Antiwar.com Blog

Ron Paul on the House Iran Resolution

Ron Paul spoke today against the House resolution on Iran.

I rise in reluctant opposition to H Res 560, which condemns the Iranian government for its recent actions during the unrest in that country. While I never condone violence, much less the violence that governments are only too willing to mete out to their own citizens, I am always very cautious about â€œcondemningâ€ the actions of governments overseas. As an elected member of the United States House of Representatives, I have always questioned our constitutional authority to sit in judgment of the actions of foreign governments of which we are not representatives. I have always hesitated when my colleagues rush to pronounce final judgment on events thousands of miles away about which we know very little. And we know very little beyond limited press reports about what is happening in Iran.

Of course I do not support attempts by foreign governments to suppress the democratic aspirations of their people, but when is the last time we condemned Saudi Arabia or Egypt or the many other countries where unlike in Iran there is no opportunity to exercise any substantial vote on political leadership? It seems our criticism is selective and applied when there are political points to be made. I have admired President Obamaâ€™s cautious approach to the situation in Iran and I would have preferred that we in the House had acted similarly.

I adhere to the foreign policy of our Founders, who advised that we not interfere in the internal affairs of countries overseas. I believe that is the best policy for the United States, for our national security and for our prosperity. I urge my colleagues to reject this and all similar meddling resolutions.

AEI Purge Provokes Neocon Smackdown?

Guest post by Daniel Luban:

On Tuesday, Danielle Pletka and Ali Alfoneh of AEI published a New York Times op-ed claiming that the real and unnoticed story of the Iranian elections is that the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) have â€œeffected a silent coup dâ€™etatâ€ overthrowing the clerics. Pletka and Alfoneh (a frequent collaborator of AEIâ€™s Michael Rubin and Frederick Kagan, who have been spearheading the think tankâ€™s anti-Iran campaign) took a notably dim view of the protestersâ€™ prospects, arguing that â€œthe uprising is little more than a symbolic protestâ€ that has been crushed by the IRGC.

But on Wednesday, Michael Ledeen lashed out at Pletka and Alfoneh, calling their op-ed â€œembarassingly sillyâ€. Ledeen argues that far from being ineffectual, the protesters are actually on the verge of toppling the Islamic Republic, and that the IRGC and clerics are united against them. (This is in line with Ledeenâ€™s longstanding view that the secular-minded and pro-American Iranian populace despises the Islamic Republic and is simply waiting for American aid to rise up and overthrow it.)

Regardless of the issues at stake, it is quite striking to see neocons go after their own in such harsh language. We suspect that Ledeenâ€™s bellicosity may have less to do with his actual policy disagreements with Pletka and Alfoneh, and more to do with the fact that Pletka is rumored to have purged Ledeen and others from AEI last year, necessitating his move to his current perch at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

Ron Paul on the War Funding Bill

On June 15, Rep. Ron Paul gave the following speech in opposition to the Democrats’ new $106 Billion war funding bill, after it was sent back to the House from the conference committee. (The bill passed Tuesday evening.):

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this conference report on the War Supplemental Appropriations. I wonder what happened to all of my colleagues who said they were opposed to the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I wonder what happened to my colleagues who voted with me as I opposed every war supplemental request under the previous administration. It seems, with very few exceptions, they have changed their position on the war now that the White House has changed hands. I find this troubling. As I have said while opposing previous war funding requests, a vote to fund the war is a vote in favor of the war. Congress exercises its constitutional prerogatives through the power of the purse.

This conference report, being a Washington-style compromise, reflects one thing Congress agrees on: spending money we do not have. So this â€œcompromiseâ€ bill spends 15 percent more than the president requested, which is $9 billion more than in the original House bill and $14.6 billion more than the original Senate version. Included in this final version — in addition to the $106 billion to continue the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — is a $108 billion loan guarantee to the International Monetary Fund, allowing that destructive organization to continue spending taxpayer money to prop up corrupt elites and promote harmful economic policies overseas.

As Americans struggle through the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, this emergency supplemental appropriations bill sends billions of dollars overseas as foreign aid. Included in this appropriation is $660 million for Gaza, $555 million for Israel, $310 million for Egypt, $300 million for Jordan, and $420 million for Mexico. Some $889 million will be sent to the United Nations for â€œpeacekeepingâ€ missions. Almost one billion dollars will be sent overseas to address the global financial crisis outside our borders and nearly $8 billion will be spent to address a â€œpotential pandemic flu.â€

Mr. Speaker, I continue to believe that the best way to support our troops is to bring them home from Iraq and Afghanistan. If one looks at the original authorization for the use of force in Afghanistan, it is clear that the ongoing and expanding nation-building mission there has nothing to do with our goal of capturing and bringing to justice those who attacked the United States on September 11, 2001. Our continued presence in Iraq and Afghanistan does not make us safer at home, but in fact it undermines our national security. I urge my colleagues to defeat this reckless conference report.

I Love the Smell of Vindication in the Morning

Lord knows, I tried to warn you: Andrew Sullivan is no peacenik. In the last 24 hours of his hysterical Iran!revolution!fascism!democracy!whiskey!sexy! typeathon, Sullivan has relapsed and rediscovered all his old drinking buddies from the Saddam!liberation!fascism!democracy!whiskey!sexy! days: Michael Ledeen, Glenn Reynolds, Michael Totten, Christopher Hitchens… What, no Laurie Mylroie yet?

Sure, sure, he also links to a Pat Buchanan piece advocating nonintervention, saying he agrees “for now,” but that’s typical of Sullivan’s fluttering, erratic style of punditry, which never pauses long enough to consider its own contradictions. But read his blog for a few hours, and you’ll get the general thrust, whether Sullivan is aware of it or not in his green delirium: something must be done!

Did Ahmadinejad Win Fair & Square – and Cheat, Too?

Juan Cole presents a compelling case that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole the Iranian presidential election altogether, pointing to the sheer lopsidedness of the results, both nationally and in specific areas, as proof of their absurdity. Robert Fisk, on the other hand, cites an Iranian friend arguing that Ahmadinejad’s victory isn’t really that hard to believe:

“The election figures are correct, Robert. Whatever you saw in Tehran, in the cities and in thousands of towns outside, they voted overwhelmingly for Ahmadinejad. Tabriz voted 80 per cent for Ahmadinejad. It was he who opened university courses there for the Azeri people to learn and win degrees in Azeri. In Mashad, the second city of Iran, there was a huge majority for Ahmadinejad after the imam of the great mosque attacked Rafsanjani of the Expediency Council who had started to ally himself with Mousavi. They knew what that meant: they had to vote for Ahmadinejad.” â€¦

“You know why so many poorer women voted for Ahmadinejad? There are three million of them who make carpets in their homes. They had no insurance. When Ahmadinejad realised this, he immediately brought in a law to give them full insurance. Ahmadinejad’s supporters were very shrewd. They got the people out in huge numbers to vote â€“ and then presented this into their vote for Ahmadinejad.”

Still, Ahmadinejad’s almost 2-to-1 victory over Mousavi is reason for skepticism. Last week, we ran a story about Ahmadinejad’s rivals complaining of too many ballots being printed, presumably for stuffing the boxes in Ahmadinejad’s favor. Is it possible that Ahmadinejad’s henchmen bought into the Mousavi hype a bit too much, cheated overzealously to avoid the predicted runoff, and then got blindsided by a much better turnout for their guy than anyone expected? That is, is Ahmadinejad’s 63% total masking a much more modest but nonetheless real majority? And will the recount reveal such a result, thereby undermining Ahmadinejad at the same time that it confirms his victory?

UPDATE: “Many experts are claiming that the margin of victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the result of fraud or manipulation, but our nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin — greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday’s election.” Read the rest.

UPDATE 2: But on the third handâ€¦

Is the War Party out to get Gen. Jones?

Steve Clemons and TNR are both reporting a move inside the Obama White House to get rid of National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones.Â Clemons says the line being pushed is that the man is just plain lazy and a bad manager (which would explain his success in government), but that

what is clear is that Jones has enemies and that they are trying to undermine his place in the Obama orbit.

Their motives may not be earnest concern about the tempo or pace of Jones’ management style — but they very well could be his unwillingness to allow the liberal interventionists inside the Obama administration to have more than their fair share of power in the Obama decision-making process.

Jones has structured an all views on the table approach to decision making — quite evident when it comes to Middle East policy — and the hawkish/neocon-friendly/Likudist-hugging part of the Obama administration’s foreign policy operation may be engaged in a coup attempt against Jones.

I don’t know if he’ll survive this latest effort to oust him — but folks need to know that those “longer knives”, on the whole, do not have pure motives.

This is why America’s founders were so intent on maintaining a standing army, so that the generals would serve as a restraining influence on the warmongering civilian thinktanker-types, right?