The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) eagerly awaited report on Iran’s nuclear program delivered few surprises and, while offering details of a number of dual-use technologies under development in Iran, did not assert that Iran had resumed a full-scale nuclear weapons program. Eager to capitalize on [...]]]>
The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) eagerly awaited report on Iran’s nuclear program delivered few surprises and, while offering details of a number of dual-use technologies under development in Iran, did not assert that Iran had resumed a full-scale nuclear weapons program. Eager to capitalize on the media coverage of the IAEA report, congressional hawks are pushing to impose “crippling” sanctions on the Iranian central bank, a step that would have devastating economic and political effects in Iran and, potentially, send oil prices skyrocketing.
The White House indicates that such measures are “not really currently on the table” but some of the more right-wing voices in Washington are eager to impose such drastic sanctions.
Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), who has threatened to “take food out of the mouths” of Iranians, issued a statement on Monday, announcing he will lead a bipartisan campaign of 92 senators to enact sanctions against Bank Markazi, Iran’s central bank.
Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) issued a statement saying:
Time is short and options are limited. Last week, I proposed moving forward and sanctioning the very core of Iran’s financing of its nuclear program: the Central Bank of Iran. I urge President Obama to make the Central Bank of Iran’s proliferation activity the target of coordinated multilateral sanctions.
And GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney said that, as president, he would impose “crippling economic sanctions” on Iran’s central bank.
But a closer look at what central bank sanctions might entail raises serious questions.
Central bank sanctions may disrupt oil markets and damage U.S. and global economic recoveries; weaken multilateral sanctions efforts if U.S. allies are unwilling to sign on; and extract a shocking humanitarian toll on ordinary Iranian civilians.
In fact, central bank sanctions may run counter to U.S. interests and actually strengthen the Iranian regime. Mehdi Karroubi, an influential reformist politician in Iran, warns that “sanctions have given an excuse to the government to suppress the opposition by blaming them for the unstable situation in the country,” and CNN’s Fareed Zakaria writes, “[Sanctions'] basic effect has been to weaken civil society and strengthen the state — the opposite of what we should be trying to do in that country.”
Proponents of central bank sanctions say that it is the only way to prevent a nuclear armed Iran and a military confrontation. But the reality is that central bank sanctions have a bad track record of failing to achieve their aims and, according to University of Chicago Professor Robert Pape, “economic sanctions are often a prelude to using military force.”
]]>A bipartisan group of senators sent a letter to President Obama in September asking him to “mount a diplomatic offensive” against Turkey in the aftermath of souring Israeli-Turkish relations last summer. Now House Democrats are throwing their weight behind the anti-Turkey campaign. A round-up of [...]]]>
A bipartisan group of senators sent a letter to President Obama in September asking him to “mount a diplomatic offensive” against Turkey in the aftermath of souring Israeli-Turkish relations last summer. Now House Democrats are throwing their weight behind the anti-Turkey campaign. A round-up of weekly news from Americans for Peace Now highlights two Democratic-led efforts to re-evaluate the U.S. relationship with Turkey, long since a close U.S. ally and partner in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
The first is a letter from seven congressional Democrats to Obama calling for an “an urgent review of our relations with Turkey”:
It is our hope that an intensified and frank dialogue with Turkey can convince Ankara to deescalate some of its rhetoric and roll-back its increasingly destabilizing policies. However, if that cannot be achieved, we look forward to working with your Administration to review the changed environment and develop an approach which better suits the situation.
Spearheaded by Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) and signed by Democratic Reps. Howard Berman (CA), Nita Lowey (NY), Shelley Berkley (NV), Brad Sherman (CA), Steve Israel (NY), and Adam Schiff (CA), the letter — in language reminiscent of Islamophobic attempts to portray Turkey as in the U.S.’s “enemy camp” — decries Turkish “confrontation with our closest friends and allies.”
Following up on the letter, Engel and Berkeley introduced legislation that would block a proposed $111 million sale of helicopters and support equipment to Turkey. A release from Engel’s office helpfully explains that during a 15-day notification period, Congress can try to pass legislation blocking arms sales. “The resolution introduced by Berkley and Engel would prohibit this sale,” the release said.
The lawmakers justified the block with the same rhetoric as the letter. “The U.S. should be busy raising these very serious concerns with Turkey, rather than selling arms to them,” they said in the release.
After a hyperventilating neoconservative proclaimed last week that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was an “enemy” of the U.S., Foreign Policy’s Dan Drezner pointed out that Turkey bankrolled the U.S.-supported Libyan revolution and is “now creating an enclave for the Free Syrian Army.” He didn’t mention that Turkey also recently agreed to host a radar for a U.S. missile defense system designed as a bulwark against Iran (which criticized the move). Drezner went on:
Erdogan has clearly made life difficult for another ally — Israel. On the other hand, lots of America’s allies make life difficult for other American allies (see: Gibraltar).
Turkey’s relations with Israel went south after unheeded Turkish complaints about the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, and collapsed completely after nine Turks and an American were killed by Israeli forces on a humanitarian flotilla to the besieged Palestinian territory.
“If other countries disagree with Israel,” asks Drezner to conclude his post, “does that mean… that they no longer qualify as either friend or ally? Are there any other of America’s friends that fall into this super-special status? I really want to know.”
]]>Aid to the PA is under bi-partisan attack in Congress due to the Palestinians’ campaign to somehow upgrade their standing in the United Nations. The campaign against the Palestinians, and [...]]]>
Aid to the PA is under bi-partisan attack in Congress due to the Palestinians’ campaign to somehow upgrade their standing in the United Nations. The campaign against the Palestinians, and also against the United Nations, has already gained enough momentum that yesterday’s hearing, initially to have been held in session of the Subcommittee on the Near East and South Asia, was upgraded to a hearing of the full Foreign Affairs committee.
Leading the charge, unsurprisingly, is Committee Chair Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), who has introduced a bill threatening UN funding mainly, though not exclusively, over the issue of Israel and the Palestinians. But her predecessor as Chair, Howard Berman (D-CA) was absolutely blunt in saying: “I believe it is appropriate to point out that should the Palestinians pursue their unilateralist course, the hundreds of millions of dollars in annual assistance that we have given them in recent years, will likely be terminated.”
Four leading Democrats, Steve Israel (D-NY), Robert Brady (D-PA), Eliot Engel (D-NY) and Steven Rothman (D-NJ) have sent a bill to the Foreign Affairs Committee which would
With all this, you’d think aid to the PA was doomed, would you not?
But hold on. At the hearing, there were four witnesses, with David Makovsky of the AIPAC-created Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) being the most moderate. The other speakers were James Phillips of the Heritage Foundation, Dr. Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (which, along with Heritage, are neo-conservative think-tanks, with more info available here) and neocon all-star Elliott Abrams.
Makovsky was predictably dubious about cutting off aid to the Palestinians, and the entire panel was more or less united around the idea that Congress must at least keep funding PA security forces that are working with Israel to prevent attacks on Israelis.
Abrams, somewhat surprisingly, joined not only Makovsky but also the dovish “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobbying group J Street in cautioning against cutting other aid to the PA. He said,
There’s a lot here that bears close scrutiny, as the picture Makovsky paints is pretty far removed from reality. But the important point is this wide agreement, spanning the center-left to the far right, that cutting off aid to the PA is against the interests not only of the PA but of Israel and the US as well.
This leads to an obvious question: is continuing aid to the PA in the interests of the Palestinians?
While there has been little visible Palestinian opposition to the UN campaign, or, in recent months, to the PA in general, there has also been remarkably little enthusiasm about it from any sector of the Palestinian public or civil society.
So while it’s virtually certain that, even among those opposed to the UN bid, Palestinians will collectively be furious, again, at the US for its opposition to any initiative they ever take, it’s not clear that a sizeable portion of the Palestinian public is impressed with Mahmoud Abbas campaign here.
And yet, this may produce a renewed opportunity for the PA leadership.
With unity between the PA and Hamas still nothing more than idealistic words, the future of the Palestinian national movement, and the identities of any potential interlocutors with Israel and the US, is completely in doubt. One reason is, indeed the continuing insistence of Fatah that PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad have a prominent role in a unity government. But really, that is just the public face of the real concern, which is loss of US funding.
But if arguments such as those put forward by Makovsky and Abrams win the day on Capitol Hill, the PA leadership will have new options. The US will have demonstrated a reluctance to cut Palestinian aid and, while this is not likely to extend to maintaining aid to a PA that includes Hamas, it may well allow for more boldness in Palestinian diplomacy, and further actions to try to internationalize the issue and take it out of exclusively US hands.
But taking advantage of such an opportunity will require bold and clever leadership, which the PA/PLO/Fatah have not demonstrated any hint of.
One last curiosity in all of this talk of suspending aid to the PA. That came from the inimitable Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League. He said: “I certainly understand the anger in Congress. You ignore us and then you want us to continue giving you aid?”
Foxman says this as a man who staunchly defends an Israeli government that has repeatedly thumbed its nose at the United States and embarrassed the President, despite the fact that aid to Israel, in both dollars and on the ground military coordination is greater and deeper than at any time in history.
One can only imagine the color of Abe’s face if the obvious irony was pointed out to him.
]]>Invited by Republican House Foreign Affairs Chairperson Ileana Ros-Lehtinin, the talking heads from Israel’s security establishment honed in on a permanent presence in the valley, which reportedly makes up about a quarter of the West Bank.
But the panelists — former Israeli UN Ambassador and JCPA chief Dore Gold and former Generals Uzi Dayan and Udi Dekel — also argued for continued Israeli control over more territory.
Many justifications were given for Israel’s eternal presence in the Jordan Valley: “strategic depth”, “Israel’s doctrine of self-reliance”, a region “engulfed in flames”, the examples of the unilateral withdrawals from Gaza and southern Lebanon, and guarantees from U.S. political figures.
Notably omitted were three other justifications: the valley’s resources, the ideological, religious and nationalist motivations of the settler movement (Israeli domestic politics), and the obstacle that holding the valley presents to a negotiated two-state solution (Palestinians are unlikely to make any deal that cedes so much of the West Bank’s already shrunken territory).
The weight of these unmentioned factors against security concerns was put on stark display last fall when President Barack Obama reportedly offered Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu U.S. support for a permanent Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley as part of a wide-ranging package of incentives in exchange for a two-month freeze of settlement construction in the West Bank. Israel rejected the offer.
The panelists also raised other issues facing Israel, including the “diplomatic assault” (an effort to have a Palestinian state recognized by the UN General Assembly), Iran’s nuclear program and Dayan’s recasting of David Frum‘s “evil axis” to include Turkey and, before the dust has settled, potentially Egypt.
Dayan sounded the alarm about Egypt, intimating that the Muslim Brotherhood was bound to take over and criticizing his host nation for not propping up deposed president Hosni Mubarak. “You were too fast to turn your back on Mubarak,” he said. “You should be careful to support your friends.”
Only a few members attended the briefing. They included Ros-Lehtinen, ranking member Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH) and freshman Reps Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY), Mike Kelly (R-PA) and Jeff Duncan (R-SC). A few staffers populated the 25 or so seats, as did right-wing pro-Israel activists Noah Pollak of the Emergency Committee for Israel and Noah Silverman of the Republican Jewish Coalition.
For the freshman, the briefing provided an opportunity to rub elbows with powerful Israeli players and pro-Israel activists. “I’m looking forward to educating myself on those issues,” said Duncan from the dais, proving the seriousness of his intent by citing Hamas’s — not Hezbollah’s — worrisome presence in Southern Lebanon.
Before leaving the briefing room, Berman, the only Democrat, admitted that his question about the Lebanese Armed Forces was a “softball.”
Berman’s much-acknowledged presence gave a bi-partisan seal of good-housekeeping to a briefing otherwise dominated by Republicans. The “‘members’ briefing” — which is not an official hearing – has been used by Ros-Lehtinen since her days in the minority to air views that she could not get previous chairpersons to open up debate on.
The mechanism of a “members’ briefing”‘ also means that only the organizers of the meeting choose the witnesses. In a normal hearing, Democrats would be allowed to bring their own witness to the hearing although Berman’s presence and ‘softballs’ indicate that perhaps a Democratic witness was unlikely to be any less to the right.) The other reason for making it a ‘briefing’ was that no real U.S. government business was discussed. the whole proceeding was just the delivery of a wish list from the Israeli right.
Nothing new to see here. Just bipartisan defense in Congress for policies — pushed by the Israeli right, the pro-Israel lobby, and neoconservative activists — that are almost certain to drive the last nails into the coffin of the two-state solution.
]]>In a briefing yesterday, acting State Department spokesperson Mark Toner put an exclamation on this when he was asked if the Iranians “want a bomb or [...]]]>
In a briefing yesterday, acting State Department spokesperson Mark Toner put an exclamation on this when he was asked if the Iranians “want a bomb or not.” He redirected the reporter to somebody who might actually know: Iranian President Mahmood Ahmadinejad. “Ask Ahmadinejad,” Toner said. (The full exchange is below.)
On Tuesday, Foreign Policy‘s Josh Rogin reported that a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran had been completed and circulated among some members of Congress– The Iran hawks who spoke to Rogin spoke with certainty about Iran’s desire for a bomb.
The ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), who hadn’t yet seen the new NIE, told Rogin: “There can be no serious doubt that Iran wants to have a nuclear weapons capability.”
But a report in the Wall Street Journal by Adam Entous on Thursday suggested that, according to the latest NIE, while Iran has been working on various components that could be synthesized into a full-blown nuclear weapons program, the regime in Tehran seems to have split over whether to work toward that goal. Entous:
The NIE’s findings suggest that, in the U.S. view, at least some Iranian leaders are worried that economic turmoil fueled in part by international sanctions could spur opposition to the regime—though officials acknowledge it is impossible for outsiders to determine the precise effect of sanctions on decision-making in Tehran.
Noting that the NIE is a consensus opinion among U.S. intelligence agencies, Entous gets this quote from an unnamed U.S. official:
“The bottom line is that the intelligence community has concluded that there’s an intense debate inside the Iranian regime on the question of whether or not to move toward a nuclear bomb,” a U.S. official said. “There’s a strong sense that a number of Iranian regime officials know that the sanctions are having a serious effect.”
As Matt Duss at ThinkProgress has hammered home again and again, the current position — ‘We just don’t know!’ — tracks perfectly with the public stances of the CIA (pdf), the UN’s atomic agency (IAEA), and serious analysts everywhere. (The most vociferous dissenters from this conventional wisdom — in Israel — have proven themselves to be less than reliable on the matter.)
Duss spoke to an Iranian-Israeli analyst who, contra his compatriots in government, took a wholly responsible stand on the subject:
“No one, absolutely nobody, perhaps not even Khamenei knows whether they will field a weapon, yet. Its all assumptions,” said Israeli analyst Meir Javedanfar, via email.
At a conference earlier this month sponsored by the National Security Network and the Center for American Progress, former intelligence analyst and Georgetown professor Paul Pillar concurred with the assessment that no decision has been made by the Iranians.
He said this supported the notion that a deal to avert the current crisis is still possible: that with real inducements of the sort not yet offered by the West, Iran could decide not to pursue weapons.
“[A deal] is still feasible,” he said. “We’re talking about an Iranian decision not yet made and influenceable by the West — including the United States — and what it does.”
***
Here’s State spokesperson Mark Toner’s full exchange on Iran’s intentions during the Feb. 17 daily press briefing:
QUESTION: Mark, is there any evidence that the –
MR. TONER: Yeah, go ahead.
QUESTION: — of a – some kind of split within the Iranian regime about the wisdom of proceeding forward with its nuclear program – the impact of economic sanctions, et cetera – is there any evidence of a schism within the regime?
MR. TONER: It’s a fair question. I don’t know or can’t speak to it authoritatively today. We’ve seen some signs that the sanctions have had some impact, and the best we can do is offer Iran a clear path forward and one that involves coming clean with the international community about its nuclear program, which would then lead to greater engagement and easing of sanctions.
QUESTION: Has the Department observed any slowdown on the part of the Iranians’ efforts to achieve a nuclear weapons capability?
MR. TONER: I can’t speak to that.
QUESTION: So in – do you have any assessment as to the desire of the Iranians to pursue a nuclear weapons capability? Does it remain your view that they are determined to achieve a nuclear weapons capability? That is the still the U.S. view, correct?
MR. TONER: The U.S. view is that Iran – that the international community has serious questions about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and has asked repeatedly, through the IAEA, through the P-5+1, for Iran to come clean, to address those concerns in a transparent way. And we continue to call on them to –
QUESTION: You don’t affirmatively believe that they are seeking a nuclear weapon?
MR. TONER: We are asking them to – again, to address the international community’s concerns about their nuclear program, about the intention of their nuclear program. But I’m not going to go beyond that.
QUESTION: Do they want a bomb or not? Do they want a bomb?
]]>MR. TONER: Ask Ahmadinejad.
For a glimpse into this view, particularly in terms of staunch pro-Israel Democrats, read what the archetype of this group, outgoing chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee California Rep. Howard Berman, has to say. Berman gave an interesting interview to the Israeli daily Haaretz where, at times getting combative (literally), he reveals some of the thinking behind the even timid support of U.S. President Barack Obama’s Iran policy.
Let’s start with a minor quibble, but a big picture one. Seeking something to praise in U.S. foreign policy, Berman cites engagement with the Muslim world:
By and large, I think that to have a war with a billion Muslims is not a viable policy. We have to engage with the forces of modernity in the Muslim world. We have to separate moderates from extremists, and engagement that is designed to achieve that makes compelling sense to me.
The “separate” stuff is pure imperial divide-and-conquer strategy. For many of the hardline pro-Israel types, the idea that U.S. policy plays any role in creating enmity toward the U.S. is sacrilegious. In their view the U.S. must, therefore, consolidate its supporters, rather than alleviate legitimate grievances among those who don’t. And the qualifier “by and large,” which means “generally,” is troubling: it implies there could be specific situations where going to “war with a billion Muslims” would conceivably be sound policy.
But never mind my harping on tragically misplaced turns of phrase, let’s look at what Berman had to say about Iran policy. First and foremost, of course, is that the “military option” — let’s call it ‘attacking Iran’ — is “on the table” (interviewer Natasha Mozgovaya’s questions are bolded by me):
Israeli politicians are wondering why the U.S. administration took the military option off the table, even if they didn’t say so explicitly.
The military option is not off the table. It’s on the table.
The Iranians apparently don’t think so.
Who knows what they really think?
Berman goes on to discuss why he thinks that the international diplomacy and the posture of engaging Iran is useful: because it builds “international support”:
We don’t know if the current strategy is going to work. We do know that two years ago we had the most limited, worthless set of multilateral sanctions on Iran that were not enforced, and all the U.S. efforts to make them stronger were to no avail. And the U.S. position on Iran was not the international position, the U.S. was isolated and everyone wrote that Iran is rising in influence.
Two years later we have tough sanctions at the Security Council, and the U.S. and Europeans imposed more far-reaching sanctions. We have evidence it’s causing pain in Tehran inside the regime, Iran feels the pressure and is isolated, and the U.S. position as a result of this administration’s policies has developed international support.
What we don’t know yet is if it will change the regime’s behavior on the nuclear issue. But we are in a much better position to create that change than we were two years ago. And we need to stay very resolved on this, we need to impose sanctions on companies that are undermining our efforts, and we need to build even more international support. This is an example of this administration’s effective use of diplomacy.
One might be forgiven for thinking that an effective use of diplomacy would be to negotiate a deal with the Iran to resolve the nuclear impasse. But for Berman, the focus of diplomacy seems only to serve the cause of isolating Tehran with sanctions. This ambiguity is something U.S. Institute of Peace expert Daniel Brumberg and the Stimson Center’s Barry Blechman took issue with in a recent article on Foreign Policy‘s website:
If, as administration officials insist, sanctions are a “means rather than an end,” we need to define that end far more clearly. If it is stopping Iran’s nuclear program, then let’s be clear: sanctions may be slowing that program down, but by themselves they will not compel Iran’s leaders to comply with the International Atomic Energy Commission or the UN Security Council. To get the attention of Iran’s current leaders, we must decide whether the goal of sanctions (or for that matter, engagement) is to set the stage for war or for sustained peace negotiations.
Clearly for Berman, sanctions — including diplomacy aimed at more rigid sanctions — are an end in and of themselves, though they could be the prelude to something far more daunting: the prospect of war with Iran. Most experts, including Brumberg and Blechman, agree that sanctions and isolation are unlikely to end the nuclear impasse with Iran. The only way to do that, one might surmise, is a negotiated deal, which will require concessions that we can be sure Congressional Iran hawks will balk at.
Berman’s perspective only lends credibility to those critics who questioned whether engagement was ever earnestly tried by the Obama administration. If the Obama foreign policy is based on Berman’s line, it’s likely those critics correctly analyzed the administration’s position.
]]>Indeed, both of these concerns should be taken seriously as the hawkish Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) takes over as the new Chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
A review of her statements from the past year would indicate that the Obama administration’s policy of sanctions, while keeping the door open for negotiations, will be challenged by Ros-Lehtinen.
In a December 14, 2009 op-ed in the LA Times, Ros-Lehtinen wrote:
The regime in Tehran knows only hardball, and nothing less than overwhelming and crippling sanctions could produce a reversal of its threatening programs and policies.
[…]
But these sanctions must be coupled with action on all fronts. The U.S. must also specifically reject Iran’s claim to an inalienable right to produce nuclear fuel.
And, as The Cable’s Josh Rogin cautions, Ros-Lehtinen could cause significant problems for the Obama administration’s foreign policy if, as expected, she pushes the administration to punish Russian and Chinese companies doing business with Iran. She is expected to lead a congressional effort to demand more information about the U.S.-Saudi arms deal, which was widely seen by realists as an Obama administration plan to form a long-term containment and deterrence strategy against a nuclear armed Iran.
In this same article, Rogin quotes from a previously unreported letter obtained by The Cable. In it, Ros-Lehtinen and then House Foreign Affairs chair Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) demanded answers to their questions about the arms deal from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
They wrote:
We are writing to raise concerns and pose a number of strategic questions about the impact such sales would have on the national security interests of the United States and our allies.
It’s fair to ask how Ros-Lehtinen will view the Obama administration’s endorsement of “linkage”—a concept which is accepted at the highest levels of the U.S. military, that resolving the Arab-Palestinian conflict will forward the United States’ broader strategic interests in the region.
So far it appears likely she will oppose the Obama administration’s efforts to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on settlements, having been a vocal critic of the administration’s strained relationship with Israeli leadership.
Lynch concludes:h
]]>I’m gritting my teeth in anticipation of the next Congress becoming a platform for Iran war hawks, hyping the issue even further in anticipation of the 2012 elections… look for another round of sanctions and some kind of Iranian Liberation Act on the horizon, regardless of how things are actually going for U.S. diplomatic efforts. A GOP-controlled Congress may not go for the big $60 billion arms sale to the Saudis, what with that whole “sharia” thing.
Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), running for the open U.S. Senate seat in Illinois, has been plagued [...]]]>
Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), running for the open U.S. Senate seat in Illinois, has been plagued by apologies for exaggerations of his record [...]. Now Democrats are accusing Kirk of falsely claiming credit for a hunk of the Iran sanctions act passed this summer. This time, however, the Kirk campaign is sticking to its guns and accusing the Dems of politicking.
Kirk has said that legislation he and Democrat Rep. Rob Andrews (D-N.J.) sponsored shaped legislation that targeted companies that deliver refined petroleum to Iran, a major crude producer, but with a refinement capacity that has been in disarray. He said Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs committee, eventually slapped his name atop the bill — which is customary, because major bills need heft to pass.
Berman says Kirk had nothing to do with the final bill, according to this Chicago Sun Times account, a notion Kirk’s campaign strongly rejects. Backing Kirk is Rep. Ileana Ros Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the ranking member of the committee. That puts her in the uncomfortable position of directly contradicting Berman — upsetting the Foreign Affairs Committee’s norm of chairs and ranking members going out of their way to get along.
Kampeas gives Kirk the win “on points.” He initially described Kirk’s appraisal of his role in creating the sanctions package as “hubristic.” After being contacted by Kirk’s campaign and going through incarnations of the bill, Kampeas concludes that “hubristic” might have been too strong and Kirk deserves some credit.
It should be noted that Kirk and Berman are both favorites of the right-wing, pro-Israel lobby. Kirk is far and away the largest fundraiser from pro-Israel PAC’s, having raised a career total of $1.4 million (50 percent more than his next competitor). While Berman has raised a relatively paltry $400,000, he is known for also toeing the pro-Israel line.
We pointed out in our August 5 Daily Talking Points that Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) president Cliff May noted in a National Review article that, as the sanctions packages were being drafted by Congress, several members of a task force went to the Hill to brief the authors of the legislation. This group included two experts from the FDD and was put together by the neoconservative American Foreign Policy Council.
UPDATE: Foreign Policy‘s excellent The Cable blog, authored by Josh Rogin, gets a former AIPAC spokesperson to recount Kirk’s role in authoring the legislation, which was a top priority in recent years for the Israel lobby group:
]]>“There’s no question that Mark Kirk was one of the first, if not the first member of Congress to advocate restricting the flow of gasoline to Iran as a way of pressuring Iran on its nuclear program,” said Josh Block, who was the chief spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which was intimately involved in the bill’s legislative journey.