Month: January 2011

Dr. Martin Luther King’s outspoken opposition to the war in Vietnam put him neatly in the milieu of modern Christian non-violence that started with the religious writings of Leo Tolstoy, and which had impacts well beyond Christendom (Gandhi’s interest in non-violence, for instance, was heavily influenced by Tolstoy). The answer, then, to who would MLK bomb is pretty clearly “no one.”

But he’s been dead for quite awhile, and people may be a little vague on who exactly the fellow was and what he stood for. To that end, Pentagon officials are now making it clear, they’re pretty sure Dr. King was a hawk.

Jeh Johnson, the Pentagon’s general council, has informed the public that he is pretty sure, were Dr. King alive today he would be strongly in favor of the US occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, because “he would recognize that we live in a complicated world.”

Johnson’s argument begins and ends with Dr. King’s fondness for the parable of the “Good Samaritan,” and his (Johnson’s) assumption that no one is a better Samaritan than US occupation forces.

In case you’re not thoroughly confused, Johnson closed by announcing “every day, our servicemen and women practice the dangerousness – the dangerous unselfishness Dr. King preached.” So there you have it, the Pentagon’s history has MLK as a danger junkie, and nobody rocks the danger like occupation forces.

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for January 15th, 2011:

National Review Online: The Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Benjamin Weinthal blogs on the collapse of Lebanon’s government on Wednesday, warning that “the Iranian proxy Hezbollah” has shown “that the political Islamists rule the roost in Lebanese society.” Weinthal writes, “The Islamic Republic of Iran, Hezbollah’s chief sponsor, has been forced to reduce its supply of military and financial aid to the Islamic fanatics by 40 percent. Over the years, the Iranian regime has pumped roughly $1 billion in military aid into Hezbollah’s arsenal.” Weinthal concludes that the approval of $100 million in military aid for Lebanon could have been a mistake if Hezbollah somehow becomes the beneficiary of the military goods: “Plainly said, it is time that the U.S. discontinues military funds for Lebanon and redirect monies to pro–Lebanese democracy organizations.”

The Atlantic: Jeffrey Goldberg responds to a post by Reza Aslan in which Aslan suggests that Ahmadinejad’s comments that Israel should be “wiped from the map” has been mistranslated and does not imply that Israel, and its people, should be physically destroyed but that “existing political borders should be wiped from a literal map.” Goldberg responds, “Hmmm. So Israel should be replaced by Palestine, which is different than removing Israel from the map. Got it. What Ahmadinejad has been trying to say all along, then, is ‘Shabbat Shalom, Jews!.’” He then sarcastically offers to “clarify the record of the Holocaust-denying, eliminationist anti-Semitic Iranian president” before reprinting a list of Ahmadinejad’s comments about Israel and Jews.

A Washington Post online article headlined “Have You Changed Your Tone Because of the Arizona Shootings?” seeks comments from people about how the rampage by an Arizona nut case reform themselves. Here’s the article’s pitch:

Reporter Sandhya Somashekhar is looking to interview people who have seen changes in conversations around the dinner table or at work because of the Arizona shootings. We will also post some of your responses here tomorrow.

You can post your response on the Post webpage here.

I did a quick check over the last couple days and since the Democrats and Republicans are both still full of crap, I haven’t changed my tone.

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for January 13th, 2011:

The Washington Post: The Post’s editorial board writes that the apparent delay of Iran’s nuclear program is “confirmation that the international campaign” has been effective. The editorial board credits the Stuxnet virus, sanctions, and assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists as responsible for pushing back the clock on the Iranian program. “The challenge for the Obama administration, Israel and other allies will be to make use of that window to force a definitive end to the Iranian bomb program,” says The Post. “The administration still hopes negotiations, set to resume Jan. 20, will achieve that end, but most likely it will require a fundamental change in Iran’s hard-line regime,” the article concludes. “From that point of view, five years is certainly not much time.”

Foreign Affairs [PDF]: Former Undersecretary of Defense and current Foreign Policy Initiative board member Eric Edelman, along with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment’s Andrew Krepinevich and Evan Braden Montgomery, collaborate on an article entitled “The Dangers of a Nuclear Iran: The Limits of Containment.” The authors reach the conclusion that the U.S. should pursue a three-track approach “that brings diplomacy and sanctions, clandestine action, and the threat of military force into alignment.” The authors call for a significant buildup of U.S. military forces in the Gulf region and acknowledge, “Although finding a peaceful way to preclude Iran from getting nuclear weapons is obviously desirable, Washington will likely have to decide between two unattractive options: pursuing a military strike to prevent Iran from going nuclear or implementing a containment strategy to live with a nuclear Iran.”

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for January 12th, 2011:

Tablet Magazine: Hudson Institute Visiting Fellow Lee Smith writes, “Arabs are not winning an information war against Israel, nor anything else for that matter. Rather, the stories and lies they tell to delegitimize the Jewish state are part and parcel of the war that they have been waging against themselves, and with stunning success.” In his attack on Arab culture, he groups Iran with the “Arabic speaking Middle East” and observes, “Culture is more powerful than technology, and how a society uses any given technology is determined by its culture. This is why no one wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to have a nuclear bomb, but no one has a problem with France’s weapons program.”

The Wall Street Journal: Ilan Berman, vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council, writes that, for Iran’s hard-liners, Iran’s Green Movement is still a force to be reckoned with. Berman cites the crackdown on Green Movement leaders and observers, “If the Green Movement were truly a spent force, Iranian officials would be far less preoccupied with containing and discrediting its remnants.” He concludes, “That Iran’s leaders appear to believe otherwise suggests that they understand well what many in the West do not: the Green Movement itself may be on the ropes, but the larger urge for democracy that it represents isn’t dead. It is simply hibernating.”

Commentary: Jonathan Tobin writes on Commentary’s Contentions blog that Roger Cohen’s column, on the Jewish community in Iran that was published two years ago, was brought about because “The Times columnist’s motive for trying to soften the image of that openly anti-Semitic government was to undermine support for sanctions or the use of force to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.” Tobin cites reports that the Tomb of Mordechai and Esther—the central characters in the Jewish story of Purim— in the city of Hamdan has lost its official status as a religious pilgrimage site. “While we cannot know whether the Iranians will follow through on this threat and actually tear down the tomb or transform it into a center of anti-Jewish hate, it does provide yet another insight into the virulent nature of the attitudes of those in power there,” he writes. Tobin concludes, “Anyone who thinks that we can live with a nuclear Iran needs to consider the madness of allowing a government that thinks the Purim story should be reversed the power to do just that.”

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for January 11th, 2011:

Council on Foreign Relations: George W. Bush administration Deputy National Security Advisor Elliot Abrams blogs that the pronouncement by retiring Mossad head, Meir Dagan, that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon until 2015 should give new momentum to sanctions. Abrams, who is a curently a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, writes that “increasing sanctions may damage the Iranian economy in ways that create additional political tension.” He says that Republican leadership in the House “should be asking right now what more the United States and our allies can be doing to stop the Iranian nuclear weapons program, make our sanctions more effective, and support democratic dissidents in Iran.”