Running With The Nuclear Football
Wes Clark: “The Jewish community is divided, but there is so much pressure being channeled from the New York money people to the office seekers.”
RJC: “Clark’s remarks were hurtful, damaging, and wrong, and Wesley Clark should apologize to the American Jewish community for saying them.”
Clark to ADL: “My position on Iran should not be misinterpreted, defined out of context or used to create conspiracy theories about one group’s influence on U.S. foreign policy. There is no place in these critical policy debates for anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that blame the Jewish community for the war in Iraq and for action against Iran.”
Matthew Yglesias: “Everything Clark said, in short, is true. What’s more, everybody knows it’s true.”
Jonah Goldberg: “Are there American Jews who favor military strikes against Iran to prevent it from getting nukes? Of course. But there are also Christians, atheists and perhaps even Muslims who feel likewise. They are all making arguments to support their view, but Yglesias and Clark don’t think that those arguments are legitimate, so it must be a right-wing Jewish cabal at work.”
NY Sun on last week’s AIPAC dinner:
Tonight’s event is the first time any of the 2008 candidates have competed for attention in the same room since they launched their campaigns in earnest. It is also an important illustration of just how much stock all of the presidential candidates, Democrats and Republicans alike, will put in the pro- Israel community, particularly for campaign dollars.
[…] A Democratic political consultant who worked on President Clinton ‘s re-election campaign, Hank Sheinkopf, noted that the Aipac dinner always draws a parade of politicians.
New York is the ATM for American politicians. Large amounts of money come from the Jewish community,” he said. “If you’re running for president and you want dollars from that group, you need to show that you’re interested in the issue that matters most to them.”
[…] Mrs. Clinton, who has opted out of the public campaign financing system, has tapped into the circuit of influential Jewish donors for years and has strong support in the community. A spokesman for Aipac, Joshua Block, said yesterday that the senator and former first lady has “an extremely consistent and strong record of support on issues that are important to the pro-Israel community.”
The AP reports:
Calling Iran a danger to the U.S. and one of Israel’s greatest threats, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday that “no option can be taken off the table” when dealing with that nation.
“U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal: We cannot, we should not, we must not permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons,” Clinton told a crowd of Israel supporters. “In dealing with this threat … no option can be taken off the table.”
And now The Forward:
While Jewish communal leaders focus most of their current lobbying efforts on pressing the United States to take a tough line against Iran and its nuclear program, some are privately voicing fears that they will be accused of driving America into a war with the regime in Tehran.
[…] In warning of possible scapegoating, insiders point to the experience of the Iraq War. Since the initial invasion in 2003, antiwar groups have charged, with growing vehemence, that the war was promoted by Jewish groups acting in Israel’s interest — even though the invasion enjoyed bipartisan backing and popular support, and was not at the top of most Jewish organizations’ agendas. The Iraq backlash prompted former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon to order in 2005 that his ministers keep a low profile on Iran.
Now, however, Jewish groups are indeed playing a lead role in pressing for a hard line on Iran.
Remember when…?
Glenn Greenwald comments. More at Rapid Fire Silver Bullets here and here.
And the NJDC? Giant f’ing hypocrites.
the only candidate that is getting it all correct is john edwards. as for hilary, playing the iran card is a joke. ahmadinejad is finished and so are his extremists. Khameni and Khatami will take over and this nonsense will stop. the real problem is saudi arabia. it has always been saudi arabia, and their exportation of wahhabism everywhere. they simply told the US the shiites must lose or we are switching to the euro, we will pump oil at over 100 a barrel, have China cash in its treasury bonds and then say goodbye US economy. Hello Europe–and that will be the end of the world as we know it.
Like I said. John Edwards is only guy who gets it. period.
As for the Israelis–oh puhleez. there is nothing left to do but cry. what a bunch of jerks,…took a dream and turned it into a freakin’ nightmare.
Is it John Edwards point of view that ” As for the Israelis…there is nothing left to do but cry. what a bunch of jerks…took a dream and turned it into a freakin’ nightmare.” This doesn’t sound like anybody I would want to lead the United States. As for Wes Clark, he responded to what was written about him in Huffington Post. I don’t think even John Edwards would dispute that Wes Clark is one if the leading experts on the middle east. Richard Holbrooke has said the biggest mistake George W. Bush made was not appointing Wes Clark to be a special envoy to the middle east and fix the problems that developed in Iraq. I would sleep much better if Wes Clark were president.
My link articulates my view how the AIPAC-psychos could lead us to WWIII.
I thnk there’s two larger, tangential issues: one, our constitutional system is in crisis and I detail my view here: http://weblogs.annenberg.edu/digipol/2007/01/memo_to_biden_and_democrats_on.html
(On a side-note, do most believe believe in the distinction bet. Islamist and Islamic terrorists (see the comment section of my Biden post).
Second, all this focus on “no cards off-the-tables” distracts us completely from engaging in some form of public diplomacy with the democratic actors that DO exist in Iran and the rest of the Middle East (yes, Josh, I know Iran is in Persia). The great irony is that anti-Israel, pro-Palistinean propaganda is the remaning glue connecting the Arab world to each other and their Persian brothers, which itself Hilary and AIPAC reinforce by their focus on their own security insecurities. Yeah, we shouldn’t take “anything” off the table, but maybe it’s time to ALSO put some cards on the table. Like CIA analysts, Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann, called for before their opinion was censored in the NYX.
Kyle’s mom hasn’t been paying attention. There’s not a hair’s width of difference between John Edwards and Hillary Clinton in their rhetoric on Iran. The only exception might be that Edwards tones it down when he’s not making AIPAC-sponsored junkets to Israel, or addressing neoconservative meet-ups at Herzliya with such notables as Newt Gingrich and Ricahrd Perle.
Kyles’ Mom has me laughing out loud up in here. Thank you Kyle’s Mom, just THANK YOU. I needed that. Can’t wait till Khameni and Khatami come back to power. Now THERE’S a solution. lol.
Mobius mayne what are you afraid of!?!?
Are you afraid that American Jews are pushing for war with Iran? Because that’s a legitimate concern, and one that I share myself. But the poll data shows that most American Jews are AGAINST war with Iran.
No, what it looks like is that you are afraid people will THINK that American Jews are pushing for war with Iran, even though that may not be true.
Well I am sorry dude but we have NO obligation to these people!!! We have NO obligation to bend over backward, to seem SUPER-anti-war-with-Iran rather than merely anti-war-with-Iran for fear of what OTHER PEOPLE MAY ERRONEOUSLY THINK. Just because these muhf*ckas want to believe Jews are pushing this war (despite evidence to the contrary) does not place the onus on us to convince these ignorant herbs.
If you are against this supposed War With Iran, great. But please to kill this noise about “My G-d what will the goyim think!?!? I hope they realize we are against this war!!!” Man, these fools see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear.
This paragraph from the Forward article says it all: “Since the initial invasion in 2003, antiwar groups have charged, with growing vehemence, that the war was promoted by Jewish groups acting in Israel’s interest — even though the invasion enjoyed bipartisan backing and popular support, and was not at the top of most Jewish organizations’ agendas.”
In other words: The problem is with these antiwar groups, not with us.
America will not invade Iran. It wont happen.
Now, they may decide to bomb Iran (which would probably strengthen Ahmedinijad more than it would weaken them), but I doubt it. Just as I put my bet on “Ahmedinijad is full of sh*t” a while ago, now Im making the same bet about Bush.
Just a bunch of a high profile sh*t talking, man.
America will not invade Iran. It wont happen.
Now, they may decide to bomb Iran (which would probably strengthen Ahmedinijad more than it would weaken them), but I doubt it. Just as I put my bet on “Ahmedinijad is full of sh*t” a while ago, now Im making the same bet about Bush.
Just a bunch of a high profile sh*t talking, man.
America will not invade Iran. It wont happen.
Now, they may decide to bomb Iran (which would probably strengthen Ahmedinijad more than it would weaken them), but I doubt it. Just as I put my bet on “Ahmedinijad is full of sh*t” a while ago, now Im making the same bet about Bush.
Just a bunch of a high profile sh*t talking, man.
Apparently, if you write something three times it’s true.
John Edwards’s position on Iran is apparently all over the place, depending on who he’s talking to. Or at least that’s how it looks courtesy of juxtapositions put togethre by our sometimes-a-bit-too-pro-Israel friends at the WSJ Best of the Web Today blog/column/newsletter/whatever. See the first item:
http://opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110009631
American may not invade Iran, but that’s not how a little thing called wwi ignited.
it was a little assasination, kind of like the kidnapping, maybe beheading, maybe not, of a nice Iranian diplomat….
Thanks Dubya….and the Democrats’ spinelessness….
oh yeah i didnt mean to post the same thing 3 times. i dont know how that happened
ljm, that was ME, not John Edwards. the israelis are freaking joke. I have the right to say that.