News reports Mike Pompeo’s latest bellicosity toward Iran leave out the fact that Donald Trump is depending on as much as $50 million in contributions from Sheldon Adelson, who has called for the U.S. to nuke Iran.
Donald Trump disappointed John Bolton las tyear by refusing to strike Iranian bases in response to Iran destroying an American drone, because the strike would likely kill 150. “Disproportionate… Too many body bags,” Trump said. Bolton writes, “This was the most irrational thing I ever witnessed any president do,” and says he nearly resigned. The author doesn’t understand how frightening this story is, about Bolton himself.
Why is Trump lying down for Israeli annexation of West Bank even as global chorus condemns it? He needs what could be $200 million from Sheldon and Miriam Adelson for election. He has delivered for the largest Republican donors again and again, from moving embassy, to tearing up Iran deal, to attacking the ICC.
The foreign policy talking point for mainstream Democratic presidential candidates is fighting “terrorism.” Amy Klobuchar went so far as to call Iran a “terrorist regime.” Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren did not use that word, while offering eloquent statements about the failures of U.S. foreign policy.
Trump’s decision to assassinate a leading Iranian official in Iraq yesterday has contributed to the split inside the Israel lobby in the United States. Republican Israel supporters celebrate the killing, and see it as destroying the last hope of saving the Iran deal. Many Democratic supporters of Israel are critical of the decision.
In an interview with the Ames Tribune, Democratic Majority for Israel’s Kat Wellmann praised Harris’ response. “I was very impressed with her. I thought she gave an excellent speech, she gave a very detailed, responsive answer to my question,” she told the paper, “I’m pro-Israel, so I was I was very concerned and all about making sure we limit nuclear missiles in any country that could possibly destroy us all. I thought her answer was very good.”
When Obama was battling Netanyahu, Joe Biden threw his arm around an Israeli official and said, “Just remember that I am your best fucking friend here.” Now Biden is collecting on the friendship, raising money at the Manhattan home of an Israel supporter, Jack Rosen, who does not want the U.S. to return to the Iran deal.
A long NYT Magazine article on Netanyahu’s influence on the White House buys the Israeli premiere’s line that his power comes from “the ability to sway public opinion in the United States against the regime in Iran,” and leaves out the millions that Sheldon Adelson, Netanyahu’s friend, has given to Trump and Republican causes. Leaves out AIPAC too, though author Ronen Bergman has spoken to the Israel lobby group and lavished praise on it.
At a Christian Zionist conference in Washington, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declares that Trump is an “immovable friend of Israel,” and “anti-Zionism is indeed anti-Semitism.” And National Security Adviser John Bolton referred to the “so-called state of Palestine.”
Israel and its rightwing supporters wanted an attack on Iran and they did not get it, this week anyway. Though of course the media did not identify the Israel lobby and Netanyahu as cheerleaders for war American people don’t want.