So it looks as if the Democratic Party leaders in Congress finally get it about the interdependence of the United States with the other six billion people of the world, and about the counter-productive nature of a policy of escalation, confrontation, and possible war?
That’s how it seems from this report by Nicholas Kralev in today’s Washington Times, who writes that
- The House Democratic leadership has effectively shelved a resolution calling for what critics say would amount to a naval blockade of Iran because of concerns that it could provoke another war…
(HT to Think Progress for that.)
The resolution in question, House Concurrent Resolution 362, has been very heavily pushed by AIPAC, the mammoth-sized pro-Israel lobby in Washington DC. They no doubt hoped they could ram it through Congress in the period when members are maximally concerned about fund-raising and accusations of “being soft on Iran” in the run-up to the election.
Kralev notes,
- Even though the document would not be a law but a “statement of policy” aimed at preventing Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, the Democratic leadership is worried that it could be viewed by the Bush administration as a green light to use military force against Iran, officials said.
Howard L. Berman, California Democrat and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he has concerns about the current text and will not bring it before the committee until those issues are addressed. That, in effect, blocks the document from reaching the floor.
Phew! People in the peace movement have organized and lobbied hard against the resolution ever since it was introduced. It had more than 200 “co-sponsors” who eagerly lined up to get their names attached to what looked like an attractive, vote- and money-winning resolution.
But then, we all made the point that with this administration, if congress gives them an inch in terms of escalating tensions with another country, quite likely Bush will end up taking a couple hundred miles… And with the military as overstretched as it now is, and in the current global economic climate, do we really want to start yet another war, this time against Iran?
Over the summer, persistent lobbying by the peace movement managed to peel five of the bill’s original co-sponsor’s off that roster. Now Berman and his colleagues have definitively closed down the possibility of AIPAC getting the bill considered and voted on before the election. (After which, it will almost certainly die because of its own considerable demerits.)
I am so glad the congressional leaders finally connected these dots… between their responsibilities as lawmakers and the belligerent and near-criminal irresponsibility of the administration… between a rise in tensions in the Middle East and the probability of further huge blows to the world’s economic system (not to mention the US military)… between the global image of the US as a unilateralist, ill-governed bully on the world stage and the fact that right now, like Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire, our country is dependent on the goodwill of others.
There are signs of intelligent life in Washington! Praise the Lord!
(And maybe we should all send thank-you notes to Howard Berman.)
It is evident the finance problem is having a big effect. I doubt very much that rationality has suddenly broken out.
Well, I don’t think anybody has any stomach for a “Fourth Front” against “Islamofascism”, what with Iraq, Afghanistan, and N/S Waziristan on the boil.
Besides, SOMEBODY has had to make the calculations that, (1) no military left to spare, and (2) no money to support the putative venture…QED.
Label me what you like.
Thinking of this financial saga brings many thoughts.
First to cover what’s will happen next in Iraq and cover all the bad things might will happen due to I believe withdraw US troops from there (I mean its withdraw US tropes from Iraqi streets and towns to US basis inside Iraq which ready to be occupied).
I don believe there is will be a war with Iran, I bet you on this and the time will prove me right wait and see.
Secondly this financial sag looks designed as the rich socialism; all the money and billions no one knows where gone.
No one fired or hold accountable whatsoever how seriousness and dangerousness they panted it.
To me it’s a controlled financial chaos with that a mount of money vanished without any tracing and no one hold accountable brings to mind just like Paul Bremer and his thuggish $USD9 Billion from Iraq.
Old Miss in a Nutshell
As for Obama, he obviously knows his stuff. But what stuff does he know? Evidently he knows:
1. Iran must be prevented from developing nuclear weapons.
2. NATO should be extended to include Georgia and the Ukraine.
3. We need a bigger military to wage Big War in Afghanistan.
These are the trap-doors to further misery and fiasco for the U.S. It’s all well and good to stress the importance of soft power, diplomacy and all that. But when you set misguided, imperative goals and the soft stuff proves to be ineffective, you are left with the single, unpalatable option of mass violence. And we have seen that military adventures can destroy a president’s domestic agenda.
No doubt, Obama has to say this stuff because he is running for president of the U.S., not Sweden. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, let’s say he believes this twaddle. [*]
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Happy days.
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[*] It is (almost) always sounder to assume that pols and statespersons actually believe in the noises they emit. No matter how incredible that may seem. Such has long been my own rule, but as to ‘benefit’, wouldn’t we be better off if the Senatorino were to prove a perfect Pharisee and cynic, a mere tame sheep dressed up in wolf twaddle?
Does the learned and gallant Dr. Rotwang really consider that B. Hussein Obáma’s subjective sincerity somehow trumps objective “misery and fiasco” benefitwise?
After six years of war against both enemies attacking us and many who were doing us no damage at all in Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan, we are steadily losing ground. Frank but highly embarrassing admissions that Pakistan is in danger and that al Qua’ida is resurgent by U.S. officials demonstrate the failure of neo-con policies. Yet when the Democrats finally work up the courage to act like an independent party and actually do something praiseworthy to prevent further conflict, they appear so afraid of the warlike sentiments of the voters that they try to do it quietly! Is it really so dangerous to support peace in this country that the majority party dare not brag about its efforts to avoid war? Obama should have proclaimed this last night as a major defeat of neo-con hubris!
I agree, that’s good news. Expect to maybe see some progress in US-Iran relations during the next administration.
I wouldn’t get my hopes up just yet. I think it’s only because of the election coming up. Come January it’ll be be back to business as usual. More war, you can count on it. The only thing that might stop them is if they run out of money for the military, but they’ll continue to try regardless. War is just an basic part of the Republican/Democrat DNA. They could no more not go to war than a pig could fly. That’s what they do, that’s the reason for their existence. I hope I’m wrong, but 200 years of history says I ain’t.