Obama clings to hope as Iran hawks circle - Asia Times

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

Obama already has to account for an unpopular and, despite his assertions to the contrary, unnecessary war in Afghanistan. Now, he's being pressured by the hawks into another unwinnable war in Iran.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KI15Ak02.html

WASHINGTON - As nuclear negotiations between Iran and the West continue to move slowly, United States President Barack Obama is coming under growing pressure from what appears to be a concerted lobbying and media campaign urging him to act more aggressively to stop Iran's nuclear program.

Obama has given Tehran an end-of-September deadline to respond substantively to his offer of diplomatic engagement. But already hawks in the US - backed by hardline pro-Israel organizations - have pressed him to quickly impose "crippling" economic sanctions against Tehran, and some are arguing that he should make preparations for a military attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Representative Howard Berman, a California Democrat who heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee, suggested that the clock "has almost run out" on Iran's nuclear program, and indicated that he would move ahead next month with a bill imposing sanctions on Iran's refined petroleum imports "absent some compelling evidence why I should do otherwise".

The bill, the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act (IRPSA), has for months been the top lobbying priority of hawkish pro-Israel lobbying groups led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). To their frustration, Berman has held up consideration of the bill for most of the past year

[Scurrilous]

1. More and more Jewish Voices opposing Israel-Promoted pre-emptive Attack on Iran

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Israel’s new government has declared that it will not move ahead with the core issue of peace talks with the Palestinians until it sees progress in U.S. efforts to stop Iran’s suspected pursuit of a nuclear weapon. The emerging Israeli position, announced by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during his May visit to Washington, flies in the face of U.S. policy enunciated by both Republican and Democratic administrations.

"FOR SOME time, there has been a strenuous effort to prepare the way for a pre-emptive strike against Iran, either by the U.S. or by Israel with American acquiesence. Those promoting such a military assault are the same people who promoted war in Iraq by telling us that Saddam Hussain had weapons of mass destruction, was tied to al-Qaeda, and played a role in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Now, we are told that Iran represents an “existential” threat and that any nuclear program it pursues—however far from achieving a single nuclear weapon it may be—must be eliminated.

Despite the fact that the U.S. intelligence community has not yet concluded that Iran has even decided to develop a nuclear weapon, the calls for action are growing. Among the chorus are neo-conservatives, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Commentary magazine, the World Jewish Congress and a host of others.

A fund-raising letter from the World Jewish Congress declared that, “Iran poses the greatest danger to the Jewish people since the Nazis came to power in the 1930s.” According to AIPAC, “Today the threats to Israel have never been greater...Iran is speeding up its nuclear weapons program...Do your part to stop Iran’s rapidly accelerating nuclear weapons program...”

Norman Podhoretz, long-time editor of Commentary and author of the book World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism, argues that Iran poses an imminent threat. In an essay in Commentary, he depicted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran as a revolutionary, “like Hitler...whose objective is to overturn the going international system and replace it...with a new world order dominated by Iran...The plain and brutal truth is that if Iran is to be prevented from developing a nuclear arsenal, there is no alternative to the actual use of military force.”

AIPAC’s spring 2006 convention made Iran its special target and featured giant screens alternating clips of Adolf Hitler denouncing the Jews and Iranian President Ahmadinejad. The show ended with a fade-out to the post-Holocaust vow, "Never Again."

Addressing AIPAC’s May 2009 annual meeting in Washington, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) declared that, "Mr. Ahmadinejad dreams of finishing Hitler’s work and killing all the world’s Jews. Each day that passes brings him closer to possession of a nuclear bomb, the ultimate weapon. When we daily fret and wring our hands, but fail to do anything that will really stop him, how late are we then?"

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