Anti-war lawmakers urge Obama not to attack Iran

[The Northerner]

Two anti-war lawmakers are circulating a letter urging President Obama to exhaust all diplomatic options with Iran.

Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.), a staunch war opponent, and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) are asking House members to sign onto a letter they will send to Obama that says the United States should not enter a new war.

“We agree with most Americans that the United States should not enter a new war, just as we are finally ending two others,” they write. “A military strike against Iran could lead to a regional war in the Middle East and attacks against U.S. interests.”

The lawmakers said that a strike would also compel Iran to “rapidly pursue a nuclear deterrent.”

Obama has said that the United States will not allow the Iranians to obtain nuclear weapons and has not ruled out any options, including military ones, to stop them. There is also speculation that Israel is planning to attack Iran's nuclear facilities.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/policy-and-strategy/211115-anti-war-lawmakers-urging-obama-not-to-attack-iran

[jimlup]

1. The retoric seems to be ramping up in the United States

I saw a report on NBC Nightly last night that was essentially a propaganda filled diatribe. Many of the statements reported contained unwarranted assumptions about Iran's motives and likely actions. Some of the statements were outright lies

[deucemagnet]

2. A republican who's a staunch war opponent?

Are you sure that's not a typo? Does such a creature exist?

[marmar]

4. Walter Jones was against the Iraq War too, if I'm remembering correctly.

nt

[deucemagnet]

7. Wow, kudos to him if this is true.

I don't suppose that stance makes you popular in the republican party.

[RZM]

5. There's always been a tradition of conservative isolation in this country

It used to be a lot stronger, but it's still there. I think it's probably on the upswing right now too. It makes sense when you think about it. The impact of 9/11 on the national psyche slowly dissipates with each passing year. The wars of the Bush administration cost a lot of money and didn't come with a whole lot of appreciable gains. Given their obsession with spending and the fact that domestic issues are by far the most important to the average voter (the economy especially), I think the stage is set for further erosion of conservative support for expensive foreign adventures.

Remember that W. actually campaigned as something of an isolationist in 2000. He had completely changed his tune by 2004, but I wonder if that was the aberration and not the norm. I think the neocons might have had their time at the top and we're settling in to a mainstream conservatism where they aren't as influential.

My opinion has little to do with this particular statement from these Congressmen, which doesn't really mean much. My guess is that it's Ellison's idea and he chose a Republican co-sponsor to give the appearance of bipartisan opposition to war with Iran. But I do believe that we're well into a neocon twilight.

[deucemagnet]

8. Thank you for that intersting analysis.

And I hope that you are correct in your prediction that republicans will increasingly turn away from the neocon ideology.

[RZM]

9. I think this pushback really got going during the Bush administration

And many of these 'paleocons' felt vindicated and emboldened by the public's rejection of Bush by the end of his second term. If you go to some of their sites, you see that their dislike of Bush is only slightly exceeded by that of DUers. And I'm not talking Ron Paul loons here either. These aren't pot-smoking college students and 9/11 Truthers. Many of their writers are grizzled veterans of the conservative movement who are still angry about their displacement by the neocons.

I've said before that if you put somebody else's name on a Pat Buchanan column about Iraq or Afghanistan, it would end up on the greatest page here.

I don't want to overstate their influence of course. Relatively few elected Republican officials would publicly subscribe to any of this. But I think attitudes are slowly but perceptibly shifting somewhat in the base and there's always a lag time between that and those attitudes manifesting themselves in actual elected politicians. Part of that is the natural order of change, and part of it is because elected officials are remarkably clueless about what their constituencies are really thinking and often brazenly unconcerned even when they do know.

[vssmith]

3. And tell Israel if they attack Iran they're on their own

[RZM]

6. They have all but told them that publicly

As Panetta's recent statement shows. My guess is that they've been saying it privately for quite some time now.

[gratuitous]

10. Can we learn to use another tool?

Right now, we seem pretty stuck on the hammer as the only tool we know how to use in our foreign policy. It's quick, sexy, makes a lot of people go "Ooooh!" and dumps a lot of money into the coffers of war profiteers, who then turn around to fund campaigns. It's not a very effective tool, but it sure makes every problem or situation we encounter look a lot like a nail.