You’re either with us, or against us

Just like clockwork, with the AIPAC policy conference set to begin this weekend, Congress has introduced a new round of draconian Iran sanctions. 

S.908 and H.R.2194 would allow the President to shut down all operations of any businesses inside the US that have any connection to Iran’s petroleum industry.  That includes any company that helps ship the petroleum to Iran, the company that builds the boat that ships the petroleum, the insurance brokers who underwrite the boat that ships the petroleum…it goes on and on.  You’re all no longer welcome here in the US of A, thank you very much.

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ) put it bluntly to our allies — many of whom we’re asking for help from on any number of important things like Afghanistan, the economy, etc:

“You can either do business with Iran’s $250 billion economy or our $13 trillion economy, but not both.”

Eerily reminiscent of another “with-us-or-against-us” approach, no?

House Foreign Affairs Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA), the lead sponsor of the House sanctions bill, struck a bit milder tone with his press release this evening, saying:

I fully support the Administration’s strategy of direct diplomatic engagement with Iran, and I have no intention of moving this bill though the legislative process in the near future.  In fact, I hope that Congress will never need to take any action on this legislation, for that would mean that Iran at last has complied with the repeatedly-expressed demand of the international community to verifiably suspend its uranium enrichment program and to end its pursuit of nuclear weapons once and for all.

Forgetting for a moment that Obama’s intelligence chief has said Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapons program to end…and looking past the fact that Berman is just repeating the Bush administration’s failed demand that Iran give up its uranium enrichment…whether it is deliberate or not, this new legislation hurts Obama’s diplomatic effort.

Many in Congress see this as a way to play “good cop, bad cop.”  But there is a danger that the bad cop won’t let the good one get a word in edgewise.  After thirty years, eight Congressional statutes, and over forty Presidentially-imposed sanctions, we can’t even let Obama open his mouth to talk to Iran without shouting him down with a call to cripple Iran’s economy?

The fact is, it’s not the threat of new sanctions that will change Iran’s behavior; it’s the promise of lifting the existing ones that will evoke good behavior.  That’s how it worked with Libya and South Africa.  We already have enough leverage to solve this problem, what we need is a Congress that will stay out of the President’s way.

Ahmadinejad’s campaign slogan: “Yes, We Can”

from the Guardian:

Obama’s signature campaign slogan, Yes We Can, has been replicated by the Iranian president in a promotional video issued for Iran’s presidential poll on 12 June, when Ahmadinejad is seeking reelection.

The video features a cover picture of Ahmadinejad wearing his trademark white jacket and pointing to the Farsi phrase Ma Mitavanim (We Can) on a blackboard. The film is aimed at students and capitalises on his former status as a university lecturer.

More video stills here.  (h/t Ben Smith)

Bloggingheads: Iran’s Nuclear Motives

Our good friend Richard Parker, from the American Foreign Policy Project (of Joint Experts’ Statement fame), recently went on BloggingheadsTV over at the New York Times to debate Jacqueline Shire on the real reason Iran is intent on enriching uranium.

I think he did a marvelous job, don’t you?

House committee passes Iran divestment bill

The House Financial Services Committee just unanimously approved by voice vote H.R. 1327, the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act of 2009.  The bill authorizes state and local governments to divest public funds from companies doing business in Iran.

NIAC President Trita Parsi testified before a Financial Services Subcommittee last month, urging Congress to put the divestment effort on hold until diplomacy is given a chance to succeed.

After a decade-and-a-half of failed sanctions and economic pressure, and three decades of hostility, it is not sanctions or divestment that deserves another chance. It is diplomacy – and the opportunity to use the leverage that sanctions provide in the context of a negotiation – that should be given the space and time to succeed.

Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) said he expects the bill to go up for a vote before the full House, and that it will most likely gain a significant number of more cosponsors in the meantime.

Kerry: Diplomacy can and will work with Iran

cross posted from US News and World Report:

President Obama is right to open the door to direct engagement with Iran. Negotiations-backed by escalating sanctions to show we mean business if talks fail-are the only way short of war that we can persuade Iran to rein in its nuclear ambitions and begin building a more stable and secure Middle East.

Not talking to Iran failed miserably. With the Bush administration wrapped in a cloak of empty rhetoric and refusal to engage, Iran crossed red line after red line in its nuclear program, producing enough low-enriched uranium to eventually develop a nuclear weapon if it chooses. At the same time, Iran’s regional influence has expanded, and its radical anti-Israeli proxies Hamas and Hezbollah are more powerful, too.

Bullying is not a strategy. The Obama administration has embarked on an approach rooted in the recognition that the deeply interconnected problems of the Middle East will be resolved by more talk, not less.

Michael Rubin crosses the line by attacking prominent blogger

In a recent post at The Corner, neocon and Iran super-hawk Michael Rubin trained his sights at two colleagues of ours–Paul Kerr and Dr. Farideh Farhi–for their criticism of his April 13th Wall Street Journal op-ed.  Apparently acting purely out of malice, Rubin attacked not just the substance of their critique, but he went after Paul’s very freedom to voice his opinions on his personal blog, TotalWonkerr.

[T]his should set the record straight. I am surprised that Congressional Research Service analysts not only blog, but also engage in hackery which appears motivated by either partisanship or a desire to advocate policy rather than analyze. From now on, I certainly would take with a grain of salt CRS reports on non-proliferation if they are authored by Kerr and would question why CRS hires bloggers.

Apparently, Rubin believes that anyone who is an employee of CRS must refrain from any form of advocacy work even in their personal lives.  He acknowledges that the blog was in no way affiliated with CRS, but still felt it necessary to question whether CRS should even employ people who manage blogs on their own.

House to vote on Levinson bill

Tomorrow at around noon, the House of Representatives will debate H.Con.Res. 36, the resolution encouraging the President to engage with Iranian officials to obtain information about the whereabouts of Robert Levinson.

The vote will likely take place later in the day.

Levinson, a former FBI official, disappeared on the island of Kish in 2007.  Led by Sen. Bill Nelson and Rep. Robert Wexler, both of Florida, members of Congress have frequently raised the issue of Levinson’s disappearance with administration officials working on the Iran portfolio.

While it is still a mystery exactly what happened to Mr. Levinson, it is hoped that the Obama administration’s outreach to Iran will elicit greater cooperation from Tehran in locating the disappeared father of seven.

Ahmadinejad On “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos

Full transcript available here.

More on latest AIPAC sanctions bill

Yesterday, we reported how Congress is considering two competing approaches to the Iran issue: sanctions vs. smart power.  While I think we’ve made our position pretty well known, I thought it would be helpful to look deeper into the new sanctions bill to see exactly what it’s calling for.

Congress weighing options on Iran

As President Obama’s plan for diplomacy with Iran takes shape, members of Congress are considering whether to move beyond the previous strategy of sanctions and coercion in favor of more constructive dialogue.

The bipartisan resolution calling for an “incidents-at-sea agreement” with Iran is steadily gaining support among lawmakers, many of whom see it as a way to contribute positively to the administration’s efforts for engagement.  According to a letter circulating around Capitol Hill, H.Con.Res. 94 will serve as “an important first step towards improving the security situation in the Persian Gulf and keeping our men and women in uniform safe.”

Have you contacted your member of Congress yet to support this important resolution? Your representative needs to hear from you today!

Despite meaningful progress so far, there are still a number of lawmakers committed to pursuing the same failed policies of the past: sanctions, threats, and isolation.  For thirty years, the United States has tried to squeeze Iran, with little or nothing to show for it.  But that isn’t stopping a group of lawmakers from introducing H.R. 1985, the Iran Diplomatic Enhancement Act.

This new sanctions bill rehashes the same argument that failed last summer, when Congress tried to impose a blockade of Iran’s gasoline imports.  The new measure would impose penalties on any person or company that assists Iran’s refined petroleum industry, and would encourage foreign governments and foreign companies to boycott Iran’s energy sector.

With the backing of some of the most powerful interest groups in the country, this new sanctions bill has already gained 24 cosponsors.  Your members need to hear from you: Should Congress keep trying the same old measures that have failed for thirty years?  Or should they work for a real diplomatic solution to the Iran issue?

Tell Congress today to support effective engagement with Iran, not the same failed policies of yesteryear.  Encourage your representative to cosponsor the Incidents-at-Sea Resolution today!

Why Roxana?

cross posted from HuffingtonPost:

Tehran’s sentencing of Roxana Saberi to eight years of prison for spying has shocked people inside and outside the country. At a time when President Barack Obama is seeking a dialogue with Tehran, what kind of a signal does Roxana’s sentencing send, particularly since Iran didn’t live up to the standards of justice it has obligated itself to per the many conventions Iran is a party to?

According to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (ICHRI), the Iranian authorities didn’t even disclose the laws she allegedly violated, nor did they announce under what article of the law she is indicted.

Saberi, an Iranian-American journalist who has been living in Iran since 2003, was first arrested in January. She was charged with the crime of buying wine. The charge was later changed to engaging in illegal activities by continuing to report after her press credentials were revoked in 2006. Then, on April 13, 2009, the authorities changed the charge once more during her one-day trial behind the scenes. Now she was accused of spying for the US government.

As Hadi Ghaemi of ICHRI has pointed out, “to arrest Saberi for buying wine and suddenly uncover evidence a week before her trial that she was spying for the United States government lacks credibility.”

So why is this happening to Saberi? Most analyst agree that she has become a pawn in the political games between the US and Iran, though the explanations for Tehran’s actions differ.

Iranian Americans tell Congress to prevent accidental war with Iran

Over at Peace Action West’s blog, Groundswell, our friend Rebecca recounts a couple of recent meetings with prominent members of Congress on the importance of an Incidents-at-Sea agreement with Iran.

Wednesday our stellar group of activists, including two Iranian-Americans and an American who had lived in Iran for 11 years, met with Rep. [Henry] Waxman. …We thanked Rep. Waxman for his strong voting record on our issues and for his efforts to raise concerns about a dangerous sanctions bill last year, and urged him to strongly support direct diplomacy with Iran without preconditions or a short timeline.

Did you know that it was this easy to meet with your member of Congress?  We at NIAC are looking for concerned members of the community to sit down with elected officials and tell them what’s on your mind.  Iranian Americans have a unique perspective, and members of the House of Representatives need to hear it.  How else will they know just how disastrous a war with Iran would be?  How else will they know the negative effect of thirty years of sanctions and isolation on the Iranian people?  How else will they know what you, their constituents, want?

If you want to see real change in Washington’s approach to our most important issues, get in touch with us here at NIAC and we’ll schedule a meeting for you with your member of Congress.  Just email Michelle at MMoghtader@Niacouncil.org and start getting involved!