Massive civil disobedience and resistance is what’s required, along with increasing outreach to all sectors of society.

And now Hillary has the endorsement of Wes Clark, who though he has criticized the CONDUCT of the Iraq disaster, is praising Petraeus and beating the drums for the “next war” - i.e. unprovoked aggression - against Iran.

So no, I WILL NOT KNOCK IT OFF. I WILL NOT BE SILENT.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/04/why-is-barack-obama-buying-into-white-house-framing-on-iran/

WHY IS BARACK OBAMA BUYING INTO WHITE HOUSE FRAMING ON IRAN?

By: Nicole Belle on Tuesday, September 4th, 2007 at 9:46 AM - PDT  

  This headline made my heart sink:

HIT IRAN WHERE IT HURTS

Democratic presidential hopeful takes a get-tough stance against tyrant of Tehran

By BARACK OBAMA

“Americans need to come together to confront the challenge posed by Iran. Yet the Bush administration and an anonymous senator are blocking a bill with bipartisan support that would ratchet up the pressure on the Iranian regime. It’s time for this obstructionism to stop.

The decision to wage a misguided war in Iraq has substantially strengthened Iran, which now poses the greatest strategic challenge to U.S. interests in the Middle East in a generation. Iran supports violent groups and sectarian politics in Iraq, fuels terror and extremism across the Middle East and continues to make progress on its nuclear program in defiance of the international community. Meanwhile, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has declared that Israel must be ‘wiped off the map.’”

Hook, line and sinker.  He bought the whole thing.   Please, other than the increasingly hysterical rhetoric of the Bush White House (that is eerily similar–if not outright identical–to the 2001-2002 rhetoric against Saddam Hussein), why would Barack Obama believe that Iran is such a threat?  Given the past seven years, should Bush’s say so truly carry that much credibility?

In fairness to Obama, much of his op-ed is actually very critical of the Bush administration for their lack of diplomacy, but it hardly matters, because by accepting the Bush framing of a looming crisis against Iran, he’s given all the right wing pundits the ammo of saying, “Even that liberal Obama thinks we have to take out Ahmadinejad!”  He even justifies the threat by citing Ahmadinejad’s words against Israel, although, unfortunately, he relies on the Bush administration’s translation of Farsi, which as we’ve seen before, only has a glancing relationship with reality.

This is not to single out Obama either; all of the top tier candidates have tried to earn their “I’m not a wimpy Democrat but a strong leader” bona fides with tough talk against Iran. But this kind of talk is incredibly irresponsible and we–as the progressive community–MUST be clear with the Democratic contenders who are seeking our support that if they think the occupation in Iraq is going bad, any military actions against Iran would be like Iraq on steroids.  We’ve already seen how much damage a president with no understanding of the geo-political or cultural circumstances of an area can do.  We simply cannot afford another one.

BUSH SETTING AMERICA UP FOR WAR WITH IRAN
By Philip Sherwell in New York and Tim Shipman in Washington
Last Updated: 3:20am BST 16/09/2007

Senior American intelligence and defence officials believe that President George W Bush and his inner circle are taking steps to place America on the path to war with Iran, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt.

Pentagon planners have developed a list of up to 2,000 bombing targets in Iran, amid growing fears among serving officers that diplomatic efforts to slow Iran’s nuclear weapons programme are doomed to fail.

Pentagon and CIA officers say they believe that the White House has begun a carefully calibrated programme of escalation that could lead to a military showdown with Iran.

Now it has emerged that Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, who has been pushing for a diplomatic solution, is prepared to settle her differences with Vice-President Dick Cheney and sanction military action.

In a chilling scenario of how war might come, a senior intelligence officer warned that public denunciation of Iranian meddling in Iraq - arming and training militants - would lead to cross border raids on Iranian training camps and bomb factories.

A prime target would be the Fajr base run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds Force in southern Iran, where Western intelligence agencies say armour-piercing projectiles used against British and US troops are manufactured.

Under the theory - which is gaining credence in Washington security circles - US action would provoke a major Iranian response, perhaps in the form of moves to cut off Gulf oil supplies, providing a trigger for air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities and even its armed forces.

Senior officials believe Mr Bush’s inner circle has decided he does not want to leave office without first ensuring that Iran is not capable of developing a nuclear weapon.

The intelligence source said: “No one outside that tight circle knows what is going to happen.” But he said that within the CIA “many if not most officials believe that diplomacy is failing” and that “top Pentagon brass believes the same”.

He said: “A strike will probably follow a gradual escalation. Over the next few weeks and months the US will build tensions and evidence around Iranian activities in Iraq.”
 
Previously, accusations that Mr Bush was set on war with Iran have come almost entirely from his critics.

Many senior operatives within the CIA are highly critical of Mr Bush’s handling of the Iraq war, though they themselves are considered ineffective and unreliable by hardliners close to Mr Cheney.

The vice president is said to advocate the use of bunker-busting tactical nuclear weapons against Iran’s nuclear sites. His allies dispute this, but Mr Cheney is understood to be lobbying for air strikes if sites can be identified where Revolutionary Guard units are training Shia militias.

Recent developments over Iraq appear to fit with the pattern of escalation predicted by Pentagon officials.

Gen David Petraeus, Mr Bush’s senior Iraq commander, denounced the Iranian “proxy war” in Iraq last week as he built support in Washington for the US military surge in Baghdad.

The US also announced the creation of a new base near the Iraqi border town of Badra, the first of what could be several locations to tackle the smuggling of weapons from Iran.

A State Department source familiar with White House discussions said that Miss Rice, under pressure from senior counter-proliferation officials to acknowledge that military action may be necessary, is now working with Mr Cheney to find a way to reconcile their positions and present a united front to the President.

The source said: “When you go down there and see the body language, you can see that Cheney is still The Man. Condi pushed for diplomacy but she is no dove. If it becomes necessary she will be on board.
 
“Both of them are very close to the president, and where they differ they are working together to find a way to present a position they can both live with.”

The official contrasted the efforts of the secretary of state to work with the vice-president with the “open warfare between Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld before the Iraq war”.

Miss Rice’s bottom line is that if the administration is to go to war again it must build the case over a period of months and win sufficient support on Capitol Hill.

The Sunday Telegraph has been told that Mr Bush has privately promised her that he would consult “meaningfully” with Congressional leaders of both parties before any military action against Iran on the understanding that Miss Rice would resign if this did not happen.

The intelligence officer said that the US military has “two major contingency plans” for air strikes on Iran.

“One is to bomb only the nuclear facilities. The second option is for a much bigger strike that would - over two or three days - hit all of the significant military sites as well. This plan involves more than 2,000 targets.”

Increasing acts of civil disobedience and resistance are what is needed as well as expanded outreach to all sections of society.

“What politician in their right mind is going to argue that the United States should not punish those who are killing U.S. soldiers? Hell, even Barack Obama is on this bandwagon.“

The fact that Obama and Hillary have not come out in support of Bush’s so-far unannounced plan to bomb Iran is not the point. The point is that each of them has, on more than one occasion, stated that as president they would bomb Iran if other means did not bring Iran into compliance with their demands. Each of them has also made bellicose statements regarding other countries, and not always in response to “loaded questions” from reporters. And of far greater concern, each has expressed an intention, as president, to leave an unspecified number of troops in Iraq for an unspecified period of time. And each of them has declared the intention to significantly increase the size of the military, which is only necessary if they intend to increase the U.S. military presence abroad.

If that does not worry you, that is your business. It DOES worry me, and I WILL continue to express my concern.

That almost makes bombing Iran sound like a GOOD thing. It’s about time the U.S. was humbled a bit.

“this must not be allowed to happen.”

So, how do we stop it? By what practical steps? This is what I keep asking people who say we have to stop it, and so far no one can manage even a half-assed answer.

Thanks for explaining Obama’s statements so well, Chris.

Nope. Greetings from Hollywood. Uh, California. Cheers anyway, darlin’.

They have both made very disturbing statements about using military action against whomever not as responses to reporters’ “loaded questions”, but in their speeches and prepared statements. For example, it was in his VERY prepared, VERY planned and highly anticipated “major” foreign policy statement that Obama talked about bombing Iran if it did not come into line with U.S. demands, bombing Afghanistan (not that Bush is not already doing that), AND attacking Pakistan if Musharraf would not “take care of the problem” himself.

After that, in the same speech, he waxed Bush like in his blindness and idiocy when he declared that he knew exactly why the U.S. has such a bad image in the Muslim world, and that it was simply that people in the Muslim world only hear about the U.S. from its enemies. Doesn’t have anything to do with Muslims’ real experiences and observations of U.S. policy in action - nope, it’s aaaaaall about whose spin they are listening to. Muslims would find being treated like expendable human garbage and bombing targets by the United States actually pleasurable if only they were fed a better line of P.R. And then he detailed out his plan for a Bush style major P.R. blitz for the Muslim world, including establishing American-sponsored internet cafes - oh yeah, Muslims need MORE internet cafes than they already have! One on every street corner is just NOT enough.

And not that I am trying to conflate Hillary with Bill, but his record is far from sterling. Let us not forget that he heartlessly tormented, starved and bombed Iraqis for eight long years, so that by the time Bush got to it the country was already pretty well collapsed. I also do not like Hillary’s overall record in the Senate when it comes to the Middle East. I do not like her history of blatant pandering to Zionist groups, including publicly humiliating Muslim supporters by making a P.R. event out of returning their campaign contributions after AIPAC, ADL, and others “expressed concern” (the Jewish vote IS larger and more important, after all, than the Muslim vote) I do not like the fact that she has consistently effectively blamed Iraqis for not properly managing the ongoing and ever-worsening catastrophe since March, 2003, and she has been stupid enough to do that in front of an audience of peace activists (they booed her).

And it has not been only in response to reporters’ “loaded questions” that both Hillary and Obama have declared their intention to keep an unspecified number of troops in Iraq for an unspecified period of time (can’t let those multi-billion-dollar bases Bush built go empty, now, can we?).

And most disturbing of all, it has also not been in response to reporters’ “loaded questions” that both of them have announced their plans to significantly enlarge the military - a completely unnecessary move if they do not plan to increase U.S. foreign military involvement.

Until either one of them starts singing a very different song, they will not get my support.

Europe and the U.S. would be permanently separated, and the U.S. would necessarily be turned into a police state as well as a marginal geo-political player and an international pariah.

As an Englishman, but not a nationalist, I say this must not be allowed to happen.

Sorry [laughing], but– come over where? Where did you think I live?

Again, I point out that neither of them advocate immediate wars of aggression, they simply do not rule anything out– in answer to reporters’ somewhat loaded questions. Makes swell headlines, and gets the rubes in a lather.

Shirin, six years ago, a similarly intellectually lazy libertarian argument held that there was little difference, policy-wise, between Al Gore and Goerge Bush. Naturally, neocons loved this sort of sloppy thinking, because it helped to put their moron in the White House. The result of course, is what you do most of your complaining about, and still, you don’t see a difference.

If you want another neocon in the White House, if you want continuation of “kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out” as a foreign policy, then keep pretending that there isn’t any difference.

Neocons will thank you. I do not.