He won't declare war on his fellow muzzies. On Feb 6, 10:23 am, "M. Johnson" <[email protected]> wrote: > Will Obama Play the War Card?by Patrick J. Buchanan > Republicans already counting the seats they will pick up this fall should > keep in mind Obama has a big card yet to play. > Should the president declare he has gone the last mile for a negotiated end > to Iran's nuclear program and impose the "crippling" sanctions he promised in > 2008, America would be on an escalator to confrontation that could lead > straight to war. > And should war come, that would be the end of GOP dreams of adding > three-dozen seats in the House and half a dozen in the Senate. > Harry Reid is surely aware a U.S. clash with Iran, with him at the > president's side, could assure his re-election. Last week, Reid whistled > through the Senate, by voice vote, a bill to put us on that escalator. > Senate bill 2799 would punish any company exporting gasoline to Iran. Though > swimming in oil, Iran has a limited refining capacity and must import 40 > percent of the gas to operate its cars and trucks and heat its homes. > And cutting off a country's oil or gas is a proven path to war. > In 1941, the United States froze Japan's assets, denying her the funds to pay > for the U.S. oil on which she relied, forcing Tokyo either to retreat from > her empire or seize the only oil in reach, in the Dutch East Indies. > The only force able to interfere with a Japanese drive into the East Indies? > The U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor. > Egypt's Gamel Abdel Nasser in 1967 threatened to close the Straits of Tiran > between the Red Sea and Gulf of Aqaba to ships going to the Israeli port of > Elath. That would have cut off 95 percent of Israel's oil. > Israel response: a pre-emptive war that destroyed Egypt's air force and put > Israeli troops at Sharm el-Sheikh on the Straits of Tiran. > Were Reid and colleagues seeking to strengthen Obama's negotiating hand? > The opposite is true. The Senate is trying to force Obama's hand, box him in, > restrict his freedom of action, by making him impose sanctions that would cut > off the negotiating track and put us on a track to war – a war to deny Iran > weapons that the U.S. Intelligence community said in December 2007 Iran gave > up trying to acquire in 2003. > Sound familiar? > Republican leader Mitch McConnell has made clear the Senate is seizing > control of the Iran portfolio. "If the Obama administration will not take > action against this regime, then Congress must." > U.S. interests would seem to dictate supporting those elements in Iran who > wish to be rid of the regime and re-engage the West. But if that is our goal, > the Senate bill, and a House version that passed 412 to 12, seem almost > diabolically perverse. > For a cutoff in gas would hammer Iran's middle class. The Revolutionary Guard > and Basij militia on their motorbikes would get all they need. Thus the > leaders of the Green Movement who have stood up to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and > the Ayatollah oppose sanctions that inflict suffering on their own people. > Cutting off gas to Iran would cause many deaths. And the families of the > sick, the old, the weak, the women and the children who die are unlikely to > feel gratitude toward those who killed them. > And despite the hysteria about Iran's imminent testing of a bomb, the U.S. > intelligence community still has not changed its finding that Tehran is not > seeking a bomb. > The low-enriched uranium at Natanz, enough for one test, has neither been > moved nor enriched to weapons grade. Ahmadinejad this week offered to take > the West's deal and trade it for fuel for its reactor. Iran's known nuclear > facilities are under U.N. watch. The number of centrifuges operating at > Natanz has fallen below 4,000. There is speculation they are breaking down or > have been sabotaged. > And if Iran is hell-bent on a bomb, why has Director of National Intelligence > Dennis Blair not revised the 2007 finding and given us the hard evidence? > U.S. anti-missile ships are moving into the Gulf. Anti-missile batteries are > being deployed on the Arab shore. Yet, Gen. David Petraeus warned yesterday > that a strike on Iran could stir nationalist sentiment behind the regime. > Nevertheless, the war drums have again begun to beat.Daniel Pipes in a > National Review Online piecefeatured by theJerusalem Post– "How to Save the > Obama Presidency: Bomb Iran" – urges Obama to make a "dramatic gesture to > change the public perception of him as a lightweight, bumbling ideologue" by > ordering the U.S. military to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. > Citing six polls, Pipes says Americans support an attack today and will > "presumably rally around the flag" when the bombs fall. > Will Obama cynically yield to temptation, play the war card and make > "conservatives swoon," in Pipes' phrase, to save himself and his party? We > shall see.
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