Obama to offer pro-Israel views at AIPAC

Obama to offer pro-Israel views at Chicago gathering

March 1, 2007

For the first time since becoming a senator -- much less a White House hopeful -- Barack Obama on Friday will talk in depth about U.S. policy toward Israel and the Mideast.

The story behind the story of Obama's appearance before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's regional forum at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers provides insight into the Obama presidential operation.

AIPAC, whose sole interest is U.S.-Israel relations, is one of the most influential lobbying groups in the nation. Its annual policy conference starts March 11 in Washington. The gathering provides fertile territory for Obama to schmooze with well-connected backers and donors. Though no 2008 presidential candidates are on the program, Obama is hosting a reception for AIPAC members -- as is archrival Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Clinton delivered a well-received speech before an AIPAC regional meeting in New York on Feb. 1. The Obama team wanted to get Obama's pro-Israel views -- not well-known -- out front before the big AIPAC conference. Obama's team has put together a briefing sheet on his record about Israel, but that was not widely circulated and clearly not enough. If he was to make a major speech on Israel, there was an interest among Obama's Chicago backers for him to deliver it in the city.

The Chicago/Midwest AIPAC office obliged and booked Friday's foreign policy forum featuring Obama, not unlike how the Chicago Council on Global Affairs arranged an event for Obama when he wanted to deliver a major Iraq speech last November.

Meanwhile, Obama's speech started taking shape with input from Mark Lippert, Obama's Senate foreign policy adviser, and Dan Shapiro, a Middle East specialist, now a lobbyist, who is an Obama campaign foreign policy adviser. Shapiro recently was a deputy chief of staff for Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and handled international affairs for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). He also served on the National Security Council under former President Bill Clinton.

One of the most important concerns for Israel is to ensure that Iran does not get nuclear capability.

Obama, in his speech, will detail his vision for Israel and the Mideast and expand his views on regional engagement. Last November, in his Iraq address, Obama, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called for an "opening dialogue" with Iran and Syria. "Make no mistake," Obama said then, "if the Iranians and Syrians think they can use Iraq as another Afghanistan or a staging area from which to attack Israel or other countries, they are badly mistaken."

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States, in a switch, will hold talks with the two nations.

Obama on Friday will call for tougher Iran sanctions, more bilateral diplomacy and declare he is for leaving all military options on the table. He will underscore the need for energy independence so that U.S. Mideast policy is not anchored to the country's huge appetite for fossil fuels.

Obama traveled to Israel for the first time in January 2006. He allotted time on his official trip to visit projects sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Chicago and the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese.

Obama's camp is well-aware that the Israeli newspaper Haaretz -- in a recurring feature ranking the 2008 U.S. presidential candidates or people who may run on how good they are for Israel -- puts him last on its list. Former GOP New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani tops its ranking, followed by Newt Gingrich, John McCain, Clinton, Al Gore, Sam Brownback and the others, with Obama at the end. Part of the reason for the low score may be that the others have worked the Israeli street for years and Obama is just an unknown factor when it comes to Israel.

But let me share something. Last August, Obama was in Cape Town, South Africa, at a time when Israel was being criticized for overreacting for its military attacks in Lebanon in response to the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers. Obama was speaking to a group at a cultural institution called The Center for the Book, which provided a friendly venue for the Illinois Democratic. The crowd, clearly hostile to Israel, expected Obama to bash Israel on Lebanon. He did not. They were surprised.

They just did not know Obama well enough to realize who they were dealing with.

BY LYNN SWEET Sun-Times Columnist

Human Rights Watch Financier Soros buys Halliburton

The guy who wants to start a new Israel lobby. I smell Nobel Peace prize, Medal of Honor...
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Soros buys Halliburton

Tue, 02/27/2007 - 3:22pm.

Normally, I'm willing to overlook the hypocrisy of the liberal elite. If Al Gore and his Hollywood cronies want to fly around on gas-guzzling, atmosphere-polluting private jets while railing against global climate change, I'm willing to overlook it.

But the latest move by globe trotting, hyper-liberal billionaire George Soros borders on being too much. According to papers filed with the SEC, in the fourth quarter of 2006 Soros purchased nearly 2 million shares of ... hold your breath ... Halliburton. The Halliburton shares reportedly went for an average purchase price of $31.30 a share. That puts Soros' total investment in Halliburton at around $62.6 million, or about 2 percent of his total portfolio.

Soros, of course, is the dean of Democratic money giving. And Halliburton, of course, is the company that embodies everything the Democrats see as evil. Dick Cheney is its former chief, for goodness' sake. But Soros is also a man of contradictions. He supported campaign finance reform for years, only to declare that defeating President George W. Bush was the "central focus" of his life. To prove it, he sunk $24 million of his own "soft" money into the 2004 campaign, helping make that election one of the most divisive in modern history.

Soros' position in Halliburton is reported to be his first, which means he bought it with a full understanding of Halliburton's reputation. Soros may not see a problem with profiting from a company that has been accused of everything from sweatheart deals to cooking the books to serving U.S. troops lousy food in Iraq. The real question, however, is whether MoveOn.org, the Center for American Progress, and other organizations that have benefitted from Soros' charity will see a problem with accepting money earned off Halliburton shares?

Mike Boyer |

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Encampment to Stop the War March 12+ Washington DC March 12+ Washington DC

Encampment to Stop the War
March 12+ Washington DC

Will she invade Iran?

Elect Susie Flynn

"My name is Susie Flynn. I am running for President of the United States of America to help the nine million children living without health insurance."

Yeah, but will she invade Iran?

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Child Dies for Lack of Dental Care

Confusion over Iraq soccer explosion - US carried out blast - 18 children dead

$ 7.75

February 28, 2007

$ 7.75

Yesterday I went to the bank.

Wow! I thought. So many people!

Iraqis are not “bank oriented” people, if they have any excess; they tend to keep it at home.

Previous experiences have taught us not to trust banks; they have been known to hold on to your money when you need it in a jiffy!

But looking at the numbers inside that bank, I thought, “I have been out of Bagdad,touch; bad girl.”

I go in, only to find people pushing and shoving one another; fighting, shouting and cursing each other. “This is not normal,” I said to myself.

I try to reach the employee with whom I have business, but my efforts are to no avail. One human current pushes me this way and another pulls me that. A proper riot!

I began to have serious misgivings.

“What is this all about?” I asked a lady who was trying, in vain, to keep from being crushed between two men, to my right, “Have you got any idea?”

“Where do you come from? Don’t you know that the government is giving people relief? At last we are remembered!”

“Really!! That’s excellent!!” It was my good fortune to be at the bank this day! Although half suffocated, I felt elated at being “remembered”. “How much?”

“10 000 Dinars!” (Equivalent to $7.75, purchasing power: 50 eggs).

….. Numbness.. …..

Fighting ….. Rioting ….. Flayed nerves and hot tempers flying ….. for 10 000 Dinars.

Where do I come from?

How many thousands have been decommissioned?

How many thousands were in Saddam’s army, police and intelligence agencies?

Thousands of others – professionals - dismissed from their government jobs on pretext of debathhification?

Yet more thousands displaced; and more still terrorized into a futile stay-at-home existence??

Riots in the bank for ID 10 000, $ 7.75.

And for $100; what would they be prepared to do?

For $500?

For $1000??

How many will cross that line? It’s not easy to see your family starve for principles.

Mercenaries on Iranian payroll.

Mercenaries on American payroll.

Mercenaries on ANY payroll.

Hear! Hear! An army for a pittance. Gather yea all, who have an interest to participate in this charade. Stakes are high! All of Iraq is the stage.

Posted by Correspondent Sahar at 04:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0
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Editor's note: The are a only a handful of Westerners left reporting from Baghdad. It is simply too dangerous.The Iraqi blogger reporting above is all that is left of the McClatchy newspaper chain in that once great city.

Douglas Feith's new website

http://www.dougfeith.com/

Pentagon Meet Discussed Escalating Pressure on Iran

POLITICS:

Analysis by Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, Feb 28 (IPS) - Two weeks ago, Pentagon officials discussed a strategy to escalate U.S. pressure on Iran with the intention of creating the impression that the U.S. is ready to go to war, according to an account by one of the participants.

A meeting at the Pentagon in mid-February was said by the participant to have revolved around a plan to ratchet up U.S. rhetoric about an Iranian threat and make further military preparations for war in a way that would be reminiscent of what happened prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. The account was described by a source outside the Pentagon who obtained it directly from the participant.

The description of Pentagon thinking suggests a strategy that is much more aggressive than the line represented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's announcement Tuesday that the United States would participate in direct talks with Iran in the context of a conference to be convened by the Iraqi government.

According to the account provided by the participant, the administration's decision last month to increase U.S. military strength in Iraq by at least 22,000 troops is related more to a strategy of increased pressure on Iran than to stabilising the situation in Baghdad. The troop decision was described as putting the U.S. military in a better position to respond to attacks by Shiite forces on U.S troops in retaliation against a possible U.S. strike against Iran.

That description is consistent with other indications that Pres. George W. Bush's decision on the troop "surge" was made primarily in the context of strategy toward Iran. Immediately after Bush's Jan. 10 speech announcing the additional troops, NBC's Tim Russert reported that Bush and his top advisers had told a small group of journalists the United States would not sit down with Iran until the United States had gained "leverage".

That was the most direct indication from administration officials that they believed the United States could negotiate successfully with Iran once the administration had altered the bargaining relationship with Tehran.

In that same briefing for reporters, according to Russert, the officials indicated that one of the administration objectives was to achieve a situation in which Washington would not have to "go to Syria and Iran" and "ask for anything". That was an indirect reference to the bargaining leverage that Iran was believed to have derived from the widely shared belief that the United States would need Iran's help to stabilise the situation in Iraq.

Bush was apparently convinced that the troops increase would convince Iran that the United States would not have to rely on Iranian influence in Iraq to deal with Shiite opposition to the occupation.

But the troop surge decision was also linked to another aspect of the U.S.-Iran bargaining relationship. It had been widely speculated that the vulnerability of the United States to retaliatory attacks in Iraq added to Iran's leverage by restraining the Bush administration from waging a preemptive war against Iran.

The briefing before Bush's Jan. 10 speech also provided a key piece of evidence that the Bush strategy would involve increasing pressure on Iran by framing the issue of U.S. policy in terms of new military threats from Iran to U.S. and allied interests in the Middle East. Russert reported that administration officials had tipped off journalists that Iran would soon be raised as a major issue in what Russert called "a very acute way".

The January Bush speech was followed by a carefully orchestrated campaign of administration statements and leaks alleging official Iranian involvement in providing armour-penetrating weapons to Shiite militias in Iraq. The administration admitted in a briefing in Baghdad aimed at bolstering that charge that it was based on "inference" rather than actual evidence.

To increase the sense of heightened tension with Iran and suggest momentum toward a military confrontation, the administration had already moved an additional carrier task force into the Persian Gulf.

Another move in the increased pressure on Iran, according to the same source, is that refuelling assets are now being flown into the U.S. base complex at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. "You can't launch air strikes against Iran without refuelling assets being there," the source observed.

High administration officials have used carefully chosen words in recent weeks to suggest that they are planning for war against Iran even as press leaks about as possible attack multiplied. On Feb. 15, Defence Secretary Robert Gates said, "We are not looking for an excuse to go to war with Iran...We are not planning a war with Iran."

Meanwhile, however, the administration maintains the position that the option of a military strike against Iran remains as its last resort if Iran does not agree to U.S. terms for negotiations.

After the administration failed to produce evidence of such Iranian government involvement in exporting weapons to the Shiites in a Baghdad press conference on Feb. 11, the administration introduced a new line on an alleged Iranian threat.

Vice-Admiral Patrick Walsh, who is leaving his position as Commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, told reporters Feb. 19 that the Iranian military conducts exercises in the Strait of Hormuz, suggesting that they could use mines to close the Strait. Walsh called mines "an offensive terrorist type of weapon."

Iranian officials have always placed their threats to close the Strait of Hormuz explicitly in the context of retaliation for a strike by the United States against Iran.

"The question is not what the Americans are planning," Walsh said, "but what the Iranians are planning." That statement indicates that the United States is designing a new campaign to portray Iran's military posture as threatening to U.S. allies and security in the Middle East.

The participant's account of the Pentagon meeting did not indicate any timetable for the sequence of steps or what the climactic move in the campaign would be. Nor did it suggest that a decision had been made by the White House to launch air strikes against Iran. However, the moves now planned would increase the likelihood of war in the event that Washington's escalatory moves fail to sway Iran's leaders.

A former assistant secretary of defence in the Bill Clinton administration, Chas Freeman, who was also ambassador to Saudi Arabia, calls Bush's escalation of military pressure "brinksmanship" -- a term recalling the practice by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his Secretary of State John Foster Dulles of threatening war against China over Korea and the Taiwan Strait.

"By deploying forces to add credibility to the threat," Freeman told IPS, "you increase the risk of military conflict, which is fact what is intended."

*Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy. His latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in June 2005.