Everyone is talking about Jim Lobe's post on a recent report justifying war on Iran, crafted by Michael Rubin of AEI and Michael Makovsky (who Lobe says worked for Doug Feith to manipulate the intelligence on Iraq and had emigrated to Israel in 1989; no dual loyalty problem there, huh?). But the concern is not All the Usual Suspects. It is that Dennis Ross, a senior foreign-policy adviser to Barack Obama, also signed on to the report.
Scott McConnell calls Ross a "soft neocon" and is troubled by the report. So am I. Jack Ross (no relation) seeks to allay:
is not deluded enough to think Ross could be Secretary of State, but
his fear, which is plausible enough, is that he could successfully
angle his way to becoming in charge of the Iran desk or even becoming Special Envoy to Iran. But Lobe's article betrays all the salient facts as to why not to be too worried about this.
Any
doubt that Ross is going the way of Pollack and O'Hanlon [i.e., liberal hawks who have planted both feet in the dustbin of history] is dispelled
by Lobe's excellent delineation of just how many neocon usual suspects are tied to the game Dennis Ross is playing. Indeed, therefore, what he's doing is just too obvious for Obama to go in for it.
Here's hoping. Ross also sends along this attack ad against Dennis Shulman, a Democrat who is likely to become the first ordained rabbi to serve in Congress– from Northwest N.J. Shulman appeared at an antiwar rally with Cindy Sheehan and has called for talking to Iran and Hamas. You go, boy. How nice to see an antiwar Jewish guy in our politics. After having to watch Schumer, Wiener, Berman and Lieberman all these years…
Finally, Jack Ross says: "Another important point to mention about Colin Powell's
remarks were that he heroically said: 'And so what if Obama were a
Muslim? Do we want a Muslim-American boy or girl to hear that and
think they can never be President? That's not America.'" My country tis of thee!
