The opposition to the president’s historic deal with Iran is clear. It includes entitled foreign heads of state:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: A deal based on this framework would threaten the survival of Israel.
Such a deal would increase the risks of nuclear proliferation in the region and the risks of a horrific war.
Such a deal would not block Iran’s path to the bomb. It would pave it.
Apocalyptic deadenders, like Bill Kristol:
Just FYI: Yesterday, the date of the Iran deal, was in the Hebrew calendar 13 Nissan. Cf. Book of Esther 3:12.
And a cavalcade of establishment hawks and Israel firsters led by Jeffrey Goldberg:
But the great news about the deal is that Obama has managed to assemble a wide coalition of support for peace inside the U.S. establishment. That includes:
Most importantly, Hillary Clinton, who “strongly support[s]” the president, and mentions Israel second;
the liberal Israel lobby group J Street, which also mentions Israel second–
in the essential interests of the United States, its allies in the region–including Israel–and the world…. There must also be no question that, if a final agreement ultimately cannot be reached, the United States is not to blame
the New York Times (which also mentions Israel second, to Sunni Arab nations)–
Yet in today’s poisonous political climate, Mr. Obama’s critics have gone to extraordinary lengths to undercut him and any deal. Their belligerent behavior is completely out of step with the American public, which overwhelmingly favors a negotiated solution with Iran, unquestionably the best approach.
Chris Matthews, who was strong for the deal last night; Jonathan Chait, a neocon-lite commentator who has been appalled by Israel’s conduct in the last year–
I was really hoping
@BillKristol would go with 30 Years war negotiations this time, but nope, Munich again.
and Peter Beinart, who is astute as always:
can’t help thinking how different debate in Washington (+ Jerusalem) over
#Irandeal would be if Sheldon Adelson had a different hobby.
What you must remember about Clinton, the New York Times, Chait and Beinart is that they all joined Kristol 12 years ago in supporting the disastrous Iraq war (in part, surely, because of Israel’s supposed security interests). So the war coalition of 2002-2003 is shattered. Hillary Clinton is getting beaten in Pennsylvania by Rand Paul in the latest Quinnipiac poll: she cannot run as a hawk.
We can thank history for that, principally, but Obama and Netanyahu also deserve credit. Netanyahu did so by overplaying his hand in the last three months and, in the most entitled manner, seeking to bully and manipulate the American political process. His strategy has backfired completely. It turns out that the U.S. is not something that can be easily moved, as he once claimed.
And Obama deserves credit for his strength throughout the last eight weeks. He allowed the fight with Netanyahu to become public. Doing so was a gamble, but he is a good student of politics and he saw that the lobby was fracturing; and the result was that he actually consolidated political support inside the liberal Jewish establishment.
For another thing, he made sure through John Kerry that the deal that was announced yesterday surprised everyone, overwhelming expectations. Remember that in the days leading up to the deal we thought it either wasn’t going to happen or they were going to kick the can down the road, issuing a flimsy statement of general agreement with June set as the hard deadline. No: they shocked the Lausanne deathwatch crew with pages of specifics.
The effect was electrifying. Reporters like Andrea Mitchell and Wolf Blitzer deferred to the diplomatic stroke on television yesterday. It’s not for nothing that reporters likened the talks to Versailles, which ended World War I; and the president’s speech was elegantly triumphant. Obama and Kerry had seized the moment, using the majesty of their offices to the utmost. With all the drama they could summon, they said, This is our generation’s historic moment. And almost everyone deferred to the presidency yesterday. Obama’s liberal base is over the moon; and the celebration in Tehran is also an element of the historic blow they struck. Reporters are sensitive to the zeitgeist. They sense, this is something that cannot be undone. It’s like the Cuba opening. Who will oppose that?
Of course there will be hardliners who try and block the deal, both in Washington and Tehran. But they already look to be obstructionists, fighting the stream of history. And here is my bet: Chuck Schumer will not be among them. The most important congressional swing vote will survey the political landscape and recognize that he must support the president.
The Iran deal is done. It was cut during the last eight weeks, first when Netanyahu tried to commandeer Congress and then when he issued his racist appeal against droves of Arabs on election day in Israel. Obama played that moment like a chess master. Netanyahu’s “kind of rhetoric… starts to erode the meaning of democracy,” he said. And today he has gotten his wish, of moving the U.S. and Iran forward, at last. The result will be growing pressure on the Israeli occupation.
He finaly earned his Nobel.
He ‘won on Iran’ because it was the RIGHT and only civilized thing to do. The sanctions are an act of war and a violation of Iran’s sovereignty, imho. The Iranians are resilient. They have suffered much because of the neocons/pnac-ians. Making Israel obey the myriad laws that they’ve ignored (with the help of the US and others), sign the NNPT, submit to inspections, make a just peace with the Palestinians is also the RIGHT and civilized thing to do. If not, cut the billions to zero, stop the veto, abstentions, and boycott of UN votes, and slap some sanctions on Israel if it doesn’t comply~ and fast. Oh yeah, and no more weapons!
“Netanyahu: Nuclear deal must require Iran to recognize Israel’s right to exist
Israel’s security cabinet is ‘united in opposition to the deal reached with Iran,’ the Prime Minister’s Office says after meeting.”
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.650420?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=dlvr.it
WHY? Not everything revolves around Israel. It’s past time for the West to ‘get it’! (Besides, Iran did recognize Israel many years ago….)
“The von Moltke Fallacy and avoiding another World War, with Iran
Iran has just de facto announced that it does not want a nuclear weapon, at least in this generation, and probably ever. That American and Western hawks can’t see this is a measure of their own blinkered view of reality or their own corruption. Some hawkishness is a business plan; if you use up bombs in an elective war, you have to order more planes, bombs, tanks, etc. from the arms manufacturers who fund your political campaign. …
…The people who argue for 1938 are unbeknownst to themselves actually stuck in Berlin, August 1914 and are perpetually playing von Moltke. They imagine an attack from a France that has already offered to stay neutral. They imagine a short war. They are intrigued by the possibilities of new military breakthroughs if only a years-old Schlieffen Plan can be implemented. They initiate aggression and genocide in the name of a phantasmic preemption. They act on paranoid hallucinations with real tanks and bombs.
We already let the Neoconservatives play von Moltke in Iraq, arguing preemptive war, Iraqi Baathist bad intentions, secret nuclear weapons programs, etc., etc. After a century, surely von Moltke and preemptive war thinking, which polished off 16 million people and wounded 20 million, should have a worse reputation than they do.
John Kerry and Mohammad Javad Zarif have demonstrated that diplomacy can work, that war is not the only available policy tool or even a very good one, and that we don’t have to fight World War III in the Middle East.”
read the whole thing @- http://www.juancole.com/2015/04/fallacy-avoiding-another.html
Yes, Obama and the other 5 did well, overcoming the stupid, ideologically-driven politicizations of many Congressmen. We’ve seen the same ideologically-driven machinations lately in the religious-protection laws recently passed in several states not to mention Kansas’s governor refusing to provide services because he won’t raise taxes.
A warning: “It’s not for nothing that reporters likened the talks to Versailles, which ended World War I”. That was the treaty which demanded such terrific reparations from Germany that we later got quite a lot of German resentment and, ultimately, got Hitler. But I guess the “sanctions” against Iran are like the reparations and the eventual treaty, if it comes to pass, will be like a lifting of the sanctions and thus like a lifting of unbearable reparations. More or less.
It is ironic that instead of celebrating this achievement, and a deal that would prevent more American bloodshed, and that would not cripple our economy further, Americans who are following the pied piper from Tel Aviv, are whining about it being such a bad deal, not good enough to please their Master, who basically has no other solution for this. It is all about Israel if you read the news and the war mongers statement. It is ISRAEL that must be safe, Israel that must be protected, and Israel’s demands MUST be considered first. Bibi realizes that Iran can no longer be called an existential threat, once the deal is signed, and the world accepts it.
Israel cannot exist without a bogey man, it cannot get away with war crimes and using deadly banned weapons on civilians, if there is no bogey man. It is a shame that our leaders and media, keep this war monger’s narratives going by not questioning those minions who appear on their shows criticizing this deal. A deal that has even impressed some who were skeptical earlier.
When will the media do the right thing, and help avoid a war, by questioning the opponents of this deal? They helped push for war with Iraq, in fact some lied and worked with the war mongers to bomb Iraq. It seems hundreds of thousands of people killed and US economy in shambles have not taught them to do the right thing. Zionism stinks.