Foreign Policy

Congress continues to avoid debating an AUMF to fight ISIS in Iraq and Syria

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This week Congress will vote against the P5+1 world powers nuclear agreement with Iran because Tea-Publicans prefer getting their war on with Iran, which many of them believe will come with the succession of a Tea-Publican president in January 2017.

us-forces-afghanistan-AP-640x480So Tea-Publicans will vote against a nuclear non-proliferation agreement, but they cannot bring themselves to perform their constitutional duty to debate and to actually authorize the current U.S. military engagements in Iraq and Syria against ISIS (and the Assad regime).

As I have explained previously, this is calculated: Tea-Publicans want the precedent being established by fighting a war without congressional authorization in violation of the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution of 1973 so that the next president — whom they believe will be a Tea-Publican — can take this country to war without asking for congressional approval. Dick Cheney’s Unitary Executive Theory of the Imperial Presidency will be back with a vengeance.

I have previously posted about the efforts of Arizona Senator Jeff Flake and Virginia Senator Time Kaine to force their Senate colleagues to perform their constitutional duty to debate and to actually authorize the current U.S. military engagements in Iraq and Syria. Senate avoids debating an AUMF to fight ISIS in Iraq and Syria. I said at the time that Congress continues to abdicate its war powers under the Constitution, and is refusing to do its constitutional duty. I am amazed at the lack of editorial opinion on this subject from mainstream media publications.

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Getting to 41 votes against the Resolution of Disapproval on Iran deal

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Over the past two weeks, President Obama has secured enough Democratic votes to sustain his veto of the Tea-Publicans’ Resolution of Disapproval of the P5+1 world powers nuclear agreement with Iran.

The only open question is whether 41 Democratic senators would vote against cloture to prevent the Resolution of Disapproval from coming up for a final vote. The undecided Dems who could save Obama from Iran veto:

Iran-nuclear-deal-1024x576After a big victory on the Iran nuclear deal this week, the Obama administration is looking to lock down support from the handful of still-undecided Senate Democrats.

The White House has gained enough votes to ensure the agreement ultimately survives Congress. But it’s still at least three senators short of the 41 needed to prevent a resolution of disapproval from passing in the first place.

The president can only afford to lose two of the remaining five undecided Democrats if he wants to avoid having to issue a veto — an action he’s taken only four times during his presidency.

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Clinton Rules of reporting: The e-mail ‘scandal’ that isn’t

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Hillary-Clinton-textingWhen the supposedly “liberal” New York Times engages in the Clinton Rules of reporting, something it did with reckless abandon in The Hunting of the President (Bill Clinton) during the 1990s, it gives the imprimatur of acceptable media standards to the mainstream media to similarly engage in scandal mongering reporting without any substance.

Such is the case with all the media hyperventilating over the so-called Clinton e-mail “scandal” (the first rule of Clinton Rules is that everything is a “scandal”).

Jeffrey Toobin recently explained at The New Yorker that the first thing the public needs to know is that The Government Classifies Everything:

As [Sen. Daniel Patrick] Moynihan explained in his book “Secrecy: The American Experience” and explored during a lifetime in public service, the definition of what constitutes a government secret has never been clear. Classified information is supposed to be defined as material that would damage national security if released. In fact, Moynihan asserted, government bureaucracies use classification rules to protect turf, to avoid embarrassment, to embarrass rivals—in short, for a variety of motives that have little to do with national security. As the senator wrote, “Americans are familiar with the tendency to overregulate in other areas. What is different with secrecy is that the public cannot know the extent or the content of the regulation. Thus, secrecy is the ultimate mode of regulation; the citizen does not even know that he or she is being regulated!”

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Israel planned to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities in 2010, 2011 and 2012

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In case you missed this over the weekend, former Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak revealed that the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was on the verge of attacking Iran on 3 separate occasions in 2010-2012, but was consistently blocked by other cabinet ministers or by the military chief of staff.

The New York Times reported, Israel Came Close to Attacking Iran, Ex-Defense Minister Says:

Iran-nuclear-deal-1024x576A former Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, revealed new details to his biographers about how close Israel came to striking Iran’s military facilities in 2010, 2011 and 2012 and why it did not despite his and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s desire to do so, according to interview excerpts aired on Israeli television Friday night.

Mr. Barak, who also previously served as Israel’s prime minister, said that he and Mr. Netanyahu were ready to attack Iran each year but that in 2010, the military chief of staff said Israel lacked the “operational capability”; in 2011, two key ministers waffled at the last minute; and in 2012, the timing did not work out because of a joint United States-Israel military exercise and visit by the American defense secretary. He noted that the two ministers who balked in 2011, Moshe Yaalon and Yuval Steinitz, “are the most militant about attacking Iran” today.

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Tea-Publicans in Congress are bereft of foreign policy grown ups

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When it comes to climate science denial, Tea-Publicans are all “I’m not a scientist, but...” But when it comes to nuclear non-proliferation, suddenly they all deem themselves to be “experts” in nuclear science.

See today’s op-ed from Rep. Martha McSally (R-AZ), a protégé of Neocon war monger and co-conspirator in the Bush-Cheney regime’s unnecessary and illegal war in Iraq, John Bolton. Martha McSally: A dangerous deal for America and our allies.

Iran-nuclear-deal-1024x576Serving in the U.S. Air Force does not make you a nuclear scientist or nuclear non-proliferation “expert,” Congresswoman. You would do better to admit “I’m not a scientist, but...” and listen to the actual experts — the overwhelming majority of whom support the Iran deal.

Republicans used to take foreign policy and diplomacy seriously; they always claimed that they were the adults or the “grown ups” in the room on foreign policy. But that was in the days before the Neocon intelligentsia of the Bush-Cheney regime came to town.

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