’s Microphone inside the panel said: “Mic check! Ros-Lehtinen is pushing war based on lies. We are the 99% Wars benefit the 1% Don’t bomb Iran! Diplomacy not bombs. AIPAC supports endless war. We support peace. Occupy Wall Street not Iran. Occupy Wall Street not Palestine. No war on Iran.”
The Occupy AIPAC coalition is gathering to urge Obama to reject the Israeli administration’s push for war on Iran and insist on respect for Palestinian rights. Timed to coincide with the annual AIPAC policy conference from March 3-6, Occupy AIPAC aims to draw attention to the dangerous role of AIPAC as a special interest lobby that maintains a stranglehold over US policies. As the Occupy Movement has focused public ire on the role of large corporations and powerful lobby groups, hundreds have gathered in DC to protest AIPAC’s push for war.
Late last week, amid little fanfare, Senators Joseph Lieberman, Lindsey Graham, and Robert Casey introduced a resolution that would move America further down the path toward war with Iran.
The good news is that the resolution hasn’t been universally embraced in the Senate. As Ron Kampeas of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports, the resolution has “provoked jitters among Democrats anxious over the specter of war.” The bad news is that, as Kampeas also reports, “AIPAC is expected to make the resolution an ‘ask’ in three weeks when up to 10,000 activists culminate its annual conference with a day of Capitol Hill lobbying.”
In standard media accounts, the resolution is being described as an attempt to move the “red line”–the line that, if crossed by Iran, could trigger a US military strike. The Obama administration has said that what’s unacceptable is for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. This resolution speaks instead of a “nuclear weapons capability.” In other words, Iran shouldn’t be allowed to get to a point where, should it decide to produce a nuclear weapon, it would have the wherewithal to do so.
By itself this language is meaninglessly vague. Does “capability” mean the ability to produce a bomb within two months? Two years? If two years is the standard, Iran has probably crossed the red line already. (So should we start bombing now?) Indeed, by the two-year standard, Iran might well be over the red line even after a bombing campaign–which would at most be a temporary setback, and would remove any doubt among Iran’s leaders as to whether to build nuclear weapons, and whether to make its nuclear program impervious to future American and Israeli bombs. What do we do then? Invade?
In other words, if interpreted expansively, the “nuclear weapons capability” threshold is a recipe not just for war, but for ongoing war–war that wouldn’t ultimately prevent the building of a nuclear weapon without putting boots on the ground. And it turns out that the authors of this resolution want “nuclear weapons capability” interpreted very expansively.
The key is in the way the resolution deals with the question of whether Iran should be allowed to enrich uranium, as it’s been doing for some time now. The resolution defines as an American goal “the full and sustained suspension” of uranium enrichment by Iran. In case you’re wondering what the resolution’s prime movers mean by that: In a letter sent to the White House on the same day the resolution was introduced, Lieberman, Graham and ten other senators wrote, “We would strongly oppose any proposal that recognizes a ‘right to enrichment’ by the current regime or for [sic] a diplomatic endgame in which Iran is permitted to continue enrichment on its territory in any form.”
This notwithstanding the fact that 1) enrichment is allowed under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty; (2) a sufficiently intrusive monitoring system can verify that enrichment is for peaceful purposes; (3) Iran’s right to enrich its own uranium is an issue of strong national pride. In a pollpublished in 2010, after sanctions had already started to bite, 86 percent of Iranians said Iran should not “give up its nuclear activities regardless of the circumstances.” And this wasn’t about building a bomb; most Iranians said Iran’s nuclear activities shouldn’t include producing weapons.
Even Dennis Ross–who has rarely, in his long career as a Mideast diplomat, left much daylight between his positions and AIPAC’s, and who once categorically opposed Iranian enrichment–now realizes that a diplomatic solution may have to include enrichment. Last week in a New York Timesop-ed, he said that, contrary to pessimistic assessments, it may still be possible to get a deal that “uses intrusive inspections and denies or limits uranium enrichment [emphasis added]…”
The resolution plays down its departure from current policy by claiming that there have been “multiple” UN resolutions since 2006 demanding the “sustained” suspension of uranium. But the UN resolutions don’t actually use that term. The UN has demanded suspension as a confidence-building measure that could then lead to, as one resolution puts it, a “negotiated solution that guarantees Iran’s nuclear program is for exclusively peaceful purposes.” And various Security Council members who voted on these resolutions have made it clear that Iranian enrichment of uranium can be part of this scenario if Iran agrees to sufficiently tight monitoring.
Indeed, that Iran’s right to enrich uranium could be recognized under those circumstances is, Hillary Clinton has said, “the position of the international community, along with the United States.” If the Lieberman-Graham-Casey resolution guides US policy, says George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, that would “preclude” fulfillment of the UN resolutions and isolate the US from the international coalition that backed them.
The Congressional resolution goes beyond the UN resolutions in another sense. It demands an end to Iran’s ballistic missile program. Greg Thielmann of the Arms Control Association notes that, “Even after crushing Iraq in the first Gulf War, the international coalition only imposed a 150-kilometer range ceiling on Saddam’s ballistic missiles. A demand to eliminate all ballistic missiles would be unprecedented in the modern era–removing any doubt among Iranians that the United States was interested in nothing less than the total subjugation of the country.”
On the brighter side: Maybe it’s a good sign that getting significant Democratic buy-in for this resolution took some strong-arming. According to Lara Friedman of Americans for Peace Now, the resolution got 15 Democratic supporters only “after days of intense AIPAC lobbying, particularly of what some consider ‘vulnerable’ Democrats (vulnerable in terms of being in races where their pro-Israel credentials are being challenged by the candidate running against them).” What’s more, even as AIPAC was playing this hardball, the bill’s sponsors still had to tone down some particularly threatening language in the resolution.
But, even so, the resolution defines keeping Iran from getting a nuclear weapons “capability” as being in America’s “vital national interest,” which is generally taken as synonymous with “worth war.” And, though this “sense of Congress” resolution is nonbinding, AIPAC will probably seek unanimous Senate consent, which puts pressure on a president. Friedman says this “risks sending a message that Congress supports war and opposes a realistic negotiated solution or any de facto solution short of stripping Iran of even a peaceful nuclear capacity.”
What’s more, says Friedman, the non-binding status may be temporary. “Often AIPAC-backed Congressional initiatives start as non-binding language (in a resolution or a letter) and then show up in binding legislation. Once members of Congress have already signed on to a policy in non-binding form, it is much harder for them to oppose it when it shows up later in a bill that, if passed, will have the full force of law.”
No wonder Democrats who worry about war have the “jitters.”
Robert Wright is a senior editor at The Atlantic and the author, most recently, of The Evolution of God, a New York Times bestseller and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times – A fortified shelter in Sderot, Israel. Israelis are feeling increasingly insecure about any criticism they believe could help enemies.
JERUSALEM — On one side were members of the Israeli Parliament and advocates who argued that there was only one legitimate way to support Israel from abroad — unconditionally. On the other were those who insisted that love and devotion did not mean withholding criticism.
For an electric two hours on Wednesday, the sides fought bitterly inside a parliamentary hearing room. As they spoke, tensions on the Gaza border rose and turmoil spread across the Middle East; hours later a bomb went off in Jerusalem, killing one person and wounding dozens. Israelis are feeling increasingly insecure about any criticism they believe could help their enemies.
At the center of the parliamentary debate was a three-year-old American advocacy group, J Street, which calls itself pro-Israel and pro-peace, a left-leaning alternative to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or Aipac, the pro-Israel lobbying group in the United States. J Street opposes Israeli settlements in the West Bank and urged President Obama not to veto an antisettlement resolution in the United Nations Security Council recently.
The conveners of Wednesday’s hearing, a hawkish Likud legislator named Danny Danon and a conservative colleague from the centrist Kadima party, Otniel Schneller, wanted to expose J Street for what they believed it to be — a group of self-doubting American Jews more worried about what their neighbors say than what is good for the state of Israel.
“This is a dispute between those who care what non-Jews will say and those who believe in being a light unto nations, between the mentality of exile and that of redemption,” Mr. Schneller said. “J Street is not a Zionist organization. It offers love with strings attached. They say, ‘We love you only if you behave the way we like.’ ”
Jeremy Ben-Ami, J Street’s founder, came from Washington to defend his group, which claims about 170,000 supporters.
“We should work through our differences with respect, vibrant discussion and open dialogue,” he told the legislators. “It only weakens Israel and the Jewish people to make differences of opinion into something greater and to accuse those who criticize Israeli policy of being anti-Israel or worse.”
The committee meeting, which drew a crowd and often descended into shouting matches, was unprecedented, according to many Israelis. No one could recall a debate inside Israel’s Parliament examining whether an American group calling itself pro-Israel was living up to the name.
But another parliamentary committee hearing is planned on a similar topic — whether the foreign news media are covering Israel fairly. The focus of that debate will be a comparison of news media coverage of the recent killings of five members of a settler family with the coverage of the Israeli takeover last year of a Gaza-bound flotilla in which nine activists were killed by commandos.
Both hearings are part of a larger trend in this year’s Parliament — a turn rightward. Two laws passed this week have been widely condemned by civil liberty groups and advocates on the left. The first is known as “the Nakba bill,” in reference to the Arabic word for “catastrophe” commonly used by Arabs to describe the birth of Israel in 1948. Arabs who are Israeli citizens often commemorate Israeli independence by noting their losses — the destruction of hundreds of villages and the exile of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
The new law allows the Finance Ministry to remove funds from municipalities or groups if they commemorate Independence Day here as a day of mourning or reject Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. The original bill, which produced much alarm and was altered, would have imposed prison sentences.
The second new law that has drawn criticism from the left establishes admissions committees for small communities in the Negev and Galilee, areas with large Arab populations. The new law says that communities with 400 or fewer families may set up committees to screen potential residents for whether they fit in socially. At the last minute, a rider was added barring discrimination based on race, gender or nationality, but critics contend it will still serve to keep Arabs out of Jewish communities.
It is precisely such developments in Israel that J Street leaders say are driving many American Jews, especially younger ones, from devotion to Israel. Therefore, they say, J Street has a vital role in advocating its views here and in bridging the gap between liberal American Jews and an increasingly nationalistic Israeli society.
David Gilo, who is the chairman of J Street, said in the hearing that the contract that had long existed between Israel and Jews abroad — one of unconditional support — was expiring and a new one was being drafted. He argued that the new contract was good not only for those abroad but for Israel as well, since it would bring into the fold those who would otherwise be alienated. “The new contract cannot be based on unilateral dictation of what is right, who is right and who is wrong,” he said. “Only agreement on common values and a genuine attempt to understand where each party comes from can reinstate an Israeli-American Jewish partnership.”
Nachman Shai, a member of Parliament from Kadima, said at the hearing that J Street represented an important part of American Jewry, and that Israel should not turn a blind eye to it.
Shlomo Avineri, a political scientist at Hebrew University who did not attend the hearing, said J Street was in a problematic position because “it is very difficult to be an advocacy group while criticizing the subject of your advocacy. It is difficult to say we are the greatest supporters of Israel but on every issue that arises we are on the other side.”
He added that the extreme right in Israel had always insisted that criticism of Israeli policy was unpatriotic. Now, the extreme right has more power than ever in the country’s history, he said, giving its views a greater platform.
Mr. Danon, the Likud chairman of the committee holding the hearing, said he would put to a vote in the coming two weeks a resolution calling J Street pro-Palestinian, asking it to “purge from its ranks” anti-Zionist elements and urging Israeli government officials to refrain from contact with it.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has consistently refused to meet with J Street officials.
Mr. Ben-Ami of J Street said afterward: “This is a time of real uncertainty and threat in Israel, and what we saw at the hearing is part of a larger trend of Israel turning in on itself. It is redefining who is a Jew, redefining who is a citizen and now redefining who is a friend.”
GORDON DUFF: WIKILEAKS, A TOUCH OF ASSANGE AND THE STENCH OF AIPAC
“Recent admissions that the Israeli lobby, AIPAC, routinely receives masses of classified information makes them suspect #1 for being the source of Wikileaks”
EDITORIAL NOTE: THIS IS OUR “PRE-RELEASE” PREDICTION. HOW DID WE DO?
By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor
Wikileaks is like a TV show that never gets off the ground. We started with a “shoot ‘em up” in Iraq, the helicopter slaughter soon forgotten and move on to, well, what? We got a deluge of material from Afghanistan, carefully gleaned to point fingers at Pakistan. When it came down to backing any of it up, it went nowhere.
Considering the massive corruption and drug scandals, even the revelations that President Karzai has been in negotiations with pranksters pretending to be the Talbian, all the really juicy stuff from Afghanistan must have been in another drawer. Then we got Iraq. Ah, Iraq. There, we could check. We know the people who wrote the leaked material. They told us Wikileaks edited it, altered it, redacted it more than the Pentagon.
The “Iraq War Log” was, well…phony. There is one thing that has been consistent about Wikileaks and our prediction is that this next batch, reputed to be millions of highly sensitive documents, will prove our point. Wikileaks is Israel.
Wikileaks is an intelligence operation to weaken and undermine the American government, orchestrated from Tel Aviv, using dozens of operatives, dual citizens, some at the highest authority levels, spies for Israel. Through leaking carefully selected intelligence along with proven falsified documents, all fed to a controlled press, fully complicit, Wikileaks is, in fact, an act of war against the United States.
HOW CAN ISRAEL SIFT THROUGH DEFENSE DOCUMENTS?
This last week, in a lawsuit over an AIPAC, (Israel’s lobby) employee reputedly fired for being caught spying against the US, news stories across the United States reported that, as part of that $20 million civil case, evidence will be presented that masses of classified material come to AIPAC and Israel continually. Is AIPAC Wikileaks?The only evidence of any massive leak discovered in the Pentagon is AIPAC. Last week’s Washington Post story was buried quicker than a carp in a playground: Jeff Stein, at the Washinton Post, reports the following:
Rosen says his actions were common practice at the organization. He said his next move is to show that AIPAC, Washington’s major pro-Israeli lobbying group by far, regularly traffics in sensitive U.S. government information, especially material related to the Middle East. “I will introduce documentary evidence that AIPAC approved of the receipt of classified information,”he said by e-mail. “Most instances of actual receipt are hard to document, because orally received information rarely comes with classified stamps on it nor record’s alerts that the information is classified.”
But Rosen said he would produce “statements of AIPAC employees to the FBI, internal documents, deposition statements, public statements and other evidence showing that [the] receipt of classified information by employees other than [himself] … was condoned … for months prior to being condemned in March 2005 after threats from the prosecutors.”
How does this apply to Wikileaks? The answer, if we bother to put the pieces together, is staring us in the face. The proof, the ultimate proof, however, will be in the current batch of documents that have already been prepared, weeks of work by dozens with access to classified documents, and only one group has that access and can operate with impunity, as was shown in a recent story in Veterans Today:
AIPAC is a sham. The group has, over the years, destroyed anyone who has tried to have it named what it really is, a dangerous foreign lobby and nest of spies. AIPAC is the most feared organization in Washington and most powerful, above any law. A former employee of AIPAC, Steve Rosen, who AIPAC claims was a spy, more appropriately a “caught” spy, now claims his former employer does nothing but spy. Rosen stands to get $20 million in his defamation lawsuit against AIPAC.
He isn’t without motive but we have also learned that Rosen has considerable documentation of AIPAC receiving and disseminating classified information, received from, well, we have to call them traitors, inside the US government. We know that a vast spy ring operates in Washington and that Israel is the center of it.
We also know that Israel, Turkey, India, Pakistan, China and Russia trade American secrets back and forth like baseball cards. We know that AIPAC is deeply involved in this spying. We know that AIPAC claims to hold signed letters of unconditional support from 80% of the members of congress, all of whom received campaign contributions arranged by AIPAC, with many elections financed almost entirely by AIPAC, a group involved, according to the Washington Post and Steve Rosen, in spying on the United States with seeming complicity by the FBI itself.
WHAT DO WE LOOK FOR, HOW CAN WE PROVE ISRAEL OR AIPAC MAY BE BEHIND WIKILEAKS?
Were we to ask author Jeff Gates, he would point to the “storytelling” aspect of Wikileaks, Assange and his “on again-off again” rape charges or that someone that manages to make it to continual television interviews can’t be found by police or security services. We call this “storytelling” and Jeff Gates tells us that Israel, the power behind Hollywood and the American press, is the “storyteller” of all time.
There are better ways to “prove,” a word as subjective as any of the storytelling around the Wikileaks myth itself. The proof, always depending on who accepts the proof, and as is almost always the case, dependent on whether the press itself chooses to report it, which if Israel is involved, is more than a bit predictable itself. Lack of reporting potential Israeli complicity in Wikileaks, knowing AIPAC and Israel have the longest history of accessing classified information and, by far, the strongest agenda for leaking information, could be seen as conclusive proof itself.
WHAT WILL BE IN WIKILEAKS?
If dual citizens who make up much of the Pentagon’s leadership are working with Israel or AIPAC to formulate Wikileaks, as seems to be the case, then the upcoming leak will serve a pro-Israeli agenda, even if it damages the United States, as other Wikileaks have. These are Israeli agenda items:
Discrediting Obama foreign policy in order to weaken the president’s influence with congress to push for a halt on new settlements in Palestine and the forced removal of Islamic property owners.
Accusations involving Turkey, now feuding with Israel over the killing of Turkish citizens on the Mavi Marmara, now recognized as a purely humanitarian mission. These accusations against Turkey may include weapons being supplied to terrorists in Iraq, a fanciful abuse of reality. What will not be reported, if this story is “leaked” either through Wikileaks or the other Israeli sources, “Debka” .. ”Stratfor” .. ”FamilySecurityMatters.org” .. or the infamous “IsraelNationalNews.com” is Israel’s 40 years of complicity in the very acts they now accuse Turkey of.
More importantly, is the issue of blaming Turkey for the actions of the terrorist group, PKK, long funded by Israel and now claimed to be allied to Al Qaeda, is vital to Israel’s strategy against Turkey.
Expect Pakistan to be hit, as usual. An Islamic nuclear power with a top rate million man army that outclasses Israel hands down, Pakistan, primary competitor for US aid dollars, a country that actually has agreements with the United States and real troops fighting alongside Americans, will get their usual Wikileaks bashing.
WIKILEAKS IS CHICKENFEED MEANT TO COVER ISRAEL’S TAIL
Is it a coincidence that documents regarding Israel, their spying, influence peddling, suspicions of complicity in terrorism, Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, across Europe and even the Detroit bombing, those reports are there, they are classified but you will never see one on Wikileaks. In fact, they are the only classified information that never gets out to the news. Is that because, as we have learned, the borders of Israel extend well into Washington DC, well into the Pentagon? What won’t we see in Wikileaks:
Nothing in Wikileaks will accuse anyone, even Pakistan or Afghanistan, or complicity in narcotics trafficking nor mention the huge new narcotics industry operating in Iraq. Ask yourself why.
One of the biggest areas of complaint in the Pentagon, more classified White Papers have been written on this than anything else: “How Israel is Endangering the United States“
In fact, the biggest “classified” debate in America is what supporting Israel, a nation with incredible wealth and utterly obnoxious leaders costs the United States. Rumors of such issues aren’t rumors at all. When General Petraeus presented his now famous power-point presentation to Admiral Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, outlining how Israel is undermining American foreign policy, he wasn’t operating without tens of thousands of pages of intelligence behind him. Not one page, not one word of these studies will be in Wikileaks.
When Vice President Joe Biden said the following to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu:
“This is starting to get dangerous for us, what you’re doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace.”
Are we to believe these statements were taken out of thin air? In fact, Petraeus, Mullen and Biden are only the tip of the iceberg. Admiral Mullen, America’s top military leader under the Commander in Chief, has repeatedly cited Israel and America’s relationship, as, not only a liability but something far worse, so much worse that:
As public statements by Admiral Mullen, Vice President Biden, General Petraeus and others, citing America’s relationship with Israel as a military disaster, are obviously “watered down” for public consumption, can you imagine what classified reports are saying?
WHY PRESIDENT OBAMA IS AFRAID AND WHY AMERICA IS PARALYZED
The greatest fear any president has, even more than impeachment, is the fate of Jimmie Carter.Carter, now pegged as an “Antisemite” and “enemy of the state” in Israel, is still being sold to Americans as something quite the opposite of reality. Friends in Israel, if they want to start a row, something not too difficult in Israel as you might guess, will walk around carrying one of Jimmie Carter’s books under their arm. A Yasser Arafat t-shirt and suicide vest are considered only marginally worse. Carter left office under mysterious circumstances. Several disasters, high interest rates, the hostage crisis and the failed rescue attempt showed signs of conspiratorial meddling. His real crimes were:
Pushing Israel for a durable and lasting Middle East peace
Monetary policies that kept America out of debt…
Support of Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid
Unwillingness to engage in military adventure
When the defense and oil lobby joined with Israel and Wall Street to crush the Carter presidency, the writing was on the wall. Interest rates, the “October surprise” and the military sabotaging the hostage rescue attempt, these things destroyed President Carter who might, otherwise, have suffered an “accident” like the Kennedy brothers. Today, millions of Americans who should be praying to return to Carters foreign policy and fiscal conservatism, are taught to look on him as a failure. However, more and more, historians are seeing Carter as the last American president. Every leader since has been dictated to by Israel.
WMR has discovered a formerly Secret document from the U.S. Department of State that confirms the United States not only supported the Turkish military coup that ousted the nation’s democratically-elected government in 1980 but actively supported the military-imposed Turkish Constitution as “reformist.”
The citizens of Turkey recently voted in a referendum and approved 26 constitutional amendments that will transform Turkey into a democratic state without the threat of the military and national security state-affiliated judiciary trumping the power of the Parliament and the people. Neocons have condemned the referendum as a threat to secularism in Turkey and a move to an Islamic state. However, the neocons and their allies in Israel are concerned that a Mossad -and CIA-imposed Turkish “Deep State” has finally seen its power largely destroyed with the impending adoption of a new Turkish Constitution. The referendum, which passed with 58 percent of the vote, is a victory for the Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Many of the roots of the creation of the most recent variant of the Turkish Deep State, known as Ergenekon, can be seen in the State Department policy paper dated September 5, 1981, and titled “USG Policy toward Turkey.” When the State Department document was drafted, Turkey’s military junta leader, General Kenan Evren, was drafting the present Turkish Constitution. The 1981 Turkish military draft Constitution’s “reforms” were referred to in the State Department policy document’s author Lawrence Eagleburger, the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs: “It is too early to judge whether the fundamental GOT reforms, now in place or in prospect, will succeed.” The document also talks about the “relief” provided to the United States by the 1980 military coup: “The military takeover of September 1980 brought temporary relief and for the moment broke the back of radical movements — including pro-Islamic ones — which had come to the fore in the 1970s.”
Eagleburger signaled his and the Reagan administration’s support for the Turkish junta because of the same bogus reasons that neocons today criticize the Erdogan government: the bogeyman of Turkish Islamic political power. Eagleburger warned that Turkey could “drift away from NATO and Western-style government; alignment with Middle East states which supply oil and markets; possibly even neutralism growing out of accommodations with the USSR.” Today, the neocons, Israelis, and their Ergenekon allies in Turkey argue the same points in demonizing the Turkish government: that Turkey is drifting from NATO, that it is turning to oil suppliers and markets like Iran, and has a growing relationship with Russia.
Eagleburger then outlines how the Reagan administration would cement U.S. ties with Turkey to prevent the above scenarios from being realized. He writes: “ . . . the Turkish-American relationship has no natural constituency in terms of shared history, economic interdependence, ethic or family ties. The absence of a ‘Turkish lobby’ in the United States is indicative.” Two of the recipients of the Eagleburger document would later help fill the void and help create the American Turkish Council (ATC), a lobby group patterned after their friends at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Those two recipients of the Eagleburger document were Richard Perle, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, and Paul Wolfowitz, Director of Policy Planning at the State Department. Other recipients of the Eagleburger policy document on Turkey included Robert Hormats, the Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs [and who is now the Undersecretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs under Hillary Clinton]; Ronald Spiers, the director of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, former U.S. ambassador to Turkey from 1977 to 1980; and the prospective U.S. ambassador to Pakistan; Richard Burt, the Director of Politico-Military Affairs for the State Department; and Nicholas Veliotes, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs.
The nature of the bilateral U.S.-Turkish relations were described as a “best effort” to help Turkey in all respects, including an “understanding” of Turkey’s position in Greek-Turkish issues and dealing with “Armenian terrorism.” In 1981, Armenia was a constituent republic of the USSR. Today, it is “Kurdish terrorism” that plagues Turkey since Armenia is now an independent state with a natural and politically-powerful constituency in the United States. The Eagleburger document describes the Evren junta as perceiving the Reagan administration as making a “best effort” in providing financial support to Turkey from Washington’s “weighing in” on the “International Monetary Fund, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Saudis, and other potential donors.”
Eagleburger also warns of “nettlesome” issues that could adversely affect U.S. relations with the Turkish junta, for example, “Congressional badgering on Cyprus, on relations with Greece, on the pace of return to democracy, and an Armenian niche in the proposed Holocaust Museum.”
The United States, through an alliance with Israel and its influence peddlers in Washington, would ensure that the Turkish pace of democracywould not return to normal until the recent approval by the Turkish people of a new constitution that will eradicate the Turkish junta’s military “reforms” championed by Eagleburger and his band of proto-neocons in the Reagan administration in 1981. Attempts over the past eight years by Ergenekon to overthrow the AKP government failed and with the new constitutional changes, Ergenekon’s and Israel’s ability to influence events in Turkish politics have been curtailed,save for the continuing threat of covert Israeli provocation of terrorism involving the Kurds.
The old adage “politics stops at the water’s edge” does not apply to the Middle East.
When it comes to all matters relating to Israel, foreign policy is politics. It is absolutely impossible to imagine US policy toward Israel not being intertwined with politics and political fund-raising.
That is how Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s meetings with President Obama and other administration officials this week should be viewed.
As David Makovsky of the AIPAC-created Washington Institute for Near East Policy told theWashington Post: “As we get closer to the midterm elections, if there was a gap, it’s narrowing…. I think the blowup in March between Obama and Netanyahu has led each side to realize that they’ve gone too far, and they’ve got to dial it down.”
Makovsky’s opening reference to the “midterm elections” is the key. The United States has to make things right with Israel or the Democratic Party will pay a price, quite literally.
Israel’s loquacious ambassador, Michael Oren, confidently predicted that, unlike the last White House meeting between Netanyahu and Obama, there will be photographers on hand to record the two leaders making nice.
“We are going to have a lot of photographers,” Oren said. Laughing, he added: “There are going to be more photographers there than at the Academy Awards.”
Of course, neither side (with the exception of loose cannon Oren) is likely to admit that this meeting is about politics. They will say that they are about getting negotiations started, although with Israel busily expanding settlements in Jerusalem, it is hard to see how that will happen.
The Palestinians have no great incentive to negotiate with a prime minister whose government solidly opposes any dismantling of settlements, not now and not ever. They can be forgiven for believing that the Washington meeting is a charade.
Hopefully, I’m wrong. But I’ve never lost a bet arguing that what the lobby wants, the lobby gets. Right now, it wants the heat (barely perceptible though it is) off Netanyahu. That is what they will likely get, although the single-issue “pro-Israel” donors still won’t like Obama. (He is perceived as “even-handed,” a term AIPAC uses to describe those insufficiently devoted to Israel.)
Some readers think I exaggerate the influence of the lobby. I don’t — I used to work at AIPAC and on its favorite stomping ground, Capitol Hill.
The latest evidence of the fear and trembling produced by the lobby was evidenced last week when it was revealed that General David Petraeus was upset and worried by a column I wrote in March. I praised him for testifying that the continuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict threatens all US interests in the Middle East, including our troops. (All the information below comes from a column by Phil Weiss of Mondoweiss, who has possession of the original emails.)
The story starts on March 16, 2010, when Petraeus testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee:
The enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests… Israeli-Palestinian tensions often flare into violence and large-scale armed confrontations. The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel. Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples in the [region] and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support. The conflict also gives Iran influence in the Arab world through its clients, Lebanese Hizballah and Hamas.
I then wrote a Foreign Policy Matters piece praising Petraeus for telling the truth about how the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate hurts America. It was called “On the Middle East: It’s Palin vs. Petraeus & New Poll.”
Almost immediately, a State Department official named Michael Gfoeller forwarded my article to Petraeus with a simple message: “Sir: FYI. Mike.”
Nineteen minutes later Petraeus sent my piece to Max Boot, the uber-neocon Wall Street Journalcolumnist:
From: Petraeus, David H GEN MIL USA USCENTCOM CCCC/CCCC
To: Max Boot
Subject: FW: On the Middle East: It’s Palin vs Petraeus
As you know, I didn’t say that. It’s in a written submission for the
record…
Petraeus meant that the words I quoted were not in his oral statement. They were in a 56-page document, titled “Statement of General David H. Petraeus, U.S. Army Commander, US Central Command before the Senate Armed Services Committee on the posture of US Central Command, 16 Mar 2010.”
Of course, the statement submitted for the record is the official statement. It is the statement that was cleared for use by his superiors.
Boot responded four minutes later:
Oh brother. Luckily it’s only media matters [sic] which has no credibility but I think I will do another short item pointing people to what you actually said as opposed to what’s in the posture statement.
Then, six minutes later, Petraeus sends his idea for a strategy to answer those who might take offense at his suggestion that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict harms US interests:
From: Petraeus, David H GEN MIL USA USCENTCOM CCCC/CCCC
2:37
Thx, Max. (Does it help if folks know that I hosted Elie Wiesel and his wife at our quarters last Sun night?! And that I will be the speaker at the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps in mid-Apr at the Capitol Dome…)
Boot says that citing Petraeus’ friendship with Wiesel would not be necessary because “you’re not being accused of being an anti-Semite.”
Holy cow!
Not only was I not accusing Petraeus of being an anti-Semite, I was praising him for stating, on the record, what most of the top brass believe — that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the perception that the United States is reflexively on Israel’s side, is bad for America. Nor did I distort anything Petraeus said. His only complaint is that he didn’t actually “say” the words but included them in his testimony. In other words, I characterized his words correctly. And that worries him!
But then Max Boot comes to Petraeus’ rescue and posts (in Commentary, where else?) a blog post called “A Lie: David Petraeus, Anti-Israel.” His whole defense of Petraeus consists of the fact that I quote from a “posture statement” (his official statement) not his spoken words. He then goes on to say that the last thing Petraeus believes is that “settlements had to be stopped or that Israel is to blame for the lack of progress in negotiations.”
Boot’s straw-man argument about settlements notwithstanding, the story here is not that Petraeus believes that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict negatively affects US interests throughout the Middle East — and he clearly does — but the panic that ensues when those sentiments are ascribed to him.
Why the panic? Why the rush to consult neocon Max Boot? Why the nervousness?
You tell me.
President Obama and Congress are infinitely more susceptible to these fears than a four-star General (who is constitutionally immune from political pressure). If Petraeus gets this rattled, what can you expect from politicians?
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