{"id":8526,"date":"2010-11-12T13:35:36","date_gmt":"2010-11-12T21:35:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=8526"},"modified":"2010-11-12T13:35:36","modified_gmt":"2010-11-12T21:35:36","slug":"friday-iran-talking-points-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2010\/11\/12\/friday-iran-talking-points-14\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday Iran Talking Points"},"content":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog<\/a>: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for November 12th, 2010:<\/em><\/p>\n

Commentary<\/a><\/em>: Commentary Magazine<\/em> executive editor Jonathan S. Tobin, hits back against a column by Alon Pinkas, Israel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s former consul general in New York. Pinkas wrote on Politico<\/a> that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pro-Republican leanings, yet again illustrated by Bibi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s remarks at the General Assembly of North American Jewish Federations<\/a>, undermined bipartisanship, including his callfor the U.S. to assert a threat of force against Iran. Tobin says that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153such arguments are nonsense\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153by decrying the claim of some Republicans that some Democrats have been unsupportive of Israel, all Pinkas is doing is demonstrating that he dislikes the GOP and sympathizes with the Democrats.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Tobin contend both Democrats and Republicans have made pledges that Iran will never acquire nuclear weapons, and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153[c]ontrary to Pinkas\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s assertion, accountability is the one thing all friends of Israel should welcome.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The National Interest<\/a><\/em>: Heritage Foundation<\/a> fellow Ariel Cohen has an NI piece opposing ratification of the New START treaty. He argues that restrictions on ballistic missile defense (alleged), ambiguous language, and a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153significant degradation of the START verification regime\u00e2\u20ac\u009d will \u00e2\u20ac\u0153 limit U.S. defense options not vis-\u00c3\u00a0-vis Russia, but North Korea, China, and in the future, Iran.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Cohen asserts that New START is a result of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Obama\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s vision of a world without nuclear weapons,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153there is a significant probability that if Obama allows Iran to acquire a nuclear-weapons capability, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and possibly Turkey will develop their own nuclear weapons.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Cohen has advised the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET), a neoconservative organization that helped distribute<\/a> the Clarion Fund<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Islamophobic \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Obsession\u00e2\u20ac\u009d film.<\/p>\n

Foreign Policy<\/a><\/em>: Former AIPAC <\/a>spokesperson Josh Block writes: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The rise of Iranian influence in Lebanon is particularly dangerous at this moment, when moderate Arab countries are desperately looking for the United States to contain Iran.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), a court set up by agreement between the UN Security Council and the Lebanese government, is investigating the assassination of Rafik Hariri and is expected to indict members of Hezbollah. Block warns that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hezbollah will stop at nothing to prevent indictments from being handed down.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Block urges the the United States to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ensure that the Special Tribunal goes forward, prosecuting those it indicts.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as well as supportg pro-democracy civil society and media. He concludes: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153[T]he administration must make a clear public signal that the United States will not sit on the sidelines while Iran, through its satraps Syria and Hezbollah, successfully exports the Iranian revolution to Lebanon.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The Washington Times<\/a><\/em>: Shaun Waterman reports on how the incoming Republican-led House Foreign Affairs Committee will pressure the Obama administration on the implementation of sanctions against Iran, thus underminng Obama\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s attempts at diplomatic outreach to Tehran. Waterman quotes Foundation for Defense of Democracies<\/a>‘ Mark Dubowitz, who predicts \u00e2\u20ac\u0153we can expect a very relentless and determined focus on holding the administration\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s feet to the fire.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Dubowitz adds: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It is useful for the administration to have Congress play the bad cop\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in its dealings with Iran.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for November 12th, 2010: Commentary: Commentary Magazine executive editor Jonathan S. Tobin, hits back against a column by Alon Pinkas, Israel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s former consul general in New York. Pinkas wrote on Politico that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pro-Republican leanings, yet again illustrated by Bibi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s remarks at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-8526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8526"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8527,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8526\/revisions\/8527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8526"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}