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H2O Man

(73,333 posts)
Sat Aug 8, 2015, 09:38 PM Aug 2015

Senator Schumer vs Iran

There have been a few DU:GD threads about Senator Charles Ellis Schumer’s plan to vote in opposition to President Barack Obama on the proposed agreement -- which surely resembles a “treaty” -- proposed by several nations, including Iran. Numerous community members, including New York State residents, believe that Schumer is betraying the President, the Democratic Party, and, indeed, the United States. Others have described it as “politics as usual.” And still others support Senator Schumer’s position.

I think that one of the important issues here involves the neoconservative advocacy of the US seeking military solutions to the “problems” found in the Middle East. As President Obama has accurately noted, many of the people opposed to negotiating an agreement with Iran, rather than attempting a military strike solution, are the same folks who supported President Bush and VP Cheney’s invasion of Iraq.

Perhaps it would be advantageous to review the genesis of the neoconservative movement, and examine more closely those who supported the worst military miscalculation in American history, that 2003 attack on Iraq. The most important resource to start with, in my opinion, is found in the third volume of Taylor Branch’s three-volume history of “America in the King Years.” In the Pulitzer Prize winning author’s third book, “At Canaan’s Edge” (Simon & Schuster; 2006; pages 617-622), he documents how a segment of liberals who fully supported King’s non-violent approach to civil rights as a domestic issue, opposed King when he spoke against warfare as an acceptable solution to international “conflicts.”

This included King’s historic April 4, 1967 speech opposing the US war in Vietnam, and hit a new level when King spoke out against the “Six Day War” in the Middle East. The later marked the birth of the neoconservative movement’s rise in Washington, DC. It included those who were “liberal” on domestic (social) issues, but hawks when it came to international issues, most specifically those involving the nation of Israel. And it is important to understand that it was not simply Jewish Americans: individuals such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan would be among the most influential of the neoconservatives in the decade of the 1970s. Nor, for that matter, has it ever been somehow restricted to republicans -- with Moynihan again being a prime example.

Senator Chuck Schumer is, by any and every correct definition, a neoconservative. More, he does represent a significant portion of Democrats, as the results of his primary victory over two competitors in the year he ran for the US Senate demonstrated (he won with 51% of the primary vote). Likewise, it is accurate to say that his opposition to the potentially peaceful solution to the issue with Iran, that President Obama advocates, represents the wishes of those who assist in financing his campaigns. This, of course, includes AIPAC.

In the same years that the Office of Vice President Cheney was being investigated for the Plame scandal, a US Defense Department employee named Lawrence Franklin was convicted of passing classified documents on our national policy towards Iran to a high-level member of AIPAC, who in turn shared it with Israel. This type of thing should be viewed objectively. And that must not include either anti-Semitism, or false accusations of anti-Semitism. It is what it is: there are people who sincerely believe that Iran poses an existential threat to Israel, and who thus attempt to influence US policy towards Iran. And that’s not always “good” or “bad” -- instances such as Franklin’s case should be judged on their individual merits.

Likewise, Senator Schumer’s position on President Obama’s proposed treaty can and should be viewed objectively. And this should include an honest examination of if Senator Schumer’s opposition is itself objective. In June of 2010, for example, while speaking at Orthodox Union event in Washington, DC, about the conflict in the Gaza Strip, Schumer said, “They don’t believe in the Torah. They don’t believe in King David. So, they don’t think its our land.”

The “our land” in question is definitely not part of New York State, or of the United States. It may be that Senator Schumer experiences difficulty in remaining objective about questions involving the Middle East. Thus, citizens of New York State not only have the right, but also the responsibility to question Schumer’s analysis of the treaty that President Obama is advocating. Doing so does not mean that one is anti-Israel. In fact, as President Obama has stated, this treaty may be viewed as insuring Israel’s safety, rather than somehow threatening it.

The topic of US relations with Iran too often involves emotions, subjectivity, and people’s religious belief systems. That can make a rational discussion difficult, including from the internet to this nation’s capital. Failure to examine the issues objectively, and to behave rationally, will definitely result in much greater difficulties.

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