Some musings on Rick Santorum and the dangers of Iran.
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"Senior Israeli officials warned today they were still considering the option of a military strike against Iran, despite a fresh US intelligence report that concluded Tehran was no longer developing nuclear weapons." - The Guardian
Some musings on Rick Santorum's Op-Ed in the Inquirer Dec. 6
For one of the Republican Party's most partisan warriors to now claim "it's vital that we put aside politics to find new and effective ways to confront [Mahmoud] Amadinejad and Iran's mullahs," strains credulity beyond the breaking point. The truth of the matter is Santorum's fixation with Iran is all about politics: the politics of Israel and the money its supporters here at home pour into his party's coffers.
Naturally, as a disclaimer, let me emphasize my belief that every American has the right to lobby the government in the interests of any country, this is not a crime. My family for generations supported the Republicans in Northern Ireland as many other Irish Catholic immigrants did in the last century. But speaking as an American, the national security interests of Israel, though sometimes coinciding with ours, are not always in the best interest of the United States.
Let's call a spade a spade: Israel is not the 51st state and Iran is a threat to Israel's strategic position in the Middle East, not ours.
So on what basis does Santorum contend that Iran is our "greatest national security challenge since the end of the Cold War?" He cites Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust; Iran's backing of Hezbollah and Hamas; and, for good measure, he throws in Ahmadinejad's belief that Shia Islam's Twelfth Imam will return "after an Armageddon in which Islam has conquered Christians and killed the Jews."
All of the reasons he cites are of immediate concern to Israel certainly, but none of them prove that Iran presents an imminent threat to the national security of the United States by any stretch of the imagination.
* The noxious anti-Semitic rhetoric of Ahmadinejad, though unconscionable, is simply him playing to his base. He is most assuredly not the only demagogue and or autocrat in the Middle East that uses Israel as a convenient foil when it comes time to whip up the masses. Many of our closest allies in the Middle East do exactly the same thing when it suits them.
* The very existence of Hezbollah and Hamas are a direct consequence of Israel's occupation of Palestine and are threats solely to Israel. In fact, in the case of Hamas the Israelis themselves encouraged the creation of that organization in a misguided attempt to divide and conquer.
* And as to the this nonsense about the Twelfth Imam: Although the specter of an Islamic zealot with his hand on the button may play well to Santorum's base, the same religious lunacy also prevails among many evangelical Christians, George W. Bush's most ardent supporters, who are also awaiting the return of their own messiah. In the minds of fundamentalist Christians, salvation depends on an Armageddon taking place within the lands of biblical Israel, an outcome they are working for assiduously with their unflagging support of Israel and the belligerent policies Santorum's fellow travelers in the Vice-President's neocon camp advocate against Iran.
For all his huffing and puffing about the dangers of Iran, however, Santorum's strategy for undermining the Iranian regime is oddly pacific, not the usual fire-breathing real men want to go to Tehran stuff out of the neocon playbook. Perhaps, he's awaiting word from Rome on whether a preemptive strike on Iran will get the Papal go-ahead. He supported legislation passed last year that funds pro-democracy groups and allows the administration to impose sanctions on the regime in Tehran. Nothing in there about bombing, though.
Santorum says he's currently working on encouraging pension and mutual funds around the country to divest from terror-sponsoring nations, a laudable effort that all Americans on either side of the partisan divide could support; no one wants to make money off the mullahs or, at least, admit they do anyway. Santorum's position on this issue, though, appears to fly in the face of the Republican Party's core values of government taking a hands-off approach to the market's ability to make as much money as possible no matter how immoral the means.
If Santorum is now is calling for investors to take a moral stand on where they put their money, I hope he would concede that individuals, corporations and universities also have the right to divest their money from other countries with morally questionable policies. Countries such as Israel, for example, where millions of Palestinians have been living under a brutal 40-year occupation that even Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert referred to recently as resembling Apartheid. [AP]
And while Santorum is campaigning to prevent investment in terror-sponsoring countries perhaps he should also focus on cleaning up his own Republican house while he's at it. Newsweek reported in its most recent issue that Giuliani Partners, presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani’s private investment firm, earned $4.1 million between January 2006 and May of this year from a security consulting contract it has with the ruling family of Qatar. This is the same family who in 1996 tipped off 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed that the CIA was about to arrest him. Imagine how history might have been changed if Mohammed had been sitting in a jail cell on September 11, 2001 instead of having 5 years to plot the deaths of almost 3000 Americans.
But that's all in the past. The Qatari royal family is now our best buddies, even though the ruler of Qatar, Sheik Hamad bin Kalifa Al-Thani, created Al-Jazeera the news channel the Bush administration loves to hate (and bomb).
I would agree that Iran is unquestionably a threat to the stability of the Middle East, though not the existential threat to us Santorum portrays it as. We've had to deal with mullahs since 1979, yet some how we've managed to survive as a nation. The politics of the Middle East and our shifting alliances there, as our experience in Iraq has shown to our cost, are somewhat murky. Declarations of black and white certitude favored by Rick Santorum and George W. Bush don't apply there.
I would argue that diplomacy rather than sanctions has the best chance of succeeding with Iran. The futility of the Cuban embargo has clearly shown that sanctions rarely work, especially when there is money to be made by unscrupulous investors. In any event, the ravenous appetite of China and India for Iran's oil and natural gas will render any divestment strategy against the regime in Tehran ineffective. Therefore, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, only more jaw jaw and less war war will lead to a peaceful resolution in the Middle East, one which all Americans, Iranians and Israelis ultimately want.
Rick Santorum
Rudy Guiliani
Israel
National Intelligence Estimate
Iran
"Senior Israeli officials warned today they were still considering the option of a military strike against Iran, despite a fresh US intelligence report that concluded Tehran was no longer developing nuclear weapons." - The Guardian
Some musings on Rick Santorum's Op-Ed in the Inquirer Dec. 6
For one of the Republican Party's most partisan warriors to now claim "it's vital that we put aside politics to find new and effective ways to confront [Mahmoud] Amadinejad and Iran's mullahs," strains credulity beyond the breaking point. The truth of the matter is Santorum's fixation with Iran is all about politics: the politics of Israel and the money its supporters here at home pour into his party's coffers.
Naturally, as a disclaimer, let me emphasize my belief that every American has the right to lobby the government in the interests of any country, this is not a crime. My family for generations supported the Republicans in Northern Ireland as many other Irish Catholic immigrants did in the last century. But speaking as an American, the national security interests of Israel, though sometimes coinciding with ours, are not always in the best interest of the United States.
Let's call a spade a spade: Israel is not the 51st state and Iran is a threat to Israel's strategic position in the Middle East, not ours.
So on what basis does Santorum contend that Iran is our "greatest national security challenge since the end of the Cold War?" He cites Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust; Iran's backing of Hezbollah and Hamas; and, for good measure, he throws in Ahmadinejad's belief that Shia Islam's Twelfth Imam will return "after an Armageddon in which Islam has conquered Christians and killed the Jews."
All of the reasons he cites are of immediate concern to Israel certainly, but none of them prove that Iran presents an imminent threat to the national security of the United States by any stretch of the imagination.
* The noxious anti-Semitic rhetoric of Ahmadinejad, though unconscionable, is simply him playing to his base. He is most assuredly not the only demagogue and or autocrat in the Middle East that uses Israel as a convenient foil when it comes time to whip up the masses. Many of our closest allies in the Middle East do exactly the same thing when it suits them.
* The very existence of Hezbollah and Hamas are a direct consequence of Israel's occupation of Palestine and are threats solely to Israel. In fact, in the case of Hamas the Israelis themselves encouraged the creation of that organization in a misguided attempt to divide and conquer.
* And as to the this nonsense about the Twelfth Imam: Although the specter of an Islamic zealot with his hand on the button may play well to Santorum's base, the same religious lunacy also prevails among many evangelical Christians, George W. Bush's most ardent supporters, who are also awaiting the return of their own messiah. In the minds of fundamentalist Christians, salvation depends on an Armageddon taking place within the lands of biblical Israel, an outcome they are working for assiduously with their unflagging support of Israel and the belligerent policies Santorum's fellow travelers in the Vice-President's neocon camp advocate against Iran.
For all his huffing and puffing about the dangers of Iran, however, Santorum's strategy for undermining the Iranian regime is oddly pacific, not the usual fire-breathing real men want to go to Tehran stuff out of the neocon playbook. Perhaps, he's awaiting word from Rome on whether a preemptive strike on Iran will get the Papal go-ahead. He supported legislation passed last year that funds pro-democracy groups and allows the administration to impose sanctions on the regime in Tehran. Nothing in there about bombing, though.
Santorum says he's currently working on encouraging pension and mutual funds around the country to divest from terror-sponsoring nations, a laudable effort that all Americans on either side of the partisan divide could support; no one wants to make money off the mullahs or, at least, admit they do anyway. Santorum's position on this issue, though, appears to fly in the face of the Republican Party's core values of government taking a hands-off approach to the market's ability to make as much money as possible no matter how immoral the means.
If Santorum is now is calling for investors to take a moral stand on where they put their money, I hope he would concede that individuals, corporations and universities also have the right to divest their money from other countries with morally questionable policies. Countries such as Israel, for example, where millions of Palestinians have been living under a brutal 40-year occupation that even Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert referred to recently as resembling Apartheid. [AP]
And while Santorum is campaigning to prevent investment in terror-sponsoring countries perhaps he should also focus on cleaning up his own Republican house while he's at it. Newsweek reported in its most recent issue that Giuliani Partners, presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani’s private investment firm, earned $4.1 million between January 2006 and May of this year from a security consulting contract it has with the ruling family of Qatar. This is the same family who in 1996 tipped off 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed that the CIA was about to arrest him. Imagine how history might have been changed if Mohammed had been sitting in a jail cell on September 11, 2001 instead of having 5 years to plot the deaths of almost 3000 Americans.
But that's all in the past. The Qatari royal family is now our best buddies, even though the ruler of Qatar, Sheik Hamad bin Kalifa Al-Thani, created Al-Jazeera the news channel the Bush administration loves to hate (and bomb).
I would agree that Iran is unquestionably a threat to the stability of the Middle East, though not the existential threat to us Santorum portrays it as. We've had to deal with mullahs since 1979, yet some how we've managed to survive as a nation. The politics of the Middle East and our shifting alliances there, as our experience in Iraq has shown to our cost, are somewhat murky. Declarations of black and white certitude favored by Rick Santorum and George W. Bush don't apply there.
I would argue that diplomacy rather than sanctions has the best chance of succeeding with Iran. The futility of the Cuban embargo has clearly shown that sanctions rarely work, especially when there is money to be made by unscrupulous investors. In any event, the ravenous appetite of China and India for Iran's oil and natural gas will render any divestment strategy against the regime in Tehran ineffective. Therefore, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, only more jaw jaw and less war war will lead to a peaceful resolution in the Middle East, one which all Americans, Iranians and Israelis ultimately want.
Rick Santorum
Rudy Guiliani
Israel
National Intelligence Estimate
Iran
posted by William Duane at 1:10 PM
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