Digby on the real danger of Hillary's and Edwards' hawkish Iran remarks

[CarolNYC]

Digby really hits the nail on the head here about what troubles me most about the hawkish statements of Dems like Hillary and Edwards....And I know some Edwards supporters will dismiss concerns with, or criticisms about, Edwards' recent remarks as irrelevant or maybe they'll call me obsessed...but, if you're saying I'm obsessed with trying to keep us from going to war with Iran, then HELL YEAH, I'm obsessed and the rest of us should be too! Yeah, I'm running around with my hair on fire about this. Don't you guys see what Bush is leading up to?

Waiting until it's too late to stop it and an apology three years later just isn't going to cut it this time. Did we learn nothing from the Iraq debacle!?!!!!?!!!!?!!!?!!!!?!!!!!! We can't keep allowing this to happen every couple of years...

Digby, regarding Edwards' remarks at the Israeli conference:

This is very, very discouraging. In a different world, perhaps it could just be chalked up to rhetorical excess and presidential politics and leave it at that. But in our world today, those are words that will be used to justify what the Bush administration is planning to do. It's deja vu all over again.

These Democrats are explicitly and openly endorsing the Bush Doctrine of preventive war. There can be no other way to read this and I cannot think of a greater mistake at this juncture for the Democratic party to expressly align itself with such lunacy. What are they thinking?

Further from the same blog:

That will not happen (or will be irrelevant) if the Democratic candidates are once again publicly boosting this dangerous nonsense with bellicose statements to AIPAC as Clinton did the other day and Edwards did earlier. I understand that Israel has deep concerns about Iran, but the AIPAC people are being as myopic as the neocons and failing to see that they are in much greater danger --- as is the whole world --- if the US goes down this path. Democrats have got to either persuade these folks that they are wrong or they've got to simply walk away if they are going to be required to match this provocative Bushian sabre rattling in order to keep their support. It's helping Bush make his case for attacking Iran and any Democrat who helps him do that is helping along an impending catastrophe.
..........

From a political standpoint, there is no margin in Democrats backing this in any way shape or form. It is not enough to leave a little out that says "we would have exhausted all possibilities." It's the failure to repudiate the Bush Doctrine that binds them to Bush's actions.

I think they are foolishly counting on Bush not following through which is a shameful miscalculation if not political malpractice...Democrats cannot abet this, not even rhetorically, to satisfy a powerful lobbying group that may be as mad as the neocons and the Bush administration. This time, they will not be let off the hook. Bush is out in two years and if any of them are on record talking trash about Iran at this delicate moment, they will be held accountable for what follows.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_digbysblog_archive.html#117045277517722142

And then later, after the Ezra Klein interview:

George W. Bush is the only president we have and he has set forth a preventive war doctrine which says that we will stop threats before they appear. That is the "option" we are discussing here in the real world and it most certainly is the one that both Edwards and Clinton knew they were leaving "on the table."
..........
Here, again, is what Edwards said in Herzliya:

"Iran must know that the world won’t back down. The recent UN resolution ordering Iran to halt the enrichment of uranium was not enough. We need meaningful political and economic sanctions. We have muddled along for far too long. To ensure that Iran never gets nuclear weapons, we need to keep ALL options on the table, Let me reiterate – ALL options must remain on the table."

That's a pretty emphatic endorsement of keeping ALL options, which includes the Bush Doctrine, on the table, don't you think? And since Bush is going to be president for two more years that means that our presidential candidates, whether they mean to be or not, are endorsing his right to exercise that option. Believe me, if Bush goes forward and we are looking back two years from now, nobody is going to parse that statement to mean that he didn't really back Bush's right to do this.

What they will be left with, if anybody is left with anything, is an argument that while they thought it should be left on the table, they didn't ever really mean for him to use it ----- or that they wanted him to do other things first --- or some other nonsense that will sound just as convoluted as their excuses about the Iraq war resolution did in the last election.
.........

Politicians apparently feel they must say that they can't take any options off the table. But there is no reason they must go before a particular political constituency and forcefully imply that they would use the Bush Doctrine against Iran if it failed to meet certain conditions. The Bush Doctrine must be repudiated not reinforced.
.......

Democrats must lead the way, not blindly mouth political cliches about "options" in front of war hungry audiences. We can't do this a second time.

*To be clear. I don't mean to pick on Edwards and Clinton particularly. He's clearly backing down from his comments, but that's exactly the problem. Dems have to stop endorsing this crazy warmongering and then backing off. It not only gives the president cover to do what he wants (not that he needs or cares about cover) but it makes it impossible for the Democratic party to make coherent foreign policy. It's going to hamstring us for the next five years if they do this again.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_digbysblog_archive.html#117046464485756663

Do I think that Edwards or Hillary WANTS to go to war with Iran? Probably not....but could they PLEASE stop giving the President cover to do so. This is not just about what these people would do as President somewhere down the line. This is about what they will allow Bush to do right now. This really is a serious issue, whether people want to accept that or not. The best time to stop a war really is before it starts.

Both Digby pieces are really good and I encourage all to follow the links and read them in their entirety.

[Cha]

1. I know it's made me step waaaaaaaaaay

back from Edwards and hillary isn't even on my radar for consideration.

Right now I lookin' at Kucinich and we'll see who else.

[burythehatchet]

3. welcome aboard.

[Cha]

5. You, too, eh?

I just kinda came to this point, TODAY!

[Morgana LaFey]

19. Me too, absolutely

He was my spot on favorite (after NOT liking him a whit last time around) but now he's done ruined it. Probably completely.

If he were "just" pandering the AIPAC, then shame on him.

But if he's serious, then double shame on him. It's NOT like this administration can be believed about ANYthing. As outlined in another article I saw today: where's the PROOF that Iran is a threat to the U.S.? http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x111974

we did one preemptive war on lies, let's not do another one.

Digby is spot on.

And oh, btw. The "failure to repudiate the Bush Doctrine that binds them to Bush's actions" -- that failure to repudiate was a major reason that some of us are still so upset about the various IWR war votes. They had NO BUSINESS signing on to that Bush Doctrine for preemptive war. None at all, and yet they did. Shame on THEM.

[The Count]

2. Preventing another war - the most important issue right now - obsessed here too!

Always loved digby - since posting at bartcop. Thanks for this!

[Eurobabe]

4. Edwards off my radar, Hillary teetering

These two were never in my top favorites anyhow. I refuse to vote for warmongers.

[sellitman]

17. Same here.

I'm praying Al Gore steps up to the plate again.

[robbedvoter]

6. Obsessed with "no war" too. K&R

[kenny blankenship]

7. I won't vote for anyone pimping the lives of our soldiers

[Sparkly]

8. I don't see "all options on the table" as an endorsement of Bush Doctrine...

I think the potential for military action IS part of negotiating. If he said, as BushCo has, that we just can't talk to these people, and they ought to know already that Iraq is important to them, and we already said "No nukes," then I'd agree that "keeping the option" is pretty much leaving it as the ONLY thing on the table, cuz they're unwilling to have serious talks.

But, I think (as I posted elsewhere) bringing the "big stick" to the negotiating table IS important. The idea is to do everything possible NOT TO USE it. But starting out by saying, "We promise we won't take out your uranium enrichment facilities even if you're building bombs" gives Iran even less reason to negotiate. Leave it on the table as PART of the equation.

I THINK that's what Edwards and Clinton have been saying, but correct me if I'm wrong. :shrug:

[annabanana]

9. So a preemptive strike is ok.?. . . . n/t

[annabanana]

10. Or preventive detention?. . . n/t

[Sparkly]

13. Definitely not preventive.

The THREAT of a preemptive strike is what this is about, no?

Non-proliferation is crucial. We've struck other sites that weren't even about nukes, such as the supposed "aspirin factory" where high levels of ricin were found in the soil.

A preemptive strike -- where there is CLEAR and PRESENT danger, rather than deposing and entire government, dismantling its army, sucking up its resources and bombing its people where there is NO clear and present danger -- has international precedent, I believe.

[Warren Stupidity]

18. So it is just an empty threat?

"The THREAT of a preemptive strike is what this is about, no?" no.

As they saying goes, if you draw your sword you better be prepared to use it. And by the way, this rational is exactly what was used by the half hearted war enablers when they voted for the IWR. Do we have collective short term memory loss around here? It was just 2002, that is not exactly ancient history.

"Non-proliferation is crucial. We've struck other sites that weren't even about nukes, such as the supposed "aspirin factory" where high levels of ricin were found in the soil."

You just jumbled two rather separate things together there. First there is the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, or NPT for short. I've had this discussion here before and I'll state my position on this again: the NPT is dead. It was killed by the Bush/Neocon/PNAC proclamation of American hegemony and the derived right to preemptively beat down any perceived threat to that hegemony. For example the post 9-11 proclamation by Dumbass of an 'axis of evil', none of which were actually involved in the 9-11 disaster, but all of which were slated for regime change, put those nations (Iraq Iran and North Korea) on notice that they were to be subjected to the new American Imperial authority. That we then set out and toppled the Iraqi regime made it clear that this new policy was not just bluster, we intended to act militarily.

The NPT was based on a prior theory of a planet composed of co-equal nations, some of which were 'in the nuclear club' and some of which were not. The nuclear club nations pledged two things: they would not use their nuclear forces to have their way with the non nuclear nations, and they would proceed in good faith toward nuclear disarmament. In exchange the non nuclear nations pledged to not seek to become members of the club. The premises for the NPT are gone. Disarmament efforts have stopped and one of the club - our own USA - has decided that the world is no longer composed of co-equal nations but is instead the exclusive province of one superior nation, itself, and all other nations must submit to our superior authority.

North Korea and Iran, having been placed on the short list for abuse and having seen what happened to Iraq, have every right to arm themselves such that they can deter military attack from the imperial forces of the USA. The is one of the unpleasant blowbacks of the idiotic and criminal neocon agenda.

Now as for that aspirin factory. Supposedly that was an attack not on the government of Sudan, but on an al qaeda operation that happened to be located in Sudan. There was at the time no attempt to blame Sudan for the facility, and supposedly the attack was in revenge for the al qaeda attack on our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. This was not pre-emptive anything, it was a reaction to an actual attack.

[tomp]

26. correct! um...sparkly...? nt

[Turn CO Blue]

27. That deserves its own thread. n/t

[annabanana]

20. WE haven't agreed to the treaty that would preclude

the militarization of outer space...

Can China keep it "on the table" to blow our satellites out of the sky?

[williesgirl]

11. We need to make clear to these candidates and all on the Hill that the American

people won't allow another "PREEMPTIVE" war with anyone. Tell them loud and clear they won't get the nomination or our votes if they don't stop this shit. recommende

[mopinko]

12. seems to me the only one out there who can take these frames,

twist them around, and make a new frame out of them is al. the rest of these morons just walk right into them.
get a grip, people. what part of no more war can't you understand?

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

14. K&R nt

[babylonsister]

15. K&R nt

[PATRICK]

16. More simply:

Bush must be DENOUNCED as THE problem. And Bush/Cheney is the threat to everyone. Iran or anything legitimate or debatable comes later. The distraction of getting attached to the CREATED crisis with Iran comes the narrowest and closest to the mark and is the most tragic as long as Bush's legitimacy to ruin everything now is not hit front and center. Edwards and others hit from the sides, respecting the office they want to restore, but that office is betrayed. They are not facing the peril squarely.

What Bush HAS done is effectively signal a declaration of war against Iran cloaked with a miserable lie only America is supposed to swallow and mechanically if not intellectually does. There just isn't an outbreak of shooting yet. The only brinkmanship possible is stopping the liars from that stroke, drawing back, settling down the nerves of the region, forcing down the Israelis pacing the starting line and restoring diplomacy. If someone thinks the carriers in the Gulf, the aimed weapons and the WH are going to be chugging in neutral to await the next president you would have to be utterly insane.

And Edwards, though he has stepped into the Iranian edge of the distraction business is little different from anyone else, including those unfortunately trying to change course in Iraq as if were like adding a paper trail to a cheat e-vote machine. Bush and Cheney are the problem. This has to be shouted out.

Perhaps as Conyers said there is no time for impeachment on the same dogged course Bushistas have betrayed so often it is a laughingstock. There is time to stop, challenge and bring down this next war.
Bush is left to make decisions, pull strings, get appointments, get Intel, with little except slow procedure to irk him anyway.

By Iraq, our actions this time are more than tantamount to a declaration of war against Iran. We are way ahead of where Edwards and most others accede to publicly. And we know it even if our tongues are tied in knots and our hands are cramped from sitting on them. The rogue war leaders must go. Then we can even talk about democracy and law and diplomacy.

[ms liberty]

21. Excellent points...

This covers several points I've been unhappy about, and says it better than I could right now.

[CarolNYC]

22. Yep, as soon as I read it I thought...

THAT'S what's really bugging me about this whole thing.

We really do need all Democrats, Independents, Greens, Libertarians, etc...AND non-crazy Republicans helping to stop this train wreck that Bush is trying to make happen. Now is not the time to be enabling Bush with this, even if it means you've got to cut the pandering to influential groups.

This issue is too important to be treated as a political football. Given the circumstances and who's in the White House, it shows incredibly poor judgment to be making statements like these to groups like these at this time.

Now, if we get Bush and Cheney impeached and get Nancy Pelosi in the White House, it's another story but that's not happening yet.

I just wish these people would consider something other than their political fortunes once in a while.

[Reterr]

23. k&r.eom

[FrenchieCat]

24. K&R n/t

[4dsc]

25. All option includes diplomacy

Remember the diplomacy is not a very strong point with Bush but lets hope that Edwards understands its importance in this matter..

[CarolNYC]

29. Well, Bush is in office now....

and, unless we impeach a couple of people, he'll be there for the next couple of years....which is why I said, this is not just about what Hillary or Edwards will do as President in the future but what they are enabling Bush to do right now. Their not wanting to start a war with Iran themselves won't do a damn bit of good if they help Bush to start one for them.

[CarolNYC]

28. I like this Kevin Drum piece as well....

Let me say first off that I like Edwards. I always have. And I'd very much like to go along with the conventional wisdom that he "backed off" his hawkish Iran comments when he talked to the Prospect yesterday.

But, really, does anyone believe that? I don't. Instead, he was engaging in Politics 101: telling different audiences what they each want to hear. When he's talking to an Israeli conference, he emphasizes the supreme danger Iran presents and implies strongly that military action is a real possibility, while barely even mentioning the idea of engagement and economic aid. When he's talking to a liberal American magazine, he emphasizes engagement and economic aid and downplays the possibility of military action as vanishingly unlikely during an Edwards presidency.

Technically, there was no contradiction between what he said in these two venues. At the Israeli conference he did mention direct engagement with Iran, even if it was only in response to a question at the end. And with the Prospect, he did say that all options had to be left on the table -- including, presumably, military action. Still, you'd barely know it was the same person talking if you read both conversations with no names attached.

There's nothing new about this. It's standard issue politics. But the internet is making this game harder to play, because every word you speak, at every venue, is now easily accessible to people who aren't quite as jaded about this kind of thing as most political reporters are. People like me. And I'll tell you: I'd sure feel a lot better if even a small part of Edwards' comments to the Prospect had made their way into his speech at Herzliya.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_02/010678.php

[freedomfries]

30. K & R

[CarolNYC]

31. Robert Parry's take...

George W. Bush is again guiding the nation toward a preemptive war – this time with Iran – without allowing anything like a full debate of the underlying facts, probable consequences of the conflict or peaceful alternatives.

Bush is following the same course he chose in the run-up to war in Iraq: he insists that war is “a last resort” yet puts in motion the engines of war; he times the release of alarming intelligence reports for maximum political effect; he brushes aside doubts and warnings; he then presents war as unavoidable or a fait accompli.

(snip)

And, despite Bush’s slump in the polls and the Republican defeat in the November elections, the White House is encountering surprisingly few obstacles.

Indeed, some leading Democrats and prominent TV pundits still try to talk as tough – or even tougher than Bush – about Iran.

For instance, former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, supposedly one of the more liberal Democratic presidential candidates, spoke via satellite to a security conference in Herzliya, Israel, in January telling senior Israeli government officials that he shared their view that Iran was the world’s preeminent threat.

(snip)

Yet, Edwards and other Democrats, with their hard-line rhetoric, have lowered the bar for Bush to start a war with Iran, much as Edwards and other top Democrats eased his route into Iraq by voting for a resolution on the use of force. (Edwards has since apologized for that Iraq War vote.)

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/020207.html

I mean, really, did we learn absolutely nothing from the Iraq War?!?

[KoKo]

32. Forget about 2008, the Fate of the Republic could be Decided in the Next Six Months /Another Read!

Forget about 2008, the Fate of the Republic could be Decided in the Next Six Months by John Robert Powers

If Obama or John Edwards (yes, he gave a powerful and courageous speech at Riverside Church) or any of the others wanted to distinguish themselves and demonstrate real political courage, they would have just appeared in the crowd at that rally, not even on the podium, but in the crowd, shoulder to shoulder with fellow citizens who had traveled great distances at their own expense. Such gestures would have captured the public imagination and inspired real hope.

The only nationally recognized Democratic leader who has earned serious consideration for the nomination isn't running -- yet. Al Gore has been right from the start on Iraq, on Global Warming, on the Bill of Rights, etc., and by the end of 2007 he may have won both an Oscar and the Nobel Peace Prize.

(Former Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Wesley Clark, US Army retired, deserves honorable mention, and would also be a worthy champion.)

But those who indulge in fantasies about 2008 are playing into the hands of the corporatist news media.

The fate of the Republic could well be decided over the course of the next six months. This is not a time for political busines as usual.

The Bush-Cheney regime has blown off the leadership of the Congress, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the US electorate and Reality itself.

We are hurtling toward an unprecedented constitutional crisis (and that is the best case scenario).

We are hurtling toward a regional conflagration in the Middle East, and for the most perverse reasons, the Bush-Cheney regime has chosen to ally with those governments most deeply infiltrated by the killers who attacked us on 911 and those forces responsible for most of the 3000 plus US military deaths in Iraq.

The corporatist media is not telling you enough about four important story lines: the Libby trial, the purging of the US DoJ, the institutionalizing of a Christian supremacist's mercenary army as an instrument of foreign and domestic power, and the Neo-Con drive to attack Iran.

(Of course, none of the supposed "frontrunners" for the 2008 nomination have spoken boldly or directly on any of these issues either.)

If Bush and Cheney are allowed to escape the consequences (political and criminal) of violating the nation's sacred trust with its secret agents, if Bush and Cheney are allowed to take back control of the narrative by manufacuring a war with Iran, if Bush and Cheney are allowed to pursue the purging of career law enforcement, intelligence and military professionals, if Bush and Cheney are allowed to build their own private army of reich-wing, Christian supremacist mercenaries -- then the Republic could be irretrievably lost, and perhaps humankind's best hope along with it.

Here is an update on these four vital story lines. Please take the time to review the brief excerpts aggregated here and then share them with other concerned citizens.

more of this good read at..........



http://words-of-power.blogspot.com/2007/02/hard-rain-jo...

[KoKo]

33. kick...lots of good reading from OP and inside the thread...n/t

[KoKo]

34. Another kick for late night crowd..........

[jen4clark]

36. Thanks for the kick!

Would have missed it otherwise.

And another one to keep it going!

:kick:

[Cameron27]

35. Thank you,

a must read!

K&R

edit: too late to recommend :-(

[Tom Rinaldo]

37. One thing 2002 taught me regarding an approaching war

...is that framing matters. Some type of warning system can probably be deviseed for predicting when U.S. military action against another nation is approaching by monitoring the freuency by which members of our government refer to the leaders of other nations in direct derogatory terms. An uptick in calling one a "dictater" should be a flashing yellow light. An uptick in calling one a "madman" should be a flashing red light.