Worldview Politics

Obama and AIPAC
10 June 2008

Pandering Us Into War with Iran

Obama just gave a speech to AIPAC that sounds to me like he is setting us up for another war, this time against Iran. That would be quite shocking for the 'antiwar' candidate. The money quote is, "I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything in my power. Everything." That's pretty explicit! 'Everything' could mean, well, anything. Nuclear war, you name it. And as if one mention of 'everything' were not enough, it is repeated three times. Make that three nuclear wars.

It is no secret that both the Bush administration and the Israeli government want an attack on Iran's nuclear enrichment capability, despite the fact that nuclear enrichment for civilian use is legal under the NPT, and despite the recent NIE declaring that Iran has no nuclear program. The Israelis don't want the Iranians to get even close to a nuclear bomb, even though Israel has several hundred of them. Given Israel's overwhelming military superiority, and given that we have no good evidence that Iran is building a nuclear weapon, and given the catastrophe in Iraq, it would seem suicidal to attack the much larger nation of Iran. But that looks likely, because Israel and AIPAC want it, and our Congress genuflects to both.

Obama was our hope that this could be avoided, but now he has apparently betrayed his antiwar grass-roots and net-roots supporters, who made him what he is, and has jumped on the AIPAC bandwagon. And it happened so soon after clinching the nomination that it looks positively devious! Here is how Uri Avnery describes it:

After months of a tough and bitter race, a merciless struggle, Barack Obama has defeated his formidable opponent, Hillary Clinton. He has wrought a miracle: for the first time in history a black person has become a credible candidate for the presidency of the most powerful country in the world.
And what was the first thing he did after his astounding victory? He ran to the conference of the Israel lobby, AIPAC, and made a speech that broke all records for obsequiousness and fawning. That is shocking enough. Even more shocking is the fact that nobody was shocked.
It was a triumphalist conference. Even this powerful organization had never seen anything like it. 7000 Jewish functionaries from all over the United States came together to accept the obeisance of the entire Washington elite, which came to kowtow at their feet. All the three presidential hopefuls made speeches, trying to outdo each other in flattery. 300 Senators and Members of Congress crowded the hallways. Everybody who wants to be elected or reelected to any office, indeed everybody who has any political ambitions at all, came to see and be seen.

Uri Avnery, a war hero and a former member of the Knesset, is perhaps the most noteworthy of the peace activists in Israel. He wants a cessation of the occupation and elimination of the settlements, and he advocates a two-state solution with the Palestinians. He may be reviled by those who support AIPAC and Likud, but his integrity, intelligence and experience are beyond question. In particular, he draws attention to Obama's support for an undivided Jerusalem, which he calls 'scandalous'. According to Avnery, no peace treaty is possible if the Muslims don't get the Temple Mount — one of the three holiest places in Islam. This very issue broke up the Camp David conference of 2000, even though Ehud Barak was willing to compromise. Obama has revived a monkey wrench of an idea that even the Israeli government had quietly dropped. He may not be so smart after all!

Give Obama A Break?

Now some have come to Obama's support. They draw attention to the carefully crafted nuances in his speeches and his emphasis on diplomacy. The smarter Democrats also look with dread upon Obama's weakness with rural and working-class white voters, not to mention women and Hispanics. Might it be suicidal for him to anger Jews as well? Not necessarily. Polls have shown that most Jews are to the left of AIPAC. Perhaps AIPAC has a noise machine that can scare even moderate Jews, or perhaps it really does come down to AIPAC's money, despite all the cash the grass-roots have already given to the Boy Wonder. I'm been fairly generous in the past, but I keep getting spam from his campaign always asking for more money, money, money. This annoys me! And never on his website does he take a poll to see what his supporters are thinking. The website would be a great way to gather some feedback, but he no longer seems to care. His net-roots are now taken for granted. They are just a cash machine, who have no better choice. Nader anyone?

As usual, one of the fairest and most dispassionate analyses comes from Stephen Zunes. Rather than tie US aid to Israel obeying international law, Obama promised $30 billion more aid over the next ten years, with no strings attached. Israel already violates international law, e.g. by launching air strikes into the densely crowded Gaza strip. Such strikes are in retaliation for primitive rockets launched from Gaza, whose casualties have been few. The ratio of Palestinian to Israeli casualties stands at over 50 to 1, according to Zunes. Besides, a severe Israeli embargo has turned Gaza into a hellhole prison, on the brink of starvation. One should expect 'terrorism' with this kind of despair. Obama mentions only the Israeli casualties, and he seems to place all the blame on the Palestinians. So much for his apparent decency. What an act! And they still think he's a Muslim!

Zunes also informs us that, despite Obama's rhetoric about diplomacy, he refuses to talk to Hamas, even though they won a fair election, according to all international observers. Yet a recent Haaretz poll shows that 67% of the Israeli public favors direct talks with Hamas, with only 28% opposed. Obama is far to the right of the Israeli public, but not of Likud and AIPAC. We can clearly see where his priorities lie. Obama says that Hamas should never have been allowed to participate in elections, because it is a 'terrorist' organization, but he neglects to mention extremist Israeli political parties, such as the National Union, which 'defends attacks on Arab civilians and seeks to destroy any Palestinian national entity, and expel its Arab population'. The National Union participates in elections and has members in the Israeli government. Even Israeli TV has compared Obama's speech to the days of Menachem Begin (himself a former terrorist)!

The 'most disturbing aspect' of Obama's AIPAC speech, says Zunes, was his remark about an 'undivided Jerusalem'. Avnery calls it 'scandalous' and says that it 'breaks all bounds'. It goes farther than McCain or the Likud government and would be a show-stopper for any peace talks. Maybe Obama is just a stupid panderer. I thought he would at least be a smart panderer, what with having gone to Harvard Law School and all that. (Obama did try to backtrack the next day, but I no longer trust him.)

Zunes, ever the unbiased peacemaker, goes out of his way to describe how Obama's talk could have been worse. His Jerusalem comments may simply have been stupid. He may have emphasized Israeli over Palestinian suffering due to the audience he was addressing. Hmmm. That's not very presidential, and it flies in the face of his previous rhetoric. Apparently, Obama is breaking new ground in even mentioning the word 'diplomacy' to an AIPAC audience. By American standards, that may represent a profile in raw courage! And Obama did throw in a quick line about how Israel might take some steps to ease the suffering of Palestinians. Neither Bush, nor McCain, nor Hillary ever seem to give a damn!

Obama also gets some credit from Zunes for past rhetoric that was a bit more enlightened than his AIPAC pandering. I'm not willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt. I now think he's a con artist and a hypocrite, which I always kind of suspected. But I'll say this: Warmonger McCain is much worse, so we must hold our noses and vote for Obama. The recent Supreme Court decision reinstating Habeas Corpus passed by only 5-4! And McCain is staunchly opposed to that decision. This is Habeas Corpus we're talking about, for God's sake. For this reason alone, we must vote for Obama, even though it pains me to see him tapdancing to AIPAC's tune.

More Obama Treachery

POSTED 19 Jun 08: It seems Obama is backtracking on many other items, such as 'free trade' and campaign financing. So soon after winning the nomination! See the following articles. Those stories of him being close to Wall Street turned out to be true (cf. Pam Martens on CounterPunch). He must have been planning it all along. He's another masterful triangulator, just like Bill Clinton. We got screwed again! Just like Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown. Isn't it awful how the seemingly nicest politicians can lie through their teeth and suddenly reverse themselves? Obama had strongly attacked NAFTA during the primary, to win midwestern labor votes, but now he suddenly changes his mind, to please his Wall Street benefactors.

I wonder if it really makes sense to vote for Obama, just to keep reactionary judges off the courts. One could now argue that Obama is as likely as McCain to attack Iran. Yet we are in no position to extend our conquest of Iraq into Iran, at least not without reviving the draft. So perhaps this is the right time to get a total right-wing nut into the White House, let him screw up completely in the Middle East, compounded by the perfect financial storm that is coming, and finally teach Americans the lesson they need to learn.

Otherwise, an Obama victory may just set a precedent for decades of triangulation, perpetuating the bipartisan empire for who knows how long. Obama may be a carefully selected fig-leaf for an establishment that knows it has gone too far and doesn't want to lose it all. Perhaps it's better to force the issue and bring everything to a head, with a possible price of Armageddon to pay.

As for the judiciary, I am indeed worried, but we must put things in perspective. I think abortion has been overblown as an issue, and I don't really care if it reverts to the states. I have no intention of living in a primitive state anyway. Losing our fundamental constitutional rights in the 'war on terror' is far more troubling, but if the public is too foolish to rise up so far, then perhaps we need that 'divine disaster' I just alluded to. Maybe the religious fanatics are right, and there is such a thing as the wrath of God, but we bring it on ourselves through our own stupidity and failure to be responsible citizens.

The bottom line is that I can't stand a democracy based on deception. I want the candidates to state their views honestly and to adhere to them. I hate the logic that Obama really has good intentions but must move to the 'center' in order to win, because that's how the real world works, and we must choose the lesser of evils, and so on and so forth. It makes a mockery of the democratic process. The scheming, overpriced political 'consultants' always worry about the 'swing' vote. What they fail to consider is that a candidate also loses a lot of votes by not displaying any real convictions and by consequently muddying the issues and turning people off. This leads to confusion and cynicism. Nearly half the public doesn't vote, but the greedy, green-eyeshade political bean-counters simply ignore this and focus on this or that slice of the swing vote, as if it were a zero-sum game. Morover, public acceptance of politicians' games guarantees that they will act that way. One can argue all one wants that the 'responsible' voter will choose the lesser of two evils from among the 'realistic' choices (i.e. the two major parties), but the fact remains that such an attitude guarantees that these games will be played. The politicians will count on it, until we say no.

It would have been far better for Obama to be forthright and emphasize that the war was a mistake based on deception (rather than 'safely' downplaying the issue), that we must get out and leave it to the Iraqis (who mostly want us out), and that a war against Iran is unnecessary (if only we be fair and consider their legitimate security needs). But no such courage has emanated from this con artist. Some honest talk could have worked with the American public, who have a sense of fairness when they understand the facts. It's not all that dangerous to be honest. But it takes some real convictions and character, which Obama seemed to have, but which have now evaporated into thin air. What really stinks is a fence-straddling game of saying some honest things to pick up the good guys, then pissing on them to pick up some bad guys. Everybody feels insulted, or at least all the half-intelligent ones do. Many of them end up hating both parties. Obama might still squeak his way to victory, but no more money from me, buddy. You blew it.

UPDATE 22 Jun 08: There is an argument out there that Obama's rejection of public financing in favor of small-donor money is really a major step in a populist direction. I could perhaps forgive him for breaking this promise, if only I weren't so alarmed at his pandering to AIPAC and setting us up for war with Iran, not to mention his other dishonest flip-flops. Even so, it would have been better if he had announced his financing plans long ago, or at least hinted at them. He could have indicated that he might reject public financing if his small donors turned out to be numerous enough, which they did. Basically, he has lost his credibility and is leading us, intentionally or not, to war with Iran, which would be a disaster to dwarf Iraq. Is he really that much better than McCain? Can I stomach voting for him? Isn't it fundamentally dishonest to vote for the 'lesser of evils'? You are perjuring yourself, in a way. I might just vote for Nader or Paul.

John Nicols: Obama goes soft on free trade