Posts Tagged ‘Iran
Bizarre House Bill Would Outlaw Diplomacy with Iran
WTH?
I just caught wind of this, and I’m still doing research. I want to know why this provision was tacked on to this bill at the last moment, and why they want an all-or-nothing vote.
Is Obama about to burnish his foreign policy “cred” once again by sending U.S. servicemen to die in yet another undeclared war?
In a bizarre and unprecedented move, the House of Representatives (the one that is allegedly controlled by Republicans) is jamming through a bill that would make it illegal for U.S. diplomats to have the kind of low-level contact with Iranian representatives that led to the release of those three American hikers who had been held by Iran.
This is from the Friends Committee on National Legislation:
The House is currently considering legislation which could dangerously undermine prospects for a diplomatic resolution of the conflict over Iran’s nuclear program, increasing the threat of war. See the text of the most current available version of H.R. 1905 here.
Take Action: Urge your representative to oppose H.R. 1905 and to support–not sabotage–diplomatic engagement with Iran here.
The anti-Iran diplomacy provision in H.R. 1905 (section 601 c of H.R. 1905, ANS) would prohibit U.S. government employees in any “official or unofficial capacity” from contacting anyone who is affiliated with the Iranian government and who “presents a threat to the United States or is affiliated with terrorist organizations.” To waive this requirement, the President would have to certify 15 days in advance that not making this contact “would pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the vital national security interests of the United States”. [...]
Bill Blasted by Former Ambassadors, Experts
This anti-diplomacy provision has been roundly condemned by a host of national security experts because of the chilling effect that it would have on diplomatic engagement with Iran.
Ambassadors Thomas Pickering and William Luers have called the bill “preposterous,” noting that it “raises serious constitutional issues over the separation of powers,” and that former top Middle East intelligence analyst Paul Pillar excoriated the bill, saying, “this legislation is another illustration of the tendency to think of diplomacy as some kind of reward for the other guy, rather than what it really is: a tool for our side.”
Another source has noted that this provision would make it impossible to collect intelligence in some cases. And it seems to me, that with Iran, we need MORE intelligence, not less.
Another group I follow, DownsizeDC.org, has this to say:
“We haven’t had a connection with Iran since 1979. Even in the darkest days of the Cold War we had links to the Soviet Union … If something happens it’s virtually assured that we won’t get it right, that there will be miscalculations which would be extremely dangerous…” Admiral Mike Mullen, recently-retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
TOMORROW, Tuesday December 13, the House will vote on the “Iran Threat Reduction Act” (HR 1905) under a “suspend the rules and pass” vote — which means, with no amendments and no debate.
We at DownsizeDC.org believe there are many problems with the bill. Section 601, however, is particularly dangerous. So dangerous, in fact, that even if you believe Iran is a threat and deserves harsh sactions, it is important for your Representative to vote NO and force a debate.
HR 1905 must be defeated so that it can be amended to remove Section 601.
Section 601 outlaws any diplomatic contact between U.S. and Iranian officials — no matter how low level or incidental those interactions are. The President can waive this restriction only by notifying certain Congressional committees 15 days in advance.
As Stephen Zunes points out, “never in the history of this country has Congress ever restricted the right of the White House or State Department to meet with representatives of a foreign state, even in wartime.” (http://huff.to/vgSc5E)
Imagine, if this 15-day requirement applied to Cuba and the Soviet Union. How would the 13-day Cuban Missile Crisis have been resolved?
And, in the event of war, with whom can our diplomats negotiate a peace settlement, since all contact would be illegal?
If this bill was currently in force…
* The U.S. couldn’t have won Iranian cooperation in suppressing the Taliban.
* And couldn’t have won the freedom of three American hikers held in an Iranian prison.
In the event of a confrontation with Iran, should the Obama Administration have to wait more than two weeks before having any contact with any Iranian officials?
What could be behind this? Why now? Why no amendments? Why no discussion?
What’s really going on behind the scenes? Why have over 40 members of the Progressive Caucus signed on as co-sponsors of this bill?
Iran’s Imaginary Nuke: Why It Doesn’t Matter
H/T LambdaChi.org
As a Ron Paul supporter, the questions I’m asked most, when it comes to his foreign policy positions, are about Iran and its quest for a nuclear bomb, and GOP Frontrunner Ron Paul’s goal of zeroing out all foreign aid.
These issues are interrelated–because the billions of dollars in aid we provide to Israel come with strings attached. The Obama Regime has treated Israel with nothing but contempt, interfered with Israel’s self-defense, and meddled in its internal affairs in ways that make Israel less secure…because Israel is on the American dole.
Even in the face of meddling from the United States, Israel has proven time and again that it will not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran will never get a nuke as long as the Mullahs are in charge. Israel won’t let them. I have no doubt whatsoever that Israel knows exactly who’s working on the nuke, where, and how far along it is (if it exists at all).
I also have no doubt that Israel’s Mossad and assassination squads will continue to dispose of Iranian nuclear scientists like this one in 2007, this one in 2010, or this one in 2011.
There was also the Stuxnet virus, which was apparently developed specifically to target Iran’s nuclear program.
And if all else fails, Israel is prepared to launch strikes against any Iranian nuclear facility within minutes, according to The Sunday Times.
“”Officials believe that Israel could be required to hit more than a dozen targets, including moving convoys. The sites include Natanz, where thousands of centrifuges produce enriched uranium; Esfahan, where 250 tonnes of gas is stored in tunnels; and Arak, where a heavy water reactor produces plutonium.
The distance from Israel to at least one of the sites is more than 870 miles, a distance that the Israeli force practised covering in a training exercise last year that involved F15 and F16 jets, helicopters and refuelling tankers.
The possible Israeli strike on Iran has drawn comparisons to its attack on the Osirak nuclear facility near Baghdad in 1981. That strike, which destroyed the facility in under 100 seconds, was completed without Israeli losses and checked Iraqi ambitions for a nuclear weapons programme.
“We would not make the threat [against Iran] without the force to back it. There has been a recent move, a number of on-the-ground preparations, that indicate Israel’s willingness to act,” said another official from Israel’s intelligence community.”
So, I have to ask myself, given all this data, do I care that Ron Paul doesn’t want to drop the 101st Airborne into Iran to keep them from getting a nuke? No, not really. Israel has the situation well in hand.
Just ask yourself, if you worry about foreign policy–could Ron Paul’s foreign policy be any worse than Barack Hussein Obama’s?
Al-Qaeda is angry that Ahmadinejad’s a truther.
Ahmadinejad...the loser
There is something really funny about this story. Al-Qaeda is ticked off at Ahmadinejad for fueling the “truther” theory last week in his speech to the UN when he suggested that 9/11 was orchestrated by the US government. Al-Qaeda wants full credit and respect for what happened on 9/11 and no little shorty pip-squeak Iranian leader is going to take that away from them.
This appeared in an article in the online Islamic terrorist magazine Inspire…
(via Atlas Shrugs)
“The Iranian government has professed on the tongue of its president Ahmadinejad that it does not believe that al-Qaida was behind 9/11 but rather, the US government,” the article said, according to Iranian media. “So we may ask the question: why would Iran ascribe to such a ridiculous belief that stands in the face of all logic and evidence?”
“For them, al-Qaida was a competitor for the hearts and minds of the disenfranchised Muslims around the world, Al-Qaida … succeeded in what Iran couldn’t. Therefore it was necessary for the Iranians to discredit 9/11 and what better way to do so? Conspiracy theories.”
I wonder how Ahmadinejad will respond to that?
I wonder how Van Jones, Whoopi, Rosie and James Brolin will respond to it?
Iran jealous of Al-Qaeda?
Radical Islam’s big ego trip.
Now that’s priceless.
Sharia law’s literal interpretation of an eye for an eye
Ameneh Bahrami holding a picture of what she used to look like.
One day back in 2004, Ameneh Bahrami was on her way home from work when she encountered Majid Movahedi, a former love interest. Ameneh had just recently turned down a marriage proposal from Movahedi and had broken off the relationship. She noticed that he was holding a red jar and as he approached, he gazed into her eyes for several seconds. That was the last thing Ameneh would ever see because Movahedi proceeded to throw the acid that was in the jar in her face…blinding and disfiguring her for life.
Last week, an Iranian court ordered the application of “an eye for an eye” justice. The victim had specifically asked for this type of justice before the court issued punishment for Movahedi’s crime. The best part? Ameneh gets to be the one to drop the same acid into Movahedi’s eyes that he used to blind her. His blinding will be a little more humane because the courts have ordered him to be rendered unconscious (in a hospital) before Ameneh drops the acid into his eyes.
I love this story. I really really love this story. I feel a little evil being so gleeful that someone will have acid dropped in their eyes but in this case…it’s justice served. This is the first time ever that I have agreed with Sharia law. Most of the time, women get the short end of the stick with Sharia law but not this time. I hope this becomes a precedent.
Go Ameneh Go!
UPDATE: I just posted this story and already I have an update to it. Amnesty International has stepped in and is calling for the sentence to be thrown out. Iran has decided to postpone the “blinding”. Since when does Iran (or anyone in the Islamic world) listen to Amnesty International?
QUESTION: What does it mean that Saudi Arabia is publicly giving Israel permission to fly through its airspace to bomb Iran?
What do you make of this new development, where Saudi Arabia is publicly giving Israel permission to bomb Iran by flying through Saudi air space?
We don’t have a great handle on how the Saudis operate or what motivates them.
We believe they’ve been lying for decades about how much oil they really have, and we’ve read a great deal about their Wahabbism and desire to spread this oppressive cult around the world. We also know they actually prefer Israel’s existence to Iran’s, which is fascinating, considering the anti-semitism in the Middle East.
Can anyone weigh in on this who has more insight to share?
What message is Saudi Arabia sending, and to whom, and what’s their aim in this?
Question: Does Iran already have a nuclear bomb?
We’re very concerned about this — because Iran’s ratcheting up that “we will deliver unto the West a major punch on February 11th” rhetoric.
That’s unusual for them.
Typically, whenever they say they are going to do something “spectacular” on a certain day, they tend to forget about doing anything before that day approaches. There have been numerous times, through the years, when Iran has promised to “teach the West a lesson”, and then nothing happens.
It could be that Mossad or MI-5 stopped them from doing whatever they wanted to do…but today is February 8th, so the 11th is just a few days from now. And now not just Ahmadinejad is talking about something “spectacular”, but Ayatollah Khamenei is saying this in public too.
That worries us because Khamenei doesn’t usually join in on choruses like this. He’s not insane or stupid, while Ahmadinejad is a combination of the two. Khamenei is a calculated and deliberative man…one who knows his powers as Ayatollah are based largely on the fear and awe he inspires in the Muslim population. He’s like a self-proclaimed sorcerer who only performs tricks and puts on a show when he knows he can dazzle. If he promises to pull a rabbit out of his turban, but yanks out only lint instead, his power as Ayatollah diminishes.
The fact Khamenei is promising something “spectacular” on the 11th should rattle everyone.
It means Mossad and MI-5 were not able to stop this…YET.
Our gut instinct is that Iran bought a nuke from either Pakistan, North Korea, or a Muslim former Soviet Republic. They don’t have a missile capable of hitting a target like Israel, and the nuke is probably a smaller, low-yield kind that Iran has not been able to reverse-engineer and replicate for whatever reason. It might be one of the missing suitcase nukes that disappeared after the Soviet Union collapsed…and instead of trying to smuggle it into Manhattan or Washington, Iran’s just going to detonate it in the desert, to great fanfare.
Like Saddam Hussein’s bluster, Iran will claim it has many more of these nukes…but we bet they just had the one, or maybe two, with something in reserve in case the West tries to smack back at Iran for testing their new weapon. Remember: the US only had two atomic bombs in 1945. But, that was enough to change the world.
A Muslim country exploding a nuclear device would be world-changing as well.
It would also be a colossal failure of the current US president, who promised his mere presence on the international scene would lead to a thousand years of hope, change, peace, and unicorns.
What it appears it’s led to is Iran exploding a nuclear device on February 11th “to teach the West a lesson”.
We hope we are very, very wrong on this.
But, we’d been hoping Ahmadinejad would forget about February 11th all of a sudden, no further mention of it would be made, and the day would pass without any sort of event.
Khamenei just raised the stakes on all of this, though.
What is Iran up to?
Question: It's one week until Iran has promised to "show the world something". What is that something?
One week from today, Iranian president Ahmadinejad has promised to show the world “something”.
What do you think it is?
February 11th is the anniversary of the fall of the Shah of Iran.
It is also Sarah Palin’s 45th birthday.
Somehow, we don’t think Ahmadinejad has baked her “the world’s largest and most delicious birthday cake, greater than anything Xerxes ever feasted on, more beautiful than anything that ever made Darius weep beneath the wilted branches of old pomegranate trees”.
Iran recently announced it’s acquired new satellite technology.
Could THAT, and not Sarah Palin’s birthday cake, be the “big announcement”?
Could Iran really have a nuke it’s going to test in a week, that it’s kept secret for this long?
Most likely, it’s another major bluff on the part of Ahmadinejad. Jealous of Steve Jobs, no doubt, and the unveiling of the iTab, a certain someone seems to have needed to get himself in the headlines with a big announcement, too. Perhaps he’s going to prove to the world “there are no homosexuals in Iran”, like he claimed the last time he was in New York.
We kid, but we’re actually really concerned about this one.
We don’t think the guy’s bluffing this time…we think he’s up to SOMETHING.
And we have no idea what that something is.
Do you?
Iran wants to devour Arab world…
According to the article above, “Iran wants to devour the Arab world”.
Meanwhile, stateside, Oprah wants to devour…
whatever doesn’t get out of her way.
