Ahmadinejad's upcoming visit to New York City is providing the perfect opportunity to move us closer to a war with Iran. Our Neofascist friends over at National Review couldn't help spill the beans on the next significant step toward war with Iran which is coming up on Tuesday or later in the week.
The resolution — an amendment to a defense appropriations bill — is sponsored by Jon Kyl, Joseph Lieberman, Norm Coleman, and Lindsey Graham. It expresses the sense of the Senate that the U.S. should "combat, contain, and roll back" Iran’s "violent activities and destabilizing influence inside Iraq." It counsels doing so "through the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of [U.S. power], including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments." It also urges the administration to designate the Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization.
It seems the Neocons are planning to get the maximum value out of what's sure to be Ahmadinejad's upcoming foot-in-mouth fest in New York next week. Indeed the multiple major protests including those by Jewish groups, and assorted other chest beatings and speeches will provide just the kind of circus atmosphere that can allow a serious AIPAC-backed legislation like this to be rammed through the Senate. The attention-loving Ahmadinejad will no doubt stir the pot to the best of his abilities. Visits to WTC may have been denied, but there's still the speech at Columbia, the buzz-slash-psyops about a possible meeting with Syria and North Korea, a possible return visit with the anti-zionist Jewish groups, who shook his hands in Tehran last year, and a meeting with Iranian Americans. Israelis have already gone Godwin, with their UN rep saying "Ahmadinejad visiting Ground Zero is like Hitler visiting Auschwitz."
With free publicity like this, they would be crazy not to try to do something in congress. Just look at the way they're selling it at NRO:
The primary battleground is Iraq, where agents of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards fund and arm the Shiite extremists whose IEDs pierce the armor of U.S. soldiers and whose bombs massacre Iraqi civilians. Within the next few days, four senators will introduce legislation that faces these facts unflinchingly and calls on America to win.
Perfect. Demonize Iran, change the subject from the tremendous failure of Iraq and set the groundwork for another war.
NRO is even suggesting talking points to possible "responses" by sane Americans who may be able to see through this charade.
No great imagination is required to predict the Left’s attack on the amendment. "Needlessly provocative," they will say. "What we need is more diplomacy." And, "If you don’t like American soldiers dying from Iranian-made IEDs, bring them home."
The last is of course another way of saying, "Surrender" — not a bad policy, if you don’t mind giving an Islamist, terrorist-sponsoring, nuclearizing theocracy the dominant role in the Middle East. There can be no question that this is what Iran’s rulers intend.
This instantly reminded me of a freeper call on CSPAN where the hysterical old lady said: "If we don't win this war, Muslims will take over the middle east!"
Talk about being 1400 years late to the party.
In any case, this legislation is the first to use the M word: Military. Until now, it's been "on the table" or the "last option." Through this resolution it will become an "instrument". The difference may sound subtle, but it's not. It is in fact nothing short of officially sanctioning aggression toward another sovereign nation and building the groundwork for a "we were just doing our job"-type incident to trigger World War III.
I wish I could say that this legislation doesn't have a chance in hell of seeing the floor under the democratic controlled Senate. 3 or 4 months ago, I would have been liable doing a ROFL if such insanity was bing introduced in the middle of us trying to figure out how to exit the region. But I'm really not sure anymore and I'm really really concerned that this will be allowed and it will in fact pass. The reason is that AIPAC can mobilize its forces easily with the excuse of the "provocation" by Ahmadinejad's visit to America.
But please, if you do nothing else, spread the word, call your Senator and express your opposition to this legislation.
Update [2007-9-23 1:38:49 by Florida Democrat]: The amendment in question is SA 3017. It contains exactly the language our - umm, shall we just say "prescient" - friends at NRO wrote about. Although Thomas has only Lieberman and Coleman as co-sponsors with Kyl introducing. I guess Lindsay Graham has already backed out. This is directly from the text:
(b) Sense of Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate--
(1) that the manner in which the United States transitions and structures its military presence in Iraq will have critical long-term consequences for the future of the Persian Gulf and the Middle East, in particular with regard to the capability of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to pose a threat to the security of the region, the prospects for democracy for the people of the region, and the health of the global economy; [read: OIL, -FD]
(2) that it is a vital national interest of the United States to prevent the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran from turning Shi'a militia extremists in Iraq into a Hezbollah-like force that could serve its interests inside Iraq, including by overwhelming, subverting, or co-opting institutions of the legitimate Government of Iraq;
(3) that it should be the policy of the United States to combat, contain, and roll back the violent activities and destabilizing influence inside Iraq of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies [read: All Iraqi resistance are hereby declared Iranian -FD];
(4) to support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments [read: dropping bombs -FD], in support of the policy described in paragraph (3) with respect to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies;
(5) that the United States should designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist organization under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act and place the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists [read: What? we're just bombing terrorist facilities, not civilian infrastructure -FD], as established under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and initiated under Executive Order 13224; and
(6) that the Department of the Treasury should act with all possible expediency to complete the listing of those entities targeted under United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1737 and 1747 adopted unanimously on December 23, 2006 and March 24, 2007, respectively.
My comments are signed with "-FD" and all emphases are mine.
Call your Senators first thing Monday... especially if you have one named Norm Coleman. Ask them to stop giving blank checks to Bush for starting wars.
PS. My thanks to bumblebums for the correct link to the amendment.