(Photo: Pete Souza / White House)
In her first appearance before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Samantha Power, Obama’s pick for next U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, made clear that she will spend her time in the role much as her predecessor Susan Rice did: acting as Israel’s consummate defender, fear-mongering about Iran, and opposing any move to champion Palestinian human rights or self-determination.
Rice, who has been appointed as Obama’s National Security Adviser, has said repeatedly that the American delegation to the UN “often works in ‘lockstep’ with the Israeli delegation” and spends “an enormous amount of time defending Israel’s right to defend itself and defending Israel’s legitimacy.”
“It’s an issue of utmost and daily concern for the United States,” she declared last year. A few months ago, she reiterated this point, insisting that her role as an apologist for the Israeli government is “a huge part of my work to the United Nations” and that the United States “will not rest in the crucial work of defending Israel’s security and legitimacy every day at the United Nations.”
“America has a special relationship with Israel,” she stated, to the surprise of no one and the consternation of George Washington‘s ghost. “I will stand up for Israel and work tirelessly to defend it,” she promised.
Perhaps her most disturbing comments, however, were about Iran. Shamelessly exploiting the horror of the Holocaust to fear-monger about the Islamic Republic, she declared:
“…within this organization built in the wake of the Holocaust – built in part in order to apply the lessons of the Holocaust – we also see unacceptable bias and attacks against the State of Israel. We see the absurdity of Iran chairing the UN Conference on Disarmament, despite the fact that its continued pursuit of nuclear weapons is a grave threat to international peace and security.”
With this statement, Power, in her eagerness to check off all the buzzword boxes prescribed by AIPAC, directly contradicts the consistent assessment of the United States’ own intelligence community, which has repeatedly concluded that Iran is, in fact, not pursuing a nuclear weapons as it has no nuclear weapons program.
Early last year, an unnamed U.S. intelligence official told the Washington Post that Iran has not decided to pursue nuclear weapons, explaining, “Our belief is that they are reserving judgment on whether to continue with key steps they haven’t taken regarding nuclear weapons.” At the time, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta affirmed this position, admitting, ”Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No.”
Soon thereafter, the New York Times reported, ”Recent assessments by American spy agencies are broadly consistent with a 2007 intelligence finding that concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program years earlier.” This, the paper noted, “remains the consensus view of America’s 16 intelligence agencies.”
Either Samantha Power is an idiot or she’s lying.
In fact, there was a time when Power wasn’t so confident in making such a declarative statement. In a 2008 interview with Miller-McCune, Power noted that she was “not an expert on Iran,” but condemned the “American sabre-rattling” of the George W. Bush administration. “The threats – implicit and explicit – of U.S. military action have united very diverse secular, Islamist and nationalist strands,” she said, adding that American “belligerence” had “backfired.”
When asked specifically about whether she thought “Iran is trying to create nuclear weapons,” Power replied, “It would surprise me if they weren’t, but I don’t know.”
Last year, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi stated that Iran fully supports the establishment of a NWFZ, but that Israel, and its American backers, presented the ”only obstacle to the creation of such a zone…due to its persistent refusal to join the NPT and to place its nuclear facilities under the IAEA safeguards system.”
What’s pathetic is that the US punditry and the editorials of the national papers lack the will to lay out what is happening.
This women first and foremost has to lick the boot of Israeli occupation to even be considered to represent the United States as the ambassador to the United Nations.
Perhaps she’ll do a better job of defending Israel that Rice. What a buffon she was on the Aljazeera interview. Probably the worst example of diplomacy I’ve witnessed recently.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fucpus065C4 (4.34 mins)
Is this what the measure is now for US Senate confirmation as American Ambassador to the UN? A LOYALTY OATH TO ISRAEL??? Can it be? First the Secretary of Defense (Hagel) and now the UN Ambassador (Power). Does the US have no other national interests before the international body? Before the world. Are Israeli interests of more concern to the US Senate than the concerns of the American people? This will not end well for the American people. Of that we can be certain. Our elected officials have made a wrong turn somewhere, indeed.
Israel is now far more important for American politicians and US government officials than the United States of America, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, Japan, China, etc. — they declare their Israel-centric agenda on a daily basis — shout it to the rafters. And Samantha Power has resoundingly made this point once again.
The vast majority Americans have closer cultural and emotional ties to other nations around the world than Israel — especially Western European nations.
Would anyone care to place a bet on how this situation is going to turn out? — the outcome seems obvious.
More complaining, and more paranoid hyperbole from people like Sean, more apologizing for antisemites like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, more leftist irrelevance.
The reason Power talks about Iran as a threat to US security is because – it is a threat to US security, as well as to the security of US interests in the Arab world. Outside of the cult, people understand that. They also understand that Power is probably one of the most qualified people to be US Ambassador to the UN in American history.
Samantha Power obviously is no idiot. So, we can agree she is lying because Aipac intimidated the White House and she was told to lie during the hearings.