Iran

Last fall in our continuing series at Blog for Arizona, I posted Questions for Martha McSally: Are you a Neocon war monger like your endorser John Bolton?:

Martha McSally’s views on foreign policy and national defense just moved up to the top of my list of topics that I want to depose her ask her campaign questions about with this announcement on Thursday (the local media should do the same). Bolton PAC Makes First Endorsement:

Former United Nations ambassador John Bolton’s political-action committee will make its first endorsement on Thursday, backing former Air Force colonel Martha McSally in her race against Arizona Democratic representative Ron Barber.

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The John Bolton Super PAC (he also has a regular political action committee) will support candidates who share his vision for a muscular American foreign policy and the need to revive America’s role in the world.

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McSally will receive a total of $10,000 from Bolton’s organization . . . “I am honored to have the support and endorsement of Ambassador Bolton, a great American who has advocated for our freedom against enemies worldwide,” McSally said in a statement.

Oh Hell No! On a Batshit Crazy scale of 1 to 10, John Bolton breaks the scale blowing past 11. Martha McSally is the first endorsement for Bolton’s Super PAC? And she calls this reckless war monger “a great American”?

This endorsement should be setting off  alarm bells and warning sirens all over Southern Arizona today. Shit just got real.

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Many in the American media, like the Tea-Publican Party, would have you believe that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu speaks with one voice for all Israelis, neh, for all Jews in the world. This is absurd on its face.

There are a number of Israeli national security experts who have voiced support for the P5+1 world powers nuclear agreement with Iran. The American media allows Netanyahu and Republican critics in Congress to drown them out.

Think Progress reported Former Israeli Security Heads Support Iran Deal:

[W]hile Israel’s prime minister continues to fight the deal a collection of former Israeli security figures have come forward to say that things could be much worse.

“No agreement is ironclad, but the inspections provisions provide a high degree of confidence that Iran will not be able to renew the nuclear program without its being detected,” Chuck Freilich, a former deputy National Security Adviser in Israel, wrote in a New York Times op-ed published on Sunday and entitled A Good Deal for Israel. “A regime that has staked so much on this agreement will be reluctant to incur the costs.”

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Secretary of State John Kerry and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, a nuclear expert, published this op-ed in the Washington Post today, The case for the Iran deal:

When President Obama took office, he faced an Iran that had mastered the nuclear fuel cycle, had constructed a covert uranium enrichment facility inside a mountain, was on its way to installing nearly 20,000 centrifuges for uranium enrichment, was developing advanced centrifuges and was building a heavy-water reactor that could produce weapons-grade plutonium. If Iran wanted to develop a nuclear weapon, it was already well down that road and the international community had little insight into its program. Against this backdrop the president vowed never to let Iran obtain a nuclear weapon.

The deal reached in Vienna this month is not only the best way to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon, it is the only durable and viable option for achieving this goal. This comprehensive diplomatic resolution has the unified support of the world’s leading powers. It extends the time Iran would need to develop a nuclear weapon, provides strong verification measures that give us ample time to respond if Iran chooses that path, and takes none of our options off the table.

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Neocons in the Republican Party, who reflexively oppose any agreement between Iran and the West, share something in common with the Islamic hard-liners in Iran. Iranian Hard-Liners Say Nuclear Accord Crosses Their Red Lines.

Their common interest was exemplified earlier this year with Sen. “Tehran” Tom Cotton’s letter signed by 47 Republican senators to the government of Iran. 47 GOP Senators Tell Iran They May Not Honor A Nuclear Deal. This stunt was too much even for the editors of The Arizona Republican. 47 senators stomp on the Constitution.

The government of Israel also opposes the Iran deal. Earlier this year, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted an offer from House Speaker John Boehner to address the Congress shortly before elections In Israel, an unprecedented move not approved by the White House and against U.S. protocol. See Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institute, At What Price, Netanyahu?

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