Will Obama Play the War Card?
Republicans already counting the seats they will pick up this fall should keep in mind Obama has a big card yet to play.
Should the president declare he has gone the last mile for a negotiated end to Iran's nuclear program and impose the "crippling" sanctions he promised in 2008, America would be on an escalator to confrontation that could lead straight to war.
And should war come, that would be the end of GOP dreams of adding three-dozen seats in the House and half a dozen in the Senate.
Harry Reid is surely aware a U.S. clash with Iran, with him at the president's side, could assure his re-election. Last week, Reid whistled through the Senate, by voice vote, a bill to put us on that escalator.
Senate bill 2799 would punish any company exporting gasoline to Iran. Though swimming in oil, Iran has a limited refining capacity and must import 40 percent of the gas to operate its cars and trucks and heat its homes.
And cutting off a country's oil or gas is a proven path to war.
In 1941, the United States froze Japan's assets, denying her the funds to pay for the U.S. oil on which she relied, forcing Tokyo either to retreat from her empire or seize the only oil in reach, in the Dutch East Indies.
The only force able to interfere with a Japanese drive into the East Indies? The U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor.
Egypt's Gamel Abdel Nasser in 1967 threatened to close the Straits of Tiran between the Red Sea and Gulf of Aqaba to ships going to the Israeli port of Elath. That would have cut off 95 percent of Israel's oil.
Israel response: a pre-emptive war that destroyed Egypt's air force and put Israeli troops at Sharm el-Sheikh on the Straits of Tiran.
Were Reid and colleagues seeking to strengthen Obama's negotiating hand?
The opposite is true. The Senate is trying to force Obama's hand, box him in, restrict his freedom of action, by making him impose sanctions that would cut off the negotiating track and put us on a track to war—a war to deny Iran weapons that the U.S. Intelligence community said in December 2007 Iran gave up trying to acquire in 2003.
Sound familiar?
Republican leader Mitch McConnell has made clear the Senate is seizing control of the Iran portfolio. "If the Obama administration will not take action against this regime, then Congress must."
U.S. interests would seem to dictate supporting those elements in Iran who wish to be rid of the regime and re-engage the West. But if that is our goal, the Senate bill, and a House version that passed 412 to 12, seem almost diabolically perverse.
For a cutoff in gas would hammer Iran's middle class. The Revolutionary Guard and Basij militia on their motorbikes would get all they need. Thus the leaders of the Green Movement who have stood up to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollah oppose sanctions that inflict suffering on their own people.
Cutting off gas to Iran would cause many deaths. And the families of the sick, the old, the weak, the women and the children who die are unlikely to feel gratitude toward those who killed them.
And despite the hysteria about Iran's imminent testing of a bomb, the U.S. intelligence community still has not changed its finding that Tehran is not seeking a bomb.
The low-enriched uranium at Natanz, enough for one test, has neither been moved nor enriched to weapons grade. Ahmadinejad this week offered to take the West's deal and trade it for fuel for its reactor. Iran's known nuclear facilities are under U.N. watch. The number of centrifuges operating at Natanz has fallen below 4,000. There is speculation they are breaking down or have been sabotaged.
And if Iran is hell-bent on a bomb, why has Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair not revised the 2007 finding and given us the hard evidence?
U.S. anti-missile ships are moving into the Gulf. Anti-missile batteries are being deployed on the Arab shore. Yet, Gen. David Petraeus warned yesterday that a strike on Iran could stir nationalist sentiment behind the regime.
Nevertheless, the war drums have again begun to beat.
Daniel Pipes in a National Review Online piece featured by the Jerusalem Post—"How to Save the Obama Presidency: Bomb Iran"—urges Obama to make a "dramatic gesture to change the public perception of him as a lightweight, bumbling ideologue" by ordering the U.S. military to attack Iran's nuclear facilities.
Citing six polls, Pipes says Americans support an attack today and will "presumably rally around the flag" when the bombs fall.
Will Obama cynically yield to temptation, play the war card and make "conservatives swoon," in Pipes' phrase, to save himself and his party? We shall see.
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A war against Iran amounts to mass murder of innocent human beings to suit partisan aims. There probably has to be some cataclysm, like Iran's closing the Straits of Hormuz, for Obama to postpone the 2010 elections "until the emergency is over." Mitch McConnell, for his part, belongs in a mental institution, possibly jail, and not the Senate.
Dan, I think Richard Pipes should be right there with McConnell when he goes, and get the rubber cell next to his.
Richard Pipes and Mitch McConnell, two little neocon losers whose insane ideas will lead to the destruction and bankruptcy of our nation. Yet Bill Buckley's old rag publishes one of them and the other is enthroned in our senate.
Then, how is it that Gulf War I did not do anything for Bush 41? I think this country is more than tired of elective warfare.
"Cutting off a country’s oil or gas is a proven path to war."
Patrick Buchanan could have included the United States in his list of countries that have gone to war to protect their oil supplies. Guarding our vital interests in Middle Eastern oil was given as a casus belli of the First Gulf War.
How did we start the practice of bombing countries against which we have no declaration of war? What other nations do this?
By ever increasing build-up of forces and ever escalating demands on the Iranians, Obama and Netanyahu will try to panic Iran into striking first. If that doesn't work, they may use a false flag op.
Perhaps the time really has come for echt conservatives to join forces with members of the left to stop the infernal American war machine. I come from a family with a long tradition of service in the military, I have almost always supported the military but I am horrified and sickened how the members of our armed forces are being used for wars of conquest and as little more than cannon fodder.
When non-Americans read our media and read discussions around topics like Iran, is it any wonder that their polls consistently pronounce America the top danger to peace in the world?
Who was it that said that if America was not wealthy it would be the most hated country on earth? Well, the way things are going we may well soon be able to apply empirical evidence to that hypothesis.
"Who was it that said that if America was not wealthy it would be the most hated country on earth?"
It was George W. who said "they hated us for our freedom" but I believe it was either Dick Cheney or Bill Clinton who told him, "It is our economy, stupid!!"
But Eagle, if we weren't wealthy we would never be able to do the things that elicit the hatred. We'd be like New Zealand or Scotland, where people just get on with their daily lives and go largely unrecognized by the world at large. Lucky for them!
Hey, it worked for Bush and the Neocons and the GOP after their aggression against Iraq in 2003. It was the Rove Strategy: Rant about "defending liberty" and "freedom ain't free" while increasing the police state at home and bankrupting the country with foreign wars. Then let the next guy promise "Change you can believe in," while actually continuing the whole farce. Repeat very 4 years.
"Will Obama cynically yield to temptation, play the war card and make “conservatives swoon,” in Pipes’ phrase, to save himself and his party? We shall see."
Sarah Palin confirmed to Fox TV that she would swoon if Obama started the war that PJB sees as an act of cynicism. Oh, Obama would also have to express his love for Israel like the Neocons and Evangelical Christians, as well as too many conservative Catholics. "Palin says that declaring war on Iran or showing stronger support for Israel might convince voters that Obama is tougher than they think on national security and doing all he can to protect the U.S."
She was dressed to the nines for the worshipful "tea partiers," as described here:
"She wore a fitted black suit, black hose and high black platform heels. She had on three opera-length strands of pearls, two white and one multi-colored. In her lapel, a small pin with two flags -- for Israel and the United States."
I love this sort of patriotism amongst "conservatives." Now if she can only get elected President so that the Israeli spy who stole our secrets, Jonathan Pollard, can be pardoned. Could that be why PJB is such an admirer of Palin?