16 Democrats Ready To Join Republicans In Selling Out American National Interests

Who's afraid of AIPAC? Apparently a shitload of craven Democrats in the U.S. Senate. So far 59 senators have signed on as co-sponsors of legislation that was ostensibly written by 2 non-Jewish AIPAC shills, Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) but initiated by Joe Lieberman and Israel's far right Likud Party and clearly meant to torpedo the peace process. Senators of questionable loyalty to America in matters regarding Israel-- including 16 AIPAC-owned Democrats, particularly Menendez, Chuck Schumer, Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker, Ben Cardin, Michael Bennet, Bob Casey, Mark Begich, Kay Hagan, Mark Pryor, Chris Coons, Mary Landrieu, Mark Warner, and, of course, Joe Donnelly and Joe Manchin.

Maybe they remember how AIPAC, whose first loyalty is always to Israel and never to America, systematically set about to destroy the careers of patriotic American congressmembers Earl Hilliard (D-AL) in 2001 and Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) when they tried to remind people that Israel isn't the 51st state. In 2002 AIPAC and its big-spending allies knocked out Hilliard in a primary run-off with conservative corporate whore Artur Davis and the same year they engineered the defeat of McKinney in a primary battle with AIPAC lackey Denise Majette, marshaling a big Republican crossover vote.

As USAToday opined Monday in an editorial against the Menendez-Kirk legislation, the bill "would almost surely torpedo the peace bid" and "dictates terms of the final agreement-- specifically, that Iran must halt not just its nuclear weapons program but rather stop all enrichment of uranium, including any used for nuclear power."

That is precisely the issue that makes the negotiations extraordinarily delicate. Iran is so publicly committed to its right to enrich that its negotiators could not give in to such a dictate even if they want to.

Nor does the bill stop there. It expresses "the sense of Congress" that if Israel decides to attack Iran, the United States should provide military support. The provision doesn't quite outsource American war decisions to Israel; Congress would still need a second vote to turn its dubious "sense" into action. But the implication is hard to miss.

The bill is useful only if held in reserve. The fact that it has so many sponsors is sufficient to deliver the message to Iran. Passing it, on the other hand, virtually guarantees an end to negotiations and a quick path to war. The Iranians are already committed to walking out if the bill passes, despite President Obama's promise of a veto, and they appear to be within months of a nuclear capability that both Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have said that they will not allow.

There is only one sensible strategy. Everyone on the U.S. side agrees that success requires the credible dismantling of Iran's nuclear program. And no one, including Secretary of State John Kerry, believes that objective can be easily attained.

What's missing is agreement on the definition of credible dismantling. That is best left to the negotiators, and judged at the end of their work. Congress will still have its say then. For now, Congress would better serve the country-- and those who would fight the war that its hawks invite-- by rattling its sabers rather than plunging them into the negotiators' hearts.

Steny Hoyer, long one of the House's worst and most contemptible AIPAC shills, attacked President Obama Tuesday for his efforts to prevent war with Iran. Leaders against this abomination in the Senate have been Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Murphy seems to have persuaded his Connecticut colleague, Richard Blumenthal to rethink his support and back away from the toxic bill. John Bollinger, the progressive candidate for the Montana U.S. Senate seat Max Baucus is giving up sent this video to his supporters yesterday:



Later he told me that "We need to give peace a chance to work. Of course, Washington, DC politics are tilted toward war. But after more than a dozen years of war, we should be war weary. If I were in the US Senate, I would fight against the push for increased sanctions to derail the disarmament framework… It's time to bring our troops home. Our modern military can deploy to any hotspot on the globe in 72 hours, we don't need troops deployed to 150 countries. It's time to rebuild America. We can't afford to rebuild America if we go on another military adventure in the Middle East. We need US Senators who will give diplomacy a chance to succeed, not repeat the same mistakes again. America is ready for a peace dividend."

And even self-proclaimed hawks see the Menendez-Kirk legislation as counterproductive. No one would argue that Jeffrey Goldberg, one of the Bush-era shills who helped lie the public into war with Iraq, is anything but a bloodthirsty warmonger. Yesterday he penned an OpEd opposing their bill.

For years, Iran hawks have argued that only punishing sanctions, combined with the threat of military force, would bring Tehran to the nuclear negotiating table. Finally, Iran is at the table. And for reasons that are alternately inexplicable, presumptuous and bellicose, Iran hawks have decided that now is the moment to slap additional sanctions on the Iranian regime.

The bill before the U.S. Senate, which has 59 co-sponsors at last count, will not achieve the denuclearization of Iran. It will not lead to the defunding of Hezbollah by Iran or to the withdrawal of Iranian support for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. What it could do is move the U.S. closer to war with Iran and, crucially, make Iran appear-- even to many of the U.S.'s allies-- to be the victim of American intransigence, even aggression. It would be quite an achievement to allow Iran, the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism, to play the role of injured party in this drama. But the Senate is poised to do just that.

…The most dangerous consequence of these Senate sanctions would manifest itself in places such as Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul and New Delhi. In order to work, sanctions must have the support of the world’s main industrial powers. If countries such as China and India decide that the U.S. is making a concerted attempt to subvert negotiations, their enthusiasm for sanctions will wane dramatically.

The time may come when additional sanctions are necessary-- say, after six months of fruitless negotiations (six months, it should be noted, during which Iran will be closely monitored to ensure that it has kept its nuclear program frozen). At a certain point, two or three months from now, it may become obvious that the talks are destined to fail, at which point more sanctions would be appropriate. But for now, new sanctions, just as negotiations are starting, would be provocative and escalatory and would undermine the administration’s attempt to denuclearize Iran without going to war.