Less than
24 hours after my last post on the Bibi-Boehner connection, a Wall Street Journal report reveals the hidden devil in the details: It appears Netanyahu used Israeli
intelligence resources to spy on P5+1 negotiations (full
text here):
“The spying operation was part of a broader campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to penetrate the negotiations and then help build a case against the emerging terms of the deal, current and former U.S. officials said … The espionage didn’t upset the White House as much as Israel’s sharing of inside information with U.S. lawmakers and others to drain support from a high-stakes deal intended to limit Iran’s nuclear program …
“If you’re wondering whether something serious has shifted here, the answer is yes,” a senior U.S. official said. “These things leave scars.”
Double Trouble. More troublesome is the fact that Congressional Republicans acted as co-conspirators to gain partisan advantage. Never before in the history of the United States has an opposition party colluded with a foreign power - in direct violation of constitutional norms and protocols. The time has come to put teeth into the Logan Act: Mutiny against the Commander-in-Chief is an act of sedition. If ‘sedition’ is one operant word, the other is …
Impeachment. Unfortunately, impeachment is a political process requiring passage by vote in the House of Representatives and a trial by vote in the Senate. Since accused criminals rarely admit to their crimes and never sit on their own juries, the prospect of 47 Senators impeaching themselves is highly unlikely.
I saw this and was half-way through writing a post on it. Send me the html on this and I'll cross-post it after the "GOP Shadow Government..." post you wrote is up for a day at P.E.
ReplyDeleteYou would think there would be a public uproar, that is if you weren't a cynic. the public is far too concerned with a fantasy world wherein the four horsemen are at the gate and Obama is about to fire the starting gun.
ReplyDeleteCan you imagine a Democratic congress getting away with such insurrection?
I want to share an email conversation with a friend who mistrusts – with good reason - the actions and statements of Iran’s Supreme Leader. Relevant to the discussion here is my reply to this friend [name withheld to protect the confidentiality of private email]:
Delete“No doubt, the rhetoric of Iran's Supreme Leader is strident and troublesome, and I do share your concerns. Yet, we should put these harsh words into perspective. I recall the Cold War years when Nikita Khrushchev said: “We will bury you” and “Better Red than dead.” These words did not prevent our respective governments from sitting down at the negotiating table and signing nuclear test ban treaties and ICBM treaties that kept a lid on hostilities.
Often, rhetoric is meant for public consumption to assuage hardliners who resist diplomatic solutions to problems that are not in their best national self-interest. Sometimes actions speak louder than words, and we should judge Iran not necessarily on the basis of rhetoric but on the fact that a diplomatic solution is clearly a preferable alternative to ruinous war.
Parenthetically, we should recognize the source of Iranian resentments towards the U.S.: In 1953, our government orchestrated a CIA-inspired coup against Iran’s first duly elected president. Our government installed the Shah, an oppressive regime that tortured its citizens – and no family in Iran remained untouched. Viewed from this perspective, there are reasons why Iran calls us “The Great Satan.” Regrettably, Americans are known for duplicity – we did it again in 2005 when the Bush/Cheney administration rebuffed another overture from Iran to put a lid on the nuclear bottle under better terms.
It should also be noted that Iran was, once upon a time, one of our closest allies in the region during the Cold War. If there is an opportunity to “RESET” our relationship with Iran, it is worthy of consideration.
The current regime in Iran will not last forever, and we should reposition our foreign policy to reflect the inevitability of regime change – by not antagonizing its people any more than we have done in the past.”
An afterthought to my comment immediately above:
DeleteI recall some weeks ago, an administration spokesperson made headlines for using an infamous ornithological reference to “chicken shit” in describing Netanyahu. I knew instinctively what this person meant. My afterthought has two parts:
1. Decades of obstruction and mutual antagonism designed to block every diplomatic initiative. From the Israeli side, announcements of new permits to build new settlements simultaneous to the announcement of new negotiations. From the Palestinian side, street violence and lone wolf terrorist incidents. Tit-for-tat: both sides killed the infant in the cradle. This is “chicken shit.”
2. Recall Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s trip to Israel in 1977 that culminated in a historic peace treaty signed by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1979. This treaty resulted in a mutual exchange of diplomatic missions and a peace that has lasted to this day. This is the opposite of “chicken shit.”
Courage to envisage the possibilities of peace: This is what the unknown spokesperson meant. The example of Netanyahu – NYET! The example of Sadat – DA!
Of course Sadat was shot but the wages of decency, of sanity, of civilization are so often death. They shot Lincoln, didn't they?
DeleteI think that we have to face the fact that peace is not a consummation devoutly to be wished for the hard liners, the jingoes, the Gop and the titans of industry who own them. War is profitable, war offers a chance to excel and to be memorialized by a marble statue for pigeons and historians to shit on.
Former Mossad Chief Efraim Halevy Slams Netanyahu For Nuke Deal Criticism:
Delete"In a scathing op-ed published Monday, former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy argued that U.S. President Barack Obama was right to call the agreement with Iran "historic" and that Iran made important and significant concessions during the negotiations.
"For decades, Iran rejected the international community's demand to hold talks of any kind with respect to its nuclear program," Halevy wrote on Israeli news website Ynet. "The interim agreement reached in Lausanne proves that Tehran capitulated, by agreeing to conduct negotiations about its plans and the nuclear infrastructure it has built up for years, primarily in secret."