Category Archives: U.S. Congress

Ali Khamenei, Iran, nuclear Iran, U.S. Congress, US Foreign Policy

Mission Accomplished? the Ayatollah and the American Election Cycles……

      

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“We support the movement in government’s diplomacy, including the New
York visit, since we hold trust in the … government and we are
optimistic about it, but some of what happened in the New York visit
were not proper because we believe the US administration is
untrustworthy, conceited, illogical and unfaithful to its pledges,” Ayatollah Khamenei said………”

Khamenei seems here to be eager for a nuclear deal, but he seems to be warning his people of the pitfalls of high expectations. Or perhaps he is also warning the American side of the pitfalls of declaring: “Mission Accomplished“.
No doubt Khamenei has been following the Iran “debate” in the United States. No doubt he knows that it is controlled by long-term forces as well as by short-term election cycles. No doubt he, a speaker and reader of at least three languages, is aware of the current U.S. election cycle of 2014 and how it overlaps the next election cycle of 2016. No doubt he knows there is a very narrow window for diplomacy in the middle of this continuous election posturing and white noise. No doubt he is aware of the jingoist strain in the U.S. Congress that has been revived in recent years. No doubt he has serious doubts and misgivings about the chances of a deal that is acceptable to “all” sides, and I mean “all” sides including those not present at the table.
On the other hand, most American leaders and politicians feel the same way, even worse, about their Iranian counterparts. A small world, no?


Cheers
mhg

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Iran, nuclear Iran, U.S. Congress, US Foreign Policy

US Congress and Iran: Is it Only the Nuclear Issue? Sanctions and Flags……..

      

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“However, the vast network of overlapping US sanctions, which have built up over three decades, cannot be easily unpicked by the Obama administration without the support of both houses of Congress. “If – and it is a big ‘if’ – the president needs to use an easing of sanctions to provide incentive to the Iranians, or to acknowledge a gesture on their part, our feeling is: it will be very difficult for the administration to deliver that,” one senior European diplomat said. Hawks in the House of Representatives in particular are in no mood to compromise. Two months ago, with bipartisan support, the House passed a bill to tighten the economic noose on Iran. The Guardian has obtained a copy of a second draft bill that goes further: approving the use of military force to deter Iran from developing nuclear weapons. The bill states that the US would be “wholly capable, willing and ready to use military force to prevent Iran from obtaining or developing a nuclear weapons capability” ……………”

It is also clear that both sides, in Tehran and Washington, have more than their fair share of crazies disguised as old-fashioned hawks. Right now the American crazies in Congress are making much more hostile noise and serious harm than their Iranian counterparts, mainly on behalf of their Likud allies in Israel. But there will be some fireworks in Tehran as well.
I have some strong doubts if many of the crazies in the US Congress would be content with a nuclear deal with Iran. I suspect, nay I know, that many of them want something beyond that complex nuclear deal, something that is probably not do-able.

On the other hand, the Iranian conservatives have their own extremist wackos who stupidly chant after every Friday prayers “Marg Bar Amrika = Death to America” and some of them occasionally desecrate Old Glory (no, they don’t call it that). They have been doing it for so many years, one would think it is second nature to the more extremists among the mullahs and their followers. Something I know most of their people disagree with.

Cheers
mhg

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Iran, Israel, U.S. Congress, US Foreign Policy

Lieberman Pushes Israeli War Agenda from Outside the US Senate…………

      

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“While the tumultuous events in Egypt and Syria have focused the public’s attention on civil strife in those countries, Iran remains the biggest threat to the United States in the Mideast, says former Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman. “The most dangerous challenge to U.S. national security brewing in the region continues to be the Iranian regime’s pursuit of a nuclear-weapons capability,” Lieberman, who served in the Senate as both a Democrat and an independent, writes in The Wall Street Journal. The most important recent development in Iran is last month’s election of Hasan Rouhani as president and reaction to that result has generally been divided in two ways, says Lieberman, now senior counsel at the law firm……………….”

Good old Joe Lieberman. There was a time in 2000 when I thought Al Gore’s best and boldest move was to choose Joe as his running mate. The man who later in 2008 worked so hard to get Sarah Palin elected vice president of the United States. Lucky the American people were smarter than he was. Joe who single-handed screwed up Mr. Obama’s original Healthcare plan. He spent the last few years of his Senate tenure pushing for new Middle East wars, pushing for new and improved American wars on more Arab and Muslim lands. He made sure before he left the senate that the American sanctions, the blockade, against Iran are so water tight they can never be removed without congressional approval, meaning they can never be removed without Israeli approval.
Like Tony Blair, Joe occasionally crawls out of whatever rock he is under, to push for his favorite next war.

Cheers
mhg

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Iran, Iran Elections, Israel, U.S. Congress

Iran: Mr. Rouhani’s Illusory Western Honeymoon……….

      

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“The stunning landslide election of Hassan Rowhani as Iran’s next president highlighted a deep frustration among many Iranians about the direction of their country, especially an economy marred by skyrocketing prices, stagnant salaries and dwindling job opportunities. In explaining their vote for Rowhani, many spoke of change. They alluded not to hot-button international issues such as Iran’s contentious nuclear program or its die-hard support of Syrian President Bashar Assad, but to the slumping economy…………………”

Iranian elections have shown over the years that they are often unpredictable. The moderate Hassan Rouhani is the newly elected president of Iran. The people of Iran have shown they are eager to reform and engage. But probably not to surrender. There is suddenly so much talk of goodwill in Western media, especially in American media. For now.
We should remember the last reformist president of Iran. Mohammed Khatami was even more reformist, more engaging. Iran’s nuclear program was not deemed as contentious, mainly because Israel had a different government and the U.S. Congress did not act as a branch of the Likud coalition. Khatami even showed sympathy and turned a blind eye to the American invasion of Afghanistan after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Yet in January of 2002, Mr. Bush delivered a bad speech in which he added Mr. Khatami’s country to North Korea and Baathist Iraq in a stupidly-named Axis of Evil.
So, give it some time. Mr. Netanyahu and his omnipotent lobbyists and the U.S. Knesset Congress have not started their work on Mr. Rouhani yet. And they will.

Cheers
mhg

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Syria, U.S. Congress

McCain’s Sidekicks: Humanitarian Aid for Syrians or Political Aid for SNC…………..

         

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”Humanitarian groups are lobbying hard against a proposal by several U.S. senators that would turn over the delivery of millions of dollars in U.S. aid to a Syrian opposition council that’s criticized as too weak and too political to handle the responsibility. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is leading the charge to require the Obama administration to give the Syrian Opposition Coalition responsibility for aid delivery. The proposal was made after a bipartisan Senate delegation visited the region last month and heard firsthand Syrians’ frustrations with the pace and scope of U.S. and other foreign assistance. The senators recommended that the Obama administration step up its support for the coalition so that the body “can visibly play a meaningful role in delivery of U.S. humanitarian aid.” Executives from leading international aid groups are urging Congress to reject the recommendation……………..”

The senators want to make the Syrian National Coalition (SNC) look good and effective and perhaps relevant. The Syrian regime knows that as much as I do: ergo, they will not cooperate. People will suffer. It is best to leave the aid issue to the ‘humanitarian’ groups. Senator McCain and his Republican sidekicks and the late unlamented Joe Lieberman (now replaced as a sidekick by some chick from New Hampshire) were probably instrumental in strengthening the Jihadis that now control the opposition’s military campaign inside Syria. Their earlier Syrian meddling was not helpful, neither will this one be.
Cheers
mhg

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Iran, Israel, Mujahideen Khalq, U.S. Congress

Knesset Members Want Obama to Recognize an Arm of Mossad in Iran…………..

   

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                                Neck of the woods

“Members of Congress and supporters of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran(MEK) are to press the Obama administration to recognise it as the “legitimate opposition” to the Iranian government after the group is removed from the US list of banned terrorist organisations in the coming days.
The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, delisted the MEK as a terrorist group on Friday following a well funded campaign to change the image of the group – which was banned in 1997 because of a history of killing Americans, assassinating Iranian politicians and violent support for Saddam Hussein – and portray it as Washington’s ally in confronting Tehran.
The state department said it is not overlooking “the MEK’s past acts of terrorism” and that it has “serious concerns about the MEK as an organisation, particularly with regard to allegations of abuse committed against its own members”. But the group’s renunciation of violence and “the absence of confirmed acts of terrorism by the MEK for more than a decade” had led to it being unbanned…………..”

The US Senate passed an unusual resolution, effectively declaring war on Iran last week. I correctly called it the U.S. Knesset, because it was acting as an AIPAC agent when it voted nearly unanimously (with one dissenting vote). Even the real Israeli Knesset in Jerusalem would not vote unanimously on waging such a war of aggression.
Now the Congress, its members flush with money from Mujahideen Khalq (MEK, MKO) and its financial supporters, are pushing to recognize this arm of the Israeli Mossad as a legitimate Iranian opposition movement. As I mentioned once before, this group has less chance of ever ruling Iran as the late shah’s son.
Cheers
mhg
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Iran, Iraq, Syria, U.S. Congress, US Foreign Policy

Oracles of War or Junket Kings: Three U.S. Senators Declare Two New Middle East Wars…………

   

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                          Neck of the woods

“U.S. Senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham on Friday urged Washington to help arm Syria’s rebels with weapons and create a safe zone inside the country for a transition government. They also called for a far tougher position against Iran over its suspected, and seemingly inexorable, drive toward acquiring nuclear weapons capability. McCain blasted President Barack Obama, who defeated him in the 2008 presidential election, for recently setting the “red line” for Syria at use of chemical weapons. “If you’re (Syrian President) Bashar Assad, maybe you interpret that to mean that you can do anything short of chemical weapons before the United States will intervene,” the Republican from Arizona told the Ambrosetti Forum, a gathering of political and business leaders on the shores of Lake Como in Italy…………”

These three U.S. senators seem to spend more time in our region, the Middle East, than in the USA. More time than even some of us spend. They gave up on their early plan to establish their own private base in Iraq after the American (early) withdrawal. They would have called that a ‘settlement’: McCain and Graham violently opposed Lieberman’s suggestion of the term “Kibbutz”: they said it sounded socialistic and un-American; ditto for shtetl. They threatened to storm the beaches of Libya (along with Bernard–Henri Lévy) but were beaten by NATO. They have been trying to liberate Syria and Iran for several years (and Lebanon), but have been frustrated.
Remember: McCain had originally wanted to remain in Iraq for one hundred years (a hundred year Reich?) if necessary, and to retire after that to Arizona where he would run for the job of Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Now they are all waiting for Mr. Obama to be defeated in November so that General John Bolton can march through the Middle East with his terrible swift sword again, making it the New New Middle East again.
Cheers
mhg
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Islamophobia, Muslims, Racism, U.S. Congress, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

U.S. Elections: Self-Hating Arabs, Self-Hating Muslims………

   

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                          Neck of the woods

I was thinking about the U.S. elections, with all the convention circus going on for the second week.
I wonder if any Muslims will vote Republican this year? And what do we call them? What do we call an Arab or a Muslim who votes for the party that has been vilifying and threatening them for the past few years? The party of Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, Herman Cain, Peter King, et al, who vilified Muslims and Islam every day for months this past year. And Romney who is threatening to wage a new war in our homelands and virtually to make Israel an actual 51st state. A party that threatens to treat the Arabs, in their own region, like past victims of racism in the old American Southwest, the Apaches and Comanches and others, to be terrorized and displaced as so many wild savage animals.
Benjamin Netanyahu has a name for American Jews and other Jews who oppose his policies: he calls them “self-hating Jews“. Ironically a very Hitler-ite way of vilifying your opponent, an irony he probably misses.
How many self-hating Muslims and Arabs are out there?

(FYI: there is such a thing as the lesser of two………)
Cheers
mhg
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Islamophobia, Muslims, Racism, U.S. Congress, U.S. Politics

America in Danger of an Arab and Muslim Takeover……….

    

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“Yet Wasserman Schultz decided to abruptly pull out of speaking at EMERGE’s annual dinner last week. “We never agreed to do a fundraiser, nor an event,” claimed Wasserman Schultz spokesman Jonathan Beeton. Yet EMERGE had previously widely advertised Wasserman Schultz’s participation at the fundraising dinner without apparent complaint from the congresswoman’s staff. “We were interfacing with congresswoman Wasserman Schultz’s people for about a year to try to get something together,” said Siddiqui. “So when she agreed to the banquet, we were elated.” There’s a much more likely explanation for her abrupt refusal to attend the event than a simple miscommunication. For months, Islamophobic websites and a far-right congressional candidate waged a smear campaign against EMERGE, pressuring Wasserman Schultz to back out of the event. With her withdrawal, it appears that they won. The smears can be traced back to an article in right-wing McCarthyist David Horowitz’s Front Page Magazine. In a February article, Joe Kaufman – who is vying in a Republican primary to challenge Wasserman Schultz for her seat in Congress – teamed up with Militant Islam Monitor’s Beila Rabinowitz to claim that EMERGE was part of a “nefarious agenda of placing Islamists into positions of American power and influence.”……..”

Speaking of “placing Islamists into positions of American power and influence”. Come on now, I hate to be “ethnic” oriented but, just to show the absurdity of that point: Wasserman Schultz (an excellent person, probably better than most Muslims that I know or possibly even those I don’t know), David Horowitz, Beila Rabinowitz, Joe Kaufman, Joe Lieberman, Edelstone, Abe Foxman, Diane Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Michael Bloomberg, Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, Eric Cantor (poor lonely guy)? Most of the elected ones among those listed are excellent public servants (with the exception of Lieberman and Cantor). The bloggers and opinion-ators among them are just the usual racist idiots that come in all shapes, colors, and faiths. Not to mention all the Christian (real or nominal) ones. I haven’t even got to the Vegans yet. And these guys worry about “Arabs or Muslims” in positions of power?
I am tempted to type exactly the sound that I just expressed to the consternation of my best friend: hahahahaha.
Cheers
mhg


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Iran, nuclear Iran, U.S. Congress, U.S. Politics, United Nations International Organizations, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Obama Painted into a Corner on Iran: Why Hillary Clinton Should Leave State…..

    

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“L’Iran a appelé lundi les Occidentaux à envisager la levée des sanctions s’ils veulent parvenir à une solution de la crise liée à son programme nucléaire controversé, et laissé entendre qu’il pourrait discuter du niveau d’enrichissement de son uranium. «Si l’Occident veut construire (un climat de) confiance, il devrait commencer par les sanctions, car cela peut aider à accélérer les discussions pour parvenir à une solution», a déclaré le chef de la diplomatie iranienne Ali Akbar Salehi à l’agence de presse ISNA………..”

That is the dilemma of the Iran negotiations with P5+1. Even if the Iranians agree not to enrich uranium to the 20% level, the Western regimes are in no position to lift the sanctions. Provided they are really willing to provide the isotopes needed for research. The Obama administration has painted itself into a corner, where it cannot lift the sanctions in exchange for Iranian concessions. In this political year, the sanctions have been tightened more than ever before, mainly for domestic US political reasons, pressure by the Republican right and AIPAC and the likes of Joe Lieberman. There is no way Obama can lift any sanctions this year; he certainly can’t get the Congress to go along. There is also no way the Iranian will agree to yield on the enrichment issue without a lifting of the Western blockade. That would be tantamount to surrender.
In their eagerness to accommodate the American and Israeli right-wing, Obama and Hillary Clinton have made sure that there can be no deal this year. Not a very good job by the Clinton State Department. If Obama is reelected, he really should look for another secretary of state: the current one has not done a good job.
Cheers
mhg


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