Obama capitulates to the Israel lobby

[Hein van Meeteren]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Een Amerikaanse president kan nooit zonder de Israel-lobby regeren. Dat
moet duidelijk zijn. Als je die verspeelt kom je gewoonweg niet in
office. Dus dat hij die lobby enigszins paait lijkt me evident en
verstandig. Met Iran is het anders: Iran is een bloedlink land. Rijk
door olie, geregeerd door fanatieke godsdienstfanaten, ondemocratisch,
gewelddadig tegen vrije mensen en homo's, zwaar bewapend. Ik ben er
jarenlang doorheen getrokken, ken het land van noord tot zuid, van west
tot oost. Natuurlijk moet je het land niet platnuken, maar gewoon zijn
gang laten gaan is niet verstandig als je wilt blijven leven als Israel.
Dus iets doen is belangrijk: Obama heeft al aangekondigd de diplomatieke
weg te gaan bewandelen met Iran en "talks" te beginnen. Lijkt me een
goede aanpak. Maar als Iran aantoonbaar (ik zeg antoonbar, dus niet obv
die slappe verhaaltjes ooit bij Iraq) een atoombom aan het ontwikkelen
is, dan kan ik me wel voorstellen dat Israel in de aanval gaat.
Verschrikkelijk, maar geen land laat zich zonder verdediging van de
kaart vegen.

Antid Oto schreef:
> Ik zou zo'n dreigement met een korrel zout nemen en analyseren in
> welke context zoiets dan gezegd wordt Hein. Obama heeft zich volledig
> laten inpakken door de Israel lobby, dat is het punt. Iran-bashing
> schijnt ook bij Obama de mode te zijn.
>
> Hein van Meeteren wrote:
>> REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl
>>
>> Even een oefening in audi et alterem partem: als een naburig land
>> Nederland zou dreigen met "We gaan jullie van de kaart vegen", en dat
>> land had langzamerhand de mogelijkheid die uitspraak waar te maken
>> met een kernwapen, what would you do?
>>
>>
>> Ben benieuwd naar je antwoord, Trotsky.
>>
>> Antid Oto schreef:
>>> REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl
>>>
>>> http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12944
>>>
>>>   June 6, 2008
>>> Obama Capitulates
>>> – to the Israel lobby
>>> by Justin Raimondo
>>>
>>> Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's visit to the U.S. is part of a
>>> concerted effort, by the Israeli government and its American
>>> lobbyists, to convince U.S. lawmakers – and, most of all, President
>>> George W. Bush – that the time to attack Iran is now. The Israeli
>>> newspaper Yediot Achronot reports that Olmert will tell Bush "time
>>> is running out" on diplomacy and that he'd better launch an attack.
>>>
>>> In his speech to the AIPAC conference, Olmert's message was harsh
>>> and unrelenting: Iran, he said, "must be stopped by all possible
>>> means" from acquiring a nuclear capability. Yes, sanctions must be
>>> tightened, but these are only "initial steps": what's needed, he
>>> averred, are "more drastic and robust measures" – and that can only
>>> mean one thing.
>>>
>>> Israel would rather not act alone, but Olmert signaled that he was
>>> willing to do so if pushed: ""Israel will not tolerate the
>>> possibility of a nuclear Iran, and neither should any other country
>>> in the free world," he declared, in what was clearly a threat of
>>> unilateral action. Citing Israel's record in regard to Iraq in the
>>> eighties and Syria last year, Tim Butcher warned in the Telegraph:
>>> "The speech shortens the odds significantly on military action
>>> against Iran's nuclear program."
>>>
>>> The U.S. would almost certainly be drawn into the conflict if Israel
>>> carried out its threat, and Olmert knows that. So does Bush, who, in
>>> any case, may not need much persuading. After all, in his speech to
>>> the Israeli parliament last month, the President declared:
>>>
>>> "Permitting the world's leading sponsor of terror to possess the
>>> world's deadliest weapons would be an unforgivable betrayal for
>>> future generations. For the sake of peace, the world must not allow
>>> Iran to have a nuclear weapon."
>>>
>>> For the sake of peace, we must make war: a familiar refrain that
>>> echoes down through the years, mocking the living and the dead.
>>>
>>> The clock is ticking, and time is running out for the War Party:
>>> they must get in their licks before the most pro-Israel president,
>>> ever, leaves office. As Butcher writes: "Among Israeli supporters of
>>> military action against Iran there is concern something must be done
>>> before Mr. Bush's end of office next January as Mr. Bush is
>>> perceived as closer to Israel than any potential successor."
>>>
>>> Don't look to Barack Obama for deliverance from this looming
>>> conflict. In his speech to AIPAC, he clearly signed on to the
>>> Lobby's latest project, departing from his prepared text to declare:
>>>
>>> "I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a
>>> nuclear weapon. Everything in my power. Everything."
>>>
>>> "Everything" includes murdering tens of thousands of Iranians,
>>> mostly civilians – driving the price of oil up above $300 a barrel
>>> and destroying the US economy – and involving us in a war that will
>>> make the Iraq conflict look like a Sunday school picnic. And for what?
>>>
>>> The irony, of course, is that Iran is nowhere near obtaining nuclear
>>> weapons, as the President's own intelligence agencies recently
>>> informed him: but no matter. That's a small obstacle to those who
>>> disdain "the reality-based community," and see themselves as Making
>>> History while the rest of us watch, helpless and aghast. As Ha'aretz
>>> recently reported
>>>
>>> "Olmert will try to convince Bush to set aside the National
>>> Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear program in favor of data
>>> presented by Israel, and determine the administration's policy on
>>> Iran accordingly."
>>>
>>> The coming war with Iran has nothing to do with "weapons of mass
>>> destruction" – no more than the invasion of Iraq ever did. It's all
>>> about preserving Israeli hegemony in the Middle East by wiping any
>>> and all recalcitrant Arab-Muslim states off the map. First Iraq,
>>> then Iran – and Syria will have its turn soon enough, along with
>>> poor prostrate Lebanon, once the jewel of the eastern Mediterranean
>>> and now an economic and political basket case.
>>>
>>> It is almost certain we will be at war with Iran before a new
>>> President is inaugurated: now that Obama has capitulated to the
>>> Lobby, nothing but Divine Providence can stop it.
>>>
>>> God help us all.
>>>
>>> I have to say I was wrong – dead wrong – about Obama. In my
>>> eagerness to find a bright spot in a rapidly darkening world, I
>>> grasped on to his alluring rhetoric and his at-times trenchant
>>> critique of the Bush foreign policy, like a sinking man holding on
>>> to a life-jacket. But looking for hope in all the wrong places
>>> doesn't create opportunities for peace – it only prolongs our
>>> illusions. We must face the prospect of a much more terrible
>>> conflict than we have ever known, and look it squarely in the face,
>>> without flinching or looking for false messiahs. I know many of you
>>> are disappointed, and some of you are now exclaiming "I told you
>>> so!" All that we can do now is hope, and pray, that our country –
>>> and the Iranian people – will somehow survive the coming catastrophe.
>>>
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