Ban Right on Iran

WRMEA, March/April 2014, Pages 28-29

United Nations Report

Despite Outcome, Ban Was Right to Invite Iran to Syria Talks

By Ian Williams

U.N. and Arab League envoy for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi (l) and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the Jan. 22 press conference closing the Geneva II peace talks on Syria. (Philippe Desmazes/AFP/Getty Images)

George Orwell invented “non-persons” in his novel 1984—people so politically incorrect they were treated as if they did not exist. He also invented the “Two Minutes Hate,” in which crowds were worked into paroxysms of rage at the mention of Big Brother’s political opponent.

Today it is not Big Brother but the Dog’s Tail which decides which is a non-country or a non-person, and identifies which countries are so unfit that they can only be ritually vilified. In Washington, the powers that be seem to blithely forget the years in which the old China lobby persuaded them to ignore Beijing, and the sore loser faction bade them to boycott Hanoi—or how, until recently, no one could talk to the Palestinians. Even now, we can only talk to some Palestinians.

In a recent example of this selective and consciously directed amnesia, Norway’s permanent representative to the U.N. told the Security Council that his country was “deeply concerned about the deteriorating economic and humanitarian situation in Gaza. We call for the lifting of the restrictions in compliance with Security Council Resolution 1860 in all its elements, including the need for security for all the civilian populations.”

Compared with what comes out of mealy-mouthed Washington, this sounds like a strong statement. But readers accustomed to the sound of silence will note the absence of names in this otherwise resounding declaration by Norway in the first Security Council meeting of 2014 on the Middle East situation. In what perilously approached Orwell’s Doublethink, Norway could not bring itself to name Israel as the country maintaining the restrictions its diplomat was deploring in defiance of previous resolutions.

In contrast, Iran did not disguise its favorite target the way it used to, since the former “Zionist Entity” has now graduated to become “The Israeli Regime”—which, the Iranian envoy pointed out, “is the only one in the region that possesses all types of Weapons of Mass Destruction but is not a party to any of the treaties banning them.”

He added that it “should also be compelled to join such treaties, in particular to accede to the NPT, without any further delay and precondition, and place all its nuclear activities under the IAEA comprehensive safeguards, in order to remove the only obstacle for the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East proposed by Iran in 1974.”

One might not totally appreciate the messenger, but the message is spot on!

Despite, or perhaps even because of, such eminently good common sense, Washington banned Tehran from the peace talks in Geneva, to which U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon very sensibly had invited it.

As Ban recognized, you do not make peace by refusing to talk to opponents, and vetoing Iran’s involvement makes it more difficult to achieve peace. The whole debacle suggests that the Obama administration is acting from the Clinton-era script when its dealings with the U.N. are concerned. It is not surprising that Secretary- General Ban has quipped that SG stood for “Scape Goat,” but this debacle, unfairly, had him dubbed as Washington’s poodle—for taking a step with the full knowledge of the State Department and U.S. administration, but which the U.S. then expediently repudiated.

Despite being the victim of poison gas attacks itself, it is true that Iran has not exactly covered itself with ethical or humanitarian glory during the Syrian tragedy. But then, neither has Russia, which has supplied the bulk of the weaponry for the regime. And yet no one has suggested banning Moscow from the talks, or even the Assad regime itself. Additionally, after that regime, among the major obstacles to a rational and democratic solution are the fundamentalist fighters bankrolled by major Arab oil states—with whom the U.S. maintains the closest and most amicable relations.

The problem is that in some quarters—including these armers and bankers of war criminals—Iran is a non-country, which leads to palpably nonsensical acrobatics by Washington and others. The U.S. can have bases in countries bankrolling “terrorist” groups, but because those profoundly undemocratic regimes do not like Iran, the U.S. must be careful about talking to Tehran.

So Israel could sell the ayatollahs weapons in the course of Iran-Contra, during which the U.S. itself was using Tehran to arm right-wing terrorists in Nicaragua. The U.S. and Iran can both support the Iraqi government in defeating Sunni insurgents and terrorists in Iraq, and indeed colluded to combat the Taliban in Afghanistan.

But because President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry were, quite correctly, talking to Iran on the nuclear issue, they were on a short leash from AIPAC on Iranian entanglements. This time the dog had more than one tail: There was external pressure from Arabs and Israel, and of course the internal pressure from Congress being whipped up by AIPAC.

Clearly in the real world, it is to everyone’s advantage to have at the table a major player in the conflict—if you want it to end. But diplomacy is often best orchestrated to the sound of silence. Not mentioning issues is often crucial to getting parties to agree to talks, and so Iran’s invitation to the peace talks involved eliding the issue of whether Iran explicitly accepted the Geneva Communiqué on which the talks were based. It had not, but showed signs that it could be nudged that way.

So Ban, with the full knowledge of the U.S., invited Iran to the talks, despite the fudge on whether or not Tehran had signed off on the communiqué. He was taking a bold risk. He rightly believed that Iran should be there, but the talks were the property of the participants, each of which had an implicit veto.

It was a delicate operation, depending on complicity and discretion from all parties. Someone somewhere blew enough to bring the house of cards down. The U.S. side seems to have demanded explicit guarantees of Iranian acceptance of the communiqué, which precipitated an explicit repudiation of them by Tehran. That led to Washington demanding that Ban withdraw the invitation to Iran. American briefers immediately began to castigate Ban’s incompetence, even though it was U.S. diplomatic ineptitude that seems to have precipitated the collapse.

Was it the usual Iran haters who blew the structure down, or did someone in the administration do it so that they could appease AIPAC for defeating it on the sanctions issue? There were so many places such a complex operation could be toppled, it would be difficult to tell. It could be that one part of the administration knew what was happening, and another didn’t.

Clearly, Ban also, justifiably, feels let down by the Iranians for rising to the American bait so quickly. They should have just shut up and turned up.

But the name-calling cannot disguise the inalienable truth that if the talks are to be successful then Iran should be involved in them, that Ban was right to invite them and the U.S. foolish to disinvite them.

As a corollary, if the U.S. had a coherent foreign policy it would build on its common ground with Iran—in Iraq, in Afghanistan and, increasingly, on the nuclear issue, to persuade Tehran that there were advantages in working with Washington to force Assad to the negotiating table. Indeed, the U.S., as its own hydrocarbons bubble up out of the ground, could persuade the Arab Iran-haters to cease their pernicious activities in backing terrorist bands that tend to make Assad look good, even as they open a fifth column in the opposition’s ranks.

Washington could have expressed its regrets at the Iranian invitation, and let it stand. It is not in the longterm interests of the U.S., or any other responsive great power, to diminish the appearance of independence by the United Nations. In the end, the Geneva Talks epitomize the U.N.’s dilemma. The organization is needed to provide a neutral space, an arena for the negotiations. But it also needs the active collaboration of its most powerful and involved members to produce results.

A secretary-general can only play the hand he is dealt, and in this case Ban’s two aces turned to jokers. He should not let it dissuade him from trying to do the right thing in the future.

US's Diplomatic Disarmament

United Nations Report

Decades of Knee-Jerk Vetos for Israel Limit U.S. Options on Syria at the U.N.

By Ian Williams

Members of the United Nations Commission on Inquiry on Syria (l-r) Carla del Ponte of Switzerland, American Karen Konig Abuzayd, chairman Paulo Sergio Pinheiro of Brazil, and Thailand’s Vitit Muntarbhorn arrive at a Sept. 16, 2013 press conference following the presentation of the commission’s report to Human Rights Council members in Geneva. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images)
Syrians are the victims of a smorgasbord of global double dealing and hypocrisy that exceeds the sad standards we have become used to in this century. The arguments have seen some unlikely alliances in the West. In support of intervention are people who are genuinely concerned at the plight of Syria’s suffering people, along with those who are happy to cheer Israeli bombings of Syrian, Palestinian and Lebanese people. The presence of these latter ghouls in the pro-intervention camp should give anyone pause, along with their like-minded neocon friends who want the Pentagon to use all that smart and lethal military technology.
On the other hand, we have conservative isolationists who really do not see it is as our business if foreigners are killing each other in faraway places of which they know little, and they are arm in arm with radical leftists. Once upon a time, the left preached proletarian internationalism, workers in unity across national boundaries, sending volunteers to Spain, calling for the opening of a Second Front in Europe and applauding foreign aid to the Viet Cong. In this new era of what we should puckishly call socialist nationalism, a country’s sovereignty is sacred and unimpeachable—at least if threatened by any Western power. So they come to the same conclusion as the right: let them rot.
The United Nations is used as a tool by both sides. It has been honorable but ineffective. Ban Ki-moon has actually repeatedly emphasized the horror of what has happened while eschewing Washington’s unilateralism.
Indeed, some of those who oppose intervention will piously point to the need for Security Council authorization before any action is taken against Syria, or Serbia, or Sudan. But if the U.N. does authorize action, those people will oppose it just as fervently! For the dying Syrians, the U.N. must seem thoroughly irrelevant, but it is the cockpit in which their case is being fought. Russia, a weaker power with a Security Council veto, cites the organization continuously as the necessary legitimation for action against Syria, clinging to the literal legality of U.N. obligations while being insouciant of the spirit.
President Barack Obama has been puzzlingly imprecise about U.S. attitudes to the world body, perhaps reflecting a battle inside his team with the neocons who see the U.N. as an instrument to be used when it suits them but cast aside when inconvenient. Obama’s reputation will take considerable time to recover from his initial gaffe of suggesting that the U.S. would not wait for the U.N. inspectors’ report on chemical weapons use in Damascus. After the brief post-Bush honeymoon, it is obvious that Washington’s lucid moment about the U.N. and international law has come to an end.
One would like to think that the British House of Commons vote against intervention—from the parliament that declared war on Hitler because he had invaded Poland—was not simply an expression of isolationism, but also a comment on legality. Both Cameron and Obama had signaled their willingness to attack without the U.N. report, let alone a U.N. mandate.
The members of parliament also voted in a context in which it is universally admitted that Tony Blair and Bush lied to secure support for their disastrous attack on Iraq, and in which maladroit and insincere leadership turned a bad dream into a nightmare, and turned the intervention in Afghanistan—which was legal—into a total disaster.
The framers of the concept of Responsibility to Protect—R2P, as it became known in diplomatic shorthand in the age of text and Twitter—were well aware of the pitfalls, and their document anticipated most of the perils that face its honest application. Few countries are unalloyed emulators of the Good Samaritan: they do not like risking their own citizens’ lives and taxpayers’ finances in a good cause. One might remember that the U.S. sent the bill for Desert Storm to the Gulf states, who sent on their claims to be paid with Iraqi reparations.
But the palpable disasters of Iraq and Afghanistan raise the question of who can be entrusted to run such operations? Under R2P, the time to intervene in Syria was two years ago, when the Assad regime began to massacre demonstrators. The U.S. dithered, militarily and diplomatically, emulating former Secretary of State James Baker when he said of the Balkans that the U.S. “has no dog in this fight.” Some decision makers were weighing on varying scales whether it was good for Israel or bad for Iran, and the really cynical concluded that an endless civil war eviscerating an Arab neighbor to Israel just had to be good thing.
In the end, of course, the precipitating event was the chemical weapons attack which crossed the red line that Obama probably now wishes he had not drawn in the sand. This horrific attack diverted attention from R2P to the chemical weapons issue, and allowed unusually adroit Russian diplomacy to switch the issue from the regime’s killing with mere physical impact weaponry to the chemical weapons. Before, the issue was whether to use military force under R2P to protect civilians, with or without a U.N. mandate. Now it has become simply chemical disarmament.
To the dead, it might count as irrelevant whether they were charred with napalm, burnt alive with white phosphorus, shelled in a marketplace or disintegrated by drones dropping bombs from on high.
Syria had not hitherto signed the conventions banning chemical and biological weapons, one reason being that it had neighbors—notably Iraq and Israel—who also had not. Interestingly, the Israeli government is happy that Syria might be disarmed, but less ecstatic about Damascus ratifying the convention, since that raises the question of why poor little Israel has not—not to mention the nuclear issue! Indeed, the U.S. itself was a relatively late signatory to the convention.
Even then, there was something very Israeli in tone about the idea of massive air-strikes to “punish” the regime. Its sole purpose was to insulate Obama from the charges that he was doing nothing. Bombing the chemical and biological weapons stocks carries fairly obvious risks. The chances of massive casualties for the civilians who are being “protected” are very high, while the denial of any intention of regime change misses the point. How else does one stop the regime massacring its citizenry without changing it? Apart from warming the cold hearts of those who always applaud bombings of Arabs and Muslims, it is difficult to see any point in the threatened exercise.
In an ideal world, a surgical military strike to take out the regime might have stopped the killing, but that is far too late, and the only country with the wherewithal to do it, the U.S., is manifestly unsuited for the role after recent experiences, even in the unlikely event that it could persuade its fellow U.N. members to entrust it with a mandate.

Past Humiliations

Moscow’s cooperation over the chemical issue might raise other possibilities. Rus­sian attitudes need to be put into historical and diplomatic context. Yes, there is the basic immorality of support for Assad (as for Qaddafi and Milosevic before). But Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was Russia’s man at the U.N. after the first Iraq war, in which Moscow cooperated in the spirit of the New World Order. It was regularly humiliated by seeing its views set aside and resolutions with which it had originally colluded being stretched to justify actions, bombings, embargos and the economic destruction of a nation and people, well beyond any reasonable reading of the resolutions. Lying Western leaders bypassed Russia for the second Iraq war, and again in Libya, when reluctantly conceding a principle on R2P Moscow once again was ignored in the operation’s execution. Western behavior has indeed been such as to justify some degree of paranoia! Bush and Blair’s precedents of taking such phrases beyond the limits certainly explains Moscow’s reluctance to see any mention of forcible intervention, even in a chemical disarmament resolution.
The fact remains, however, that Lavrov has effectively thwarted the U.S. push—which entailed, one suspects, some heavy pressure by Moscow on its ally in Damascus, including a threat of withdrawal of support. Sadly this shows what President Vladimir Putin could have achieved earlier but chose not to, so there are no haloes on offer.
And then we come to continuing hypocrisy. U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power in September was defending the possibility of intervening without the approval of the U.N. Security Council. However, Washington can try to get a resolution at an Emergency Special General Assembly, under the “Uniting for Peace” resolution designed precisely to bypass a vetoed Council. The two reasons for not doing so illustrate the lamentable cumulative effects of American undiplomacy over the decades. Ironically, to assemble the alleged “Coalition of the Willing” in Iraq, the isolationists of the Bush administration carefully courted, albeit via a somewhat rough wooing, many small nations, as did then-U.N. Ambassador John Bolton in his quasi-theological crusade to thwart the International Criminal Court.
Since the Obama administration is much less single-minded on Syria, it has not devoted similar resources. A Coalition of the Dithering somehow lacks focus. Most perniciously of all, however, the canker of reflexive support for Israel has led the U.S., under both Republican and Democrat administrations, to deny the legal validity of the very process it had pioneered to fight the Korean War despite the Soviet veto. The reason for that denial, of course, is that the Palestinians had rediscovered the technique to combat the automatic U.S. veto on behalf of Israel. Washington has therefore sacrificed a valuable legal and diplomatic lever—which, by contagion, tempts it to illegal action.
A General Assembly resolution calling for an arms embargo might not have “legal” effect, but it certainly would have a profound diplomatic and moral effect on Moscow. It could also signal exasperation with Washington’s Gulf allies and their support for the Salafist wing of the opposition, whose sanguinary and shameless efforts have given Damascus such a propaganda coup. But Washington shows no signs of sacrificing its other interests for a bunch of dying and dispossessed Syrians by threatening sanctions against Russia or the Gulf.
Sadly, however, while the U.N. can now offer hospice care to Syria and help it to survive, there is no miracle cure in sight. Through its agencies it can help the refugees and the internally displaced, and it can provide inspectors and mechanisms to implement a cease-fire if Kerry and Lavrov can pull one off. It will certainly be part of any solution—but there are no unmitigatedly happy endings in view.

A Modest Proposal! UN and Israel

I was in an Irish bar with Mo Sacirbey, the former Foreign Minister of Bosnia, when a local woman who had overheard us talking about the UN launched into an intemperate tirade against the organisation. Oddly enough, it inspired a modest proposal for the UN and Israel Lobby to work together for a swift response to the US budget crisis. But first, some background. In Blazing Saddles, one of the funniest films ever made, the black sheriff holds himself hostage at gunpoint. This improbable scenario is now being enacted on Capitol Hill. To get a budget agreement Congressional leaders signed a pact that would bring about “sequestration” - deep across the board cuts in Federal spending - including for that Republican Shibboleth, the Pentagon, which they hoped would force Congress to deal.

Fully aware of the voting proclivities of pensioners, the authors of the deal agreed that sequestration would not affect Social Security and Medicare the old age pension and medical programmes, which, technically are pre-paid from previous pension contributions and not part of the budget, although Republican die-hards keep circling them while sharpening knives.

Alas, the framers of the economic suicide pact underestimated the ideological obduracy of the new Republicans, so at a time when the economy teeters on the brink of recovery Federal spending cuts begin, laying off workers and stopping hiring new ones. The Obama administration is, understandably, talking up the consequences. Like  Blazing Saddle’s Sheriff Bart (played brilliantly by Cleavon Little, by the way) he is dealing with idiots, in this case the GOP economic illiterates.

It will indeed have an inhibiting effect on the economy, but the heavy spending cuts would be way down the line. The defence programmes are already committed which is why Boeing its peer companies are not already strafing Capitol Hill.

But then in ride the hobby horses.  The Israel Lobby is trying hard, but discreetly, to ensure that the steady torrent of cash from US taxpayers to its favourite state continues unchecked through the sequestration. Traditionally the Lobby hid behind the Foreign Aid budget as if food for starving refugees were in the same category as phosphorus shells for the IDF. But some of its supporters now want to decouple to connection.

“Despite ongoing budget woes, it is critical that the United States live up to its aid commitment to Israel,” AIPAC states. “As our one reliable Middle East ally, Israel serves critical national security objectives. Any reduction in that aid would send the wrong message to Israel’s — and America’s — enemies.”

It sends a message to US voters as well which is why wiser souls who support Israel want to keep their heads down, since taxpayers who do not have a national health service and free higher education might cavil at shovelling their money as aid to a state that does - and which uses the aid to defend settlements that Washington opposes!

And so to my proposal. An odious, albeit ironic comparison of aid to Israel and dues to the UN as a packaged, essential public-diplomacy exception to the sequestration. While most countries regard United Nations dues and peacekeeping contributions as treaty-bound obligations, the US Congress treats them as discretionary items, ever since they began, half a century ago to penalise the organisation for its votes on, of course, Israel. Under Bush’s second term and under Obama, the US has essentially been paying up without too much demur, which is just as well since peacekeeping operations in places like Mali depend on a flow of contributions from richer countries, above all the US which is desperately interested in Saharo-Salafist affairs.

Listening to the rabid pro-Israeli supporters among local New York politicians, this might appear to be a stretch, since antipathy to the UN is in their ideological chromosomes. But in contrast to their local supporters, Israeli politicians assiduously court the organisation. Secretary General Ban Kimoon welcomes them when they visit New York - even though his public statements forcefully repeat the official UN lines on, for example settlements and Gaza, that the American lobbyists would punish any American politician for. But Ban has a rare talent for understated diplomacy that allows him to speak truths and to keep the Israeli pols coming - albeit probably helped because they can do some fundraising of their own in New York while visiting the UN on official business but also because they have a talent for not listening to advice from outsiders anyway.

Such a tie in would neutralise the bloc that does most harm to UN financing in DC and do no harm at all, since just as it has always done,  in the end, AIPAC will get its money even if kids go hungry in the USA,

Obama's Sound of Silence

Like many people, I expected little from Obama’s performance at AIPAC. He has to straddle parallel universes: the real one, in which most countries recognize Israel as tantamount to an international scofflaw, and the American domestic political universe in which Israel is always right. The US’s real allies and the rest of the world have long wearily resigned themselves to how, as with his speech at the State Department, the President has to pander to pro-Israeli organizations and the Congress members whose support he needs on domestic issues.

Obama congratulated himself, deservedly, for continuing to raise unpalatable issues with elections in the air, and while pandering in a traditionally nauseous way, but there was some reassurance from the sound of silence in his speech.

AIPAC’s conference is a mind-numbing experience. “My country right or wrong” is a rightly derided principle. But at AIPAC ten thousand people are assembled dedicated to the proposition that someone else’s country should be supported, right or wrong, even if it flouts every principle they support at home - and even if its civil laws on marriage and conversion deny the branches of Judaism to which most practicing American Jews adhere.

The organizations tend to be donor-driven rather than grass roots motivated. American Jews, true to their liberal roots, voted for Obama in higher proportions than any other ethnic group - even as a raucous minority of the community questioned Obama’s citizenship and Christianity. That minority is disproportionately represented in the counsels of AIPAC and many of the “official” organizations and tends to Republican, Likudnik hawkishness.

But they tend to think in slogans and catchphrases, without comparing them to reality, let alone with Robert Burn’s “giftie to see oursel’s as others see us.” They have been helped to remain in their parallel universe because Presidents and secretaries of state have pandered (with the notable exception of James Baker) for decades to AIPAC - and no one notices, As is customary, dogs are biting men.

The media attention to President Obama’s address is significant since for the first time in twenty years, there is visible crack showing between the White House and AIPAC - and Israel. It is going too far to say that Obama is biting the dog - but he is sinking his gums into the Lobby and Netanyahu. He is doing so to the background of an American Jewish community that is split more than ever before, and certainly more so than the “official” spokesmen and organizations reveal.


While admitting there are problems with a unity Palestinian government, “We will continue to demand that Hamas accept the basic responsibilities of peace: recognizing Israel’s right to exist, rejecting violence, and adhering to all existing agreements,” he did not exclude negotiations, but in effect put conditions, which Hamas has, in reality, already gone a long way to meet and is on the way to go further.

One hopes that he realizes that the key phrases he used such as the need to accept Israel’s “right to exist” were introduced by Israeli leaders precisely because they were unacceptable to Palestinians. He might even have noticed how quickly Israel switched from refusing to negotiate because the authority was divided, to refusing because it is united! It is like demanding that American Indian tribes accept that their dispossession was right and goes beyond acceptance of the obvious fact of Israel’s existence and its now nearly universal acceptance as an established state.

Such phrases have traditionally been used to in the Levantine blame game in which the purpose of negotiations is not to reach a solution but to blame the other side for failure. But there is always a way to wiggle - a phrase that would irk some Israelis would be for the Palestinians to recognize Israel’s “right to exist under UN Decisions!”

One hopes that the President is now playing this game with Netanyahu. One also hopes he harbors grudges. For the world’s most benefitted welfare queen to publicly dress down the President of its benefactor at the White House should give most Americans some frisson of indignation.

While in the real world, Obama’s insistence on the 1967 boundaries as a basis for negotiation for land swaps has been generally accepted, Palestinians irate at this admitted denial of the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force,” may have missed, along with nuance-free AIPACers his endorsement of a The Palestinian people’s “right to govern themselves, and reach their potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state,” which presumably implies that in return for giving up some of the settled area, the Palestinian state will have a land bridge between Gaza and the West Bank. One can see why he might not have chosen to spell that out for AIPAC!

While he stated a fact, “No vote at the United Nations will ever create an independent Palestinian state,” he did not state a principle. He said, “The United States will stand up against efforts to single Israel out at the UN or in any international forum. Because Israel’s legitimacy is not a matter for debate.” He did not say that the US would veto a UN acceptance of Palestine as a member state.

Indeed, he challenged the sloganeers with reality, “The number of Palestinians living west of the Jordan River is growing rapidly and fundamentally reshaping the demographic realities of both Israel and the Palestinian territories. This will make it harder and harder – without a peace deal – to maintain Israel as both a Jewish state and a democratic state.” Secondly he pointed to how atavistic the old obsession with territory as security is since “technology will make it harder for Israel to defend itself in the absence of a genuine peace,” and finally, he pointed to the changes in Israel’s neighbours, so peace can no longer be bought with few local kleptocrats, “Going forward, millions of Arab citizens have to see that peace is possible for that peace to be sustained.”

If the US is retain influence in the region, it can no longer pay exclusive attention to Israeli public opinion while sending a few billion to local rulers. It, and Israel, have to show ordinary Arab citizens that they are serious about peace. Obama cannot regret the consequences to Palestinians of occupation while carrying on passing the ammunition to Israel.

It is unlikely that Netanyahu will voluntarily relinquish the not so secret Likud desire for an Arab-free state all the way to the Jordan. Obama has, perhaps deliberately and adroitly, maneuvered the Israeli Prime Minister into insulting the President of the US. He now has to follow up and show that their are consequences for Israel.

Obama baulked at his best opportunity, which was the UN resolution on the settlements. He should stop equivocating and come out plainly with a declaration that if Netanyahu continues to refuse to come to terms with reality in the region, then he cannot take a US veto in the Security Council against Palestinian membership for granted nor even a nay vote in the General Assembly against a declaration of statehood. Indeed, if he really wanted to play for high stakes, he could suggest that embattled US tax payers will no longer continue to pay for free Israeli health care and higher education when they cannot afford it at home for themselves. It would almost be worth it to watch the Tea Partiers squirm, but it would show Israeli voters that there are indeed consequences from their choices.

Confined to Barack's comments on the ME

A Barack-star no more

Barack Obama used to inspire nothing but sympathy and affection. But recently he's given pandering a bad name.
Here's the full text of the Comment is Free Post.
Check the link below and do please note the comments. They are free with comments about stereotypical anti-American, anti-Semitic, liberal Guardian readers, but from the evidence of the comments, it would appear that the majority of readers were blustering, pro-Israeli NeoCons and American diehard patriots.
A previous posting in which I said Mao was a mass murderer, had me accused of apologetics for him, and this one, in which I point out that the Israel Lobby is in total dissonance with the views of most American Jews on war, brought the predictable accusations of anti-Semitism and promoting the idea of an all-powerful Jewish conspiracy. It's a mad world, my masters, as the Elizabethan playwright wrote!



Ian Williams


March 6, 2007 9:05 PM

Last week Barack Obama performed an inadvertent public service by taking two of my favorite hobbyhorses for a ride round the electoral ring. One was the corrupting power of money in presidential primaries, and the second was demonstrating that the Israel lobby was every bit as powerful as it has traditionally claimed on its website, even as it denounces anyone else who says so.

Hitherto Barack Obama has been a superficially attractive Presidential candidate, compared with the rest of the pack. The inane accusation that he was educated in a Wahabi madrasa led to a reflexive sympathy, as did his unequivocal opposition to the war in Iraq.

But as Ali Abunima, demonstrated yesterday, he has fallen at the first hurdle.

Just like Hillary Clinton, who was stalked for years by conservative pro-Israeli groups for expressing some mild sympathy but is now probably on the hawkish end of Israeli politics, Obama has been to burn incense on the altar of AIPAC.

"No Israeli prime minister should ever feel dragged to or blocked from the negotiating table by the United States," he declared. Not Shamir, not Sharon, no matter who is invaded - the aid cheques and cluster bombs must get through? Sorry, Barack, this gives pandering a bad name.

It is embarrassing to see the contortions that Obama is reduced to. His position for AIPAC on the Iraq war is now within a cheque's thickness of Clinton's.
He advocates that a phased redeployment of US troops out of Iraq begin no later than May 1, with the goal of removing all combat forces from Iraq by March 2008. However, he says, "My plan also allows for a limited number of US troops to remain and prevent Iraq from becoming a haven for international terrorism and reduce the risk of all-out chaos. In addition, we will redeploy our troops to other locations in the region, reassuring our allies that we will stay engaged in the Middle East".

That is not so far from the position of the NeoCons. Redeployment and maintaining an imperial garrison in Iraq and in the region is not what most people think of when they call for pulling out the troops.

On Iran, his coded wording is from Mars rather than Venus - but just as out-there. While calling for "diplomacy" and "tough sanctions", he adds what is basically a commitment to a future war, even as he hedges on his commitment to end the present one. "We should take no option, including military action, off the table". That is precisely the language that John Edwards used addressing a conference in Israel - for exactly the same reason that Obama has been tying himself in knots. It is probably the formulation that AIPAC is insisting on from all candidates.

So the only candidates getting any media attention have to pledge, however they hedge, support for potential war on Iran. Not bad work from a lobby for which it's a thoughtcrime to suggest has influence over American foreign policy! And, of course, it's a testament to how much more important donors' cheques are than voters' concerns at this stage of the primaries.

Obama's big advantage over Hillary has been his consistent opposition to the Iraq war, a position that is in line with most voters, most Democrats - and indeed the overwhelming majority of American Jews, who are maintaining their traditional liberal postures despite the donor-driven politics of their "official" organizations.

A Gallup meta-poll found that 77% of American Jews think the Iraq War was a mistake, compared with 52% of the general American public. Gallup's poll found that 89% of Jewish Democrats think the war was a mistake, and even among non-Democratic Jews, 65% thought so.

Indeed the official organizations are hedging over Iran: not only does their own nominal Jewish constituency not support them, but they are worried that the Jews as a whole may be seen as the cause of another unpopular war.

Thus, in addition to thanking Barack for revealing the plutocratic perils of primaries, perhaps we should also be thanking him for inadvertently helping to show that AIPAC does not represent American Jews.