by Jim Lobe
I think the position laid out in this letter is referred to as a “non-starter” and marks the point at which Congress moves from playing “bad cop” to spoiler. For reasons why, you can read today’s Foreign Policy article by Colin Kahl and Alireza Nader. (I [...]]]>
by Jim Lobe
I think the position laid out in this letter is referred to as a “non-starter” and marks the point at which Congress moves from playing “bad cop” to spoiler. For reasons why, you can read today’s Foreign Policy article by Colin Kahl and Alireza Nader. (I am personally embarrassed that Patty Murray from my home state of Washington put her name to this.)
]]>October 11, 2013
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20500Dear Mr. President:
As representatives of the P5+1 and the Iranian government prepare to enter another round of negotiations to verifiably end Iran’s nuclear weapon program, we reiterate the four strategic elements articulated by 76 Senators to you on August 2, 2013 necessary to achieve resolution of the nuclear issue: (1) an explicit and continuing message that we will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapons capability, (2) a sincere demonstration of openness to negotiations by Iran, (3) the maintenance and toughening of sanctions, and (4) a convincing threat of the use of force.
We support your efforts to explore a diplomatic opening, but we believe that the true test of Iranian sincerity is a willingness to match rhetoric with actions. The critical test will be Iran’s proposal to the P5+1 this week in Geneva. Iran’s first confidence-building action should be full cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, fulfillment of its responsibilities under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and implementation of all Resolutions passed by the United Nations Security Council regarding Iran’s nuclear weapons program, to include immediate suspension of all enrichment activity. If the Iranian government takes these steps in a verifiable and transparent manner, we are willing to match Iran’s good-faith actions by suspending the implementation of the next round of sanctions currently under consideration by the Congress. In short, the U.S. should consider, with the other members of the P5+1, a “suspension for suspension” initial agreement – in which Iran suspends enrichment and the U.S. suspends the implementation of new sanctions.
For the P5+1 states, such an agreement would ease concerns that Iran is using the talks as a subterfuge while its centrifuges spin and for Iran it would suspend critical additional sanctions on its key economic sectors.
The intent of sanctions is to force Iran to halt and dismantle its nuclear weapons program. Once this goal has been accomplished in a real, transparent, and verifiable way we will be prepared to remove existing sanctions in a measured, sequenced manner. However, at this time, we reaffirm that a credible military threat remains on the table and we underscore the imperative that the current sanctions be maintained aggressively, and call on you to increase pressure through sanctions already in place.
A nuclear weapons capable Iran threatens regional stability and international security and directly threatens U.S. national security interests. As we previously cautioned, Iran has historically used negotiations to affect progress on its nuclear weapons program. We must continue to realistically evaluate Iranian intentions, and we reiterate that the centrifuges cannot be allowed to continue spinning.
We reject Iranian statements that Iran should be able to continue enrichment in its own territory. Indeed, this is not a prerequisite for a peaceful nuclear energy program. Countries from Canada, to Mexico and South Africa benefit from peaceful nuclear energy programs, without indigenous enrichment programs. Iran does have a right to a peaceful nuclear energy program; it does not have a right to enrichment.
We remind you that the U.S. Department of State has characterized Iran as “the most active state sponsor of terrorism” and to be sure, verifiable dismantlement of the Iranian nuclear weapons program will not resolve the Iranian government’s deplorable abuse of basic human rights, denial of basic civil freedoms, or its ongoing activities that seek to destabilize the region.
We remain hopeful that talks next week in Geneva lead to concrete Iranian actions to prove to the world that Iran does not seek a nuclear weapons capability. However, if Iranian actions fail to match the rhetorical reassurances of the last two weeks, we are prepared to move forward with new sanctions to increase pressure on the government in Tehran.
Sincerely,
Sen. Robert Menendez
Sen. Lindsey Graham
Sen. Charles E. Schumer
Sen. Roy Blunt
Sen. Patty Murray
Sen. John McCain
Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski
Sen. Kelly Ayotte
Sen. Robert P. Casey, Jr.
Sen. Christopher A. Coons
Perhaps that’s why, just in time for the holidays, the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) launched a scathing attack on some of the most prominent — and pro-Israel– [...]]]>
Perhaps that’s why, just in time for the holidays, the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) launched a scathing attack on some of the most prominent — and pro-Israel– Jewish Senators and organizations like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
Noah Silverman, RJC’s Congressional Affairs Director since 2006, may have been moved by the sight of boiling oil when he made his debut as an official RJC blogger. No sooner writ than said, Silverman’s pontifications splattered over to RJC’s e-mail list on Thursday night.
Silverman attacks Jews and Jewish organizations who have come out in support of the immediate ratification of the New START Treaty. Picking up where the Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI) and JINSA left off, Silverman’s rails against “an unprecedented effort to ‘make START a Jewish issue‘ by pressuring Jewish communal organizations to advocate for the treaty’s ratification.”
He’s irate with the ADL and the American Council of World Jewry, both of whom objected when Senate Republicans made it known that they would use member prerogative to block ratification: “We are deeply concerned that failure to ratify the new START treaty will have national security consequences far beyond the subject of the treaty itself,” a Nov. 19 letter from the ADL to all members of the Senate asserted. ”The U.S. diplomatic strategy to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons requires a U.S.-Russia relationship of trust and cooperation.”
Granted that the ADL was speaking from the perspective of its anti-Iran agenda. Nonetheless — and perhaps especially so — it’s bizarre to hear the RJC’s Silverman challenging the right of Jewish organizations to weigh in on issues other than Israel. And Silverman is livid that Senate Democrats would dare to use an argument about Israel’s security to enlist AIPAC in the effort to get START ratified.
MJ Rosenberg — citing Nathan Guttman in the Forward and Ron Kampeas at the Jewish Telegraphic Agency — suggests that
AIPAC is in agony. It desperately wants to support the US-Russia START treaty aimed at limiting nuclear warheads because the treaty would greatly advance Israel’s security.
But it is afraid of defying right-wing Republicans in the Senate. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), in particular, is telling AIPAC “don’t you dare.” His reason is simple: Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has ordered Republicans to block anything the President submits to the Senate except, of course, tax cuts for millionaires. That includes START.
Tight-with-the-right Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin is Silverman’s source that the involvement of AIPAC in a non-Israel issue is shocking. Rubin writes, “An experienced Israel hand tells me, ‘Well, they of course claim there is a direct link to Israeli security. But, no, this must be very rare.’ A Capitol Hill adviser from another office says ‘I’ve never seen this done with AIPAC on a non-Israel issue.’”
But it’s not all that rare, according to Rosenberg:
AIPAC argues that it does not get involved in congressional battles that do not directly involve Israel. Of course, they do. They always have. Even when I worked at AIPAC decades ago, they put their full lobbying weight behind a then-controversial plan to establish a military base on the Pacific island of Diego Garcia.
Why? Because the Republican President at the time asked them to. More recently, AIPAC made sure that its friends in Congress knew that the “right vote” for Israel was supporting both Iraq wars. (Had AIPAC not indicated its support for war, far fewer Democrats would have voted for the second Iraq war.)
Silverman frames the effort to pass START as evidence of “a panicked White House is scrambling to salvage what it can of its legislative agenda before its influence in Congress is diminished next year.” But the letter to AIPAC which so outrages Silverman was written by two longtime senators who supported arms control long before Barack Obama was elected president.
Michigan Democrat Carl Levin was first elected to the Senate in 1978, where he’s Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He’s been consistently supportive of conventional forces and basic, reliable weapons systems to protect national security. His support for START is anything but last minute. In a column in the Niles Daily Star on July 9, Levin wrote:
As Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described it, New START will “make our country more secure and advance our core national security interests.” This treaty is in keeping with a long tradition of bilateral, verifiable arms control agreements with Russia and its predecessor, the Soviet Union, and it strengthens the U.S. commitment to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons.
Silverman not only ignores Mullen’s endorsement of START, he seems completely oblivious to the support expressed by Republicans for “resetting” the Treaty. They include what Jim Lobe calls are the “big guns in what remains of the Republican foreign policy Establishment, including five former secretaries of state whose service spanned the last five Republican administrations.” They include Colin Powell, James Baker, Henry Kissinger, George Schultz and Lawrence Eagleburger, who wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that there are “compelling reasons” for Republicans to approve ratification of START.
Bloomberg News reports that several Republican senators — among them Richard Lugar, Bob Corker, Lamar Alexander, Bob Bennett, John McCain, and Kyl himself, are hinting they could support the reset of START in the lame-duck Senate session if (and perhaps only if) the Senate voted to extend the expiring Bush-era tax cuts to cover Americans in all income groups. So it’s domestic politics, not national security, that may determine the fate of START, JINSA notwithstanding. MJ Rosenberg also thinks that “Kyl may come around and then AIPAC can too.”
Silverman, who worked for seven years as a legislative aide in Kyl’s office, also uses his first blogpost to defend Kyl against what he deems to be assaults on his former boss’s reputation. He is no doubt bristling at the thought that his former boss will give in on START out of political expediency. Although the RJC launched some of the most vicious ad hominem attack ads against Obama before the 2008 election, Silverman huffs that “Pro-Obama commentators attacked Kyl in the most demeaning and personal terms — including calling him unpatriotic.”
The “demeaning” attack on Kyl to which Silverman links is a Huffington Post rhymed rant by self-described Ranting Political Poet Jim Parry. The personal attack: a single Tweet by Washington Monthly contributor and blogger Steve Benen. And the accusation of Kyl’s being “unpatriotic”? A tweet by actress Elizabeth Banks, co-star of the frat-boy comedy film Zack and Miri Make a Porno.
Does Silverman really consider two tweets and a rant “pro-Obama news commentary”? If so, it explains alot.
Like why, after 25 years of Republican Jewish Coalition activism, there is only one single Jewish Republican to be found in the U.S. Congress — in either the upper or lower chamber.
]]>ECI, the partisan “pro-Israel” group set up by Bill Kristol, Gary Bauer and Rachel Abrams (wife of Elliott), [...]]]>
ECI, the partisan “pro-Israel” group set up by Bill Kristol, Gary Bauer and Rachel Abrams (wife of Elliott), sent a letter to Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Carl Levin (D-MI), slapping them on the wrists for asking AIPAC to take a public stance on the New START treaty (for it).
Several Jewish groups recently came out in favor of New START because they think a rocky U.S.-Russia relationship is bad for putting pressure on Iran. According to Laura Rozen at Politico, AIPAC has even reportedly been pushing for the treaty behind closed doors (with Republicans, and maybe even successfully).
But ECI, which was birthed at Sarah Palin advisor Randy Scheunemann‘s shop, says that for Schumer and Levin to ask AIPAC to go public with their support of New START is “unSenator-like conduct” — “public bullying,” as the ECI directors put it in the letter.
Jennifer Rubin, the neoconservative blogger who just moved from Commentary — where she worked with now-ECI director Noah Pollak — to the Washington Post, wrote from her new perch that Kristol, Bauer and Abrams “would no doubt claim, the actions of these two senators…would set a dangerous precedent.”
First of all, I’m not exactly sure it’s even sure it’s “unSenator-like conduct.” Aren’t politicians supposed to play politics to make what they think is good public policy?
Secondly, don’t you wonder what a pro-Israel group is doing defending its turf against the evils of the New START if it’s “a matter far outside its expertise and area of concern,” as ECI put it?
Well, the letter has a hedge that says, “needless to say, the Emergency Committee for Israel takes no position” on New START. But, hey, why is the Emergency Committee for Israel weighing in on Senate ethics?
Furthermore, the notion that AIPAC — or other Jewish or Israel lobby groups — shouldn’t support Congressional action (in this case, Senate ratification of a treaty) is ridiculous. For years, groups like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) worked against Congressional resolutions recognizing the Armenian genocide because Turkey was considered a strategic ally of Israel (the support ended when the relationship went icy over the Gaza War of Winter 2008/09).
It’s not as if the legitimacy of the Armenian genocide is exactly within the scope of “pro-Israel” activity. But, before the Israeli-Turkish alliance fell apart, a happy Turkey was good for Israel. Just like how the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) supports New START because a happy Russia makes it easier to confront the “Iranian nuclear threat.”
AIPAC and other Jewish groups also joined the Greek lobby to support a Congressional resolution about Cyprus (also to stick it to Turkey). So this really is business as usual for Israel lobby groups — they play geopolitics in ways they think will be good for Israel.
The mysterious part is why ECI felt compelled to jump into this at all. Was it to protect the purity of “pro-Israel” advocacy? A partisan shot against two powerful Democrats to pry AIPAC away from them? Or could it be because the faltering opposition to New START (which the, needless to say, don’t oppose)? Or was it just to weaken Obama to make room for anti-START Sarah Palin (who was pushed onto the national stage by Kristol)?
What’s funny — though predictable — is the charge of “public bullying” from a group that employs the likes of Kristol, Bauer, Abrams, Pollak and another Scheunemann employee, Michael Goldfarb.
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