Opinion -- No War With Iran

By Josh Smead

Two Republican presidents in my lifetime have claimed that the threat of weapons of mass destruction justifies attacking or invading nations on the other side of the world. So I ask: Are we now at war with Iran?

Congress failed us 24 years ago by granting President Bush sweeping war powers after 9/11 — powers that bypassed a formal declaration of war. Now, President Trump is abusing that same authority.

If America is going to attack another nation, especially when nuclear weapons could be involved, we must follow the Constitution. Congress must vote. The American people deserve that accountability.

Our future depends on reining in these aging men who won’t live to face the full consequences of their warmaking. The President must be held fully accountable for confirming and destroying any nuclear threat. While the buck should stop at the Oval Office, it’s the rest of us who bleed when wars begin.

Josh Smead is a Democratic candidate for Congress for the Missouri 6th District.

 

Editorial -- Group of 50 Begs for War With Iran

While Joe Biden continues to play nuclear chicken with Russia and escalate the conflict there, and Nancy Pelosi grandstands for war with China over Taiwan, a third group of people, 50 congresspeople led by Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), is clamoring for war with Iran.

In 2018, President Donald Trump tore up the Iran Deal, one of the signature achievements of the Obama Administration, and three times brought us to the brink of war. In 2020, Joe Biden ran on a platform of returning to that deal, which he has been dragging his feet on ever since. For anyone who thinks that our belief that the US is sleepwalking into a four front war with Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea is far-fetched, Mr. Gottheimer’s letter is an eye opener. 

His logic is that Iran and paramilitary allies like the Revolutionary Guard are state sponsors of terrorism and thus can’t be trusted. But assuming that he is correct, that makes it all the more important that we have a verifiable agreement in place to ensure that Iran can never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. 

And even if Iran is supportive of Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, it is not in Russia’s interest to have a nuclear armed neighbor to its south. Russia started two wars, in Afghanistan in 1979 and in Ukraine this year, based on their belief that nuclear missiles were about to be stationed on their border five minutes from Moscow. If Iran suddenly fell to a coup and a new government was hostile to Moscow, the same thing would happen. There has been plenty of unrest in Iran in recent years, so this scenario is not far fetched.

The occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan have drained the US treasury of trillions of dollars in reserves that could have been used to build roads and bridges, fund schools, and create energy independence from the likes of Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. Given that Iran is three times the population, the cost of prosecuting such a war, even if the US were not already on the brink of war with Russia and China, would be astronomical. How does Mr. Gottheimer and his gang of 50 propose to pay for such a war? He won’t say, let alone what sacrifices we should be expected to make in the event that war breaks out between the US and Iran.

Editorial -- Nancy Pelosi Wants War With China

So apparently, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi now thinks she is the President. As part of a tour of Asia – something that normally presidents do – CNN reports as of Monday afternoon that she is expected to visit Taiwan, along with four other congresspeople. The Wall Street Journal reported this as well.

If Russia is the clear and present danger to Europe that Putin’s biggest critics charge, then what is Speaker Pelosi doing throwing gas on an already tense situation between the US and China, two nuclear powers, over Taiwan, a place that the US acknowledges is part of China? All this does is risk dragging the US into a two front war between the US, Russia, and China, one that they cannot win. And it could turn into a four front war if Iran and North Korea decide to take advantage of the situation. Or maybe Speaker Pelosi, who has access to classified intelligence that we don’t, knows something we don’t. Maybe the threat from Russia has been blown completely out of proportion.

Those who point to parallels between now and the late 1930’s, when Nazi Germany was threatening to unleash war, miss a key difference – the US, Russia, and China are all nuclear powers. Nobody would win such a war. We’d all burn. That is why the US and Russia, back when saner heads were in power, got together in 1987 and agreed that such a war must never be fought. Putin is a bully, but he is not suicidal.

And this illustrates the wrongheadedness of Joe Biden’s policy of sticking it to the Russians and simultaneously escalating tensions with China, Iran, and North Korea. Even if he wouldn’t personally start a war between the US and any of these countries, the next President might. For instance, Hillary Clinton (D) and John Bolton (R) never met a war they didn’t like. And there are always wanna-be presidents like Speaker Pelosi who are more than happy to escalate already high tensions between the US and China. In 1914, it took one hotheaded person to plunge Europe into war.

Editorial -- Joe Biden’s Four Front War?

So apparently, not content with sticking it to the Russians anymore, Joe Biden is escalating tensions against even more enemies. First, he is sending arms to Taiwan, which China views as sovereign territory, and daring them to invade. There is always a threat that North Korea’s missile tests will flare into open warfare. The battle in Ukraine rages on, with both sides thinking they are winning.

Now, egged on by Israel and Saudi Arabia, Joe Biden says that the US is prepared to “use all elements of its national power” to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon. Yes, the same Saudi regime that chops peoples’ heads off like ISIS did, and which invades neighbors it doesn’t like, like Putin does. Yes, the same regime which produced 15 of the 19 hijackers who were involved in the 9/11 attacks.

Even if none of Iran, Russia, China, or North Korea were nuclear armed powers, this would be a drastic overextension of US power. Israel is a nuclear power. If Iran is such a clear and present danger, then let Israel launch an attack on Iran and dismantle its nuclear program. The fact is that we simply can’t afford to get involved in a two front war, let alone the four front war that Joe Biden is sleepwalking us into.

And this is a simple matter of right and wrong. Mr. Biden had an opportunity to rectify his predecessor’s sabotage of the Iran Deal, one of the best achievements of the Obama Administration. But the fact that he is escalating tensions with Iran means that Mr. Biden is a lot more like Donald Trump than he cares to admit. The only things missing are the mean tweets and the mobs willing to storm the Capitol if they don’t get their way. Keeping one’s word is essential in politics or any other profession. No wonder relations between the US and countries like Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, none of which we can afford a war with, are deteriorating. And no wonder nobody likes Mr. Biden.

Chris Hedges, a former Middle East bureau chief for the New York Times and a Pulitzer Prize winner, notes that if war were to break out between the US and Iran, 2 million Shiites throughout the Middle East would join the war against the US. Iran would use its missiles to shut down the Straight of Hormuz, which is the corridor for 20% of the world’s oil, driving up oil prices to $500 to $750 a barrel, meaning gas prices could go up to as high as $20 a gallon.

And Mr. Hedges notes that the US would have a hard time winning a war against Iran alone, let alone three other powers like Russia, China, and North Korea. In 2002, the US spent $250 million to simulate a war with Iran, in which kamikaze attacks destroyed 16 US warships in under 20 minutes. They tried to change the rules so that Iran couldn’t shoot down our aircraft, while the US had access to some weapons that don’t exist, such as airborne laser weapons. The last military commander who played around with divisions and weapons that didn’t exist was named Adolf Hitler in the last days of his Third Reich. Despite their “wonder weapons,” the US still couldn’t win thanks to the guerilla tactics of the Iranians.

And none of these exercises took into account what would happen in a two front war, let alone a four front war. And they also didn’t take into account the fact that Iran has one of the biggest drone fleets in the world.

Editorial -- The Iran Deal

Reason number 999,999 why nobody likes Joe Biden – he can’t be counted on to keep his word. While Barack Obama was President, he lived up, for once, to his promise to keep us out of wars by striking the Iran Deal, which limits Iran’s ability to make a nuclear weapon, which protects one of our closest allies in the region, Israel, from attack.

But when he took office, Donald Trump broke the deal in 2018. When he ran for office in 2020, Joe Biden promised he would heal the soul of the nation. He promised he would return to the Iran Deal. But once he took power, Joe Biden broke his word. 

This is the problem with Joe Biden in a nutshell. He is happy to promise whatever people want to hear when he comes for your votes, but when it actually comes time to do something, he does what his handlers in the Military Industrial Complex want. And besides, given his desire to “stick it to the Russians,” anything that the Russians support, he is automatically against.

While the present administration does not seem interested in conflict with Iran, there is no guarantee that a future administration won’t start one. Donald Trump, on three occasions, brought us to the brink of conflict with Iran. 

In 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin set out on a course of conflict with the West at the Munich Security Conference, and one of his main excuses was the conflict in Iraq. Continuing to refuse to bargain in good faith with the Iranians when it was the US which broke its word will only give President Putin and other dictators like him further excuses to refuse to listen to the US.

Opinion: U.S. Should Steer Clear of Syria

by Sheldon Richman

 

We should be grateful that the Obama administration seems disinclined to intervene militarily in Syria. But let’s note that the administration has not kept hands off. In a variety of ways, it is already aiding the rebels. Moreover, White House spokesman Jay Carney says that all options — even military intervention — are on the table.

 

Americans should feel uneasy as long as that ominous table remains in the White House.

 

Naturally, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney never appears hesitant about going to war. He calls for “more assertive measures to end the Assad regime” in Syria. But he and his foreign-policy advisers, George W. Bush neoconservative retreads, have no idea what ending the al-Assad regime would mean. Let’s recall that Romney’s team includes some of the same people who thought Iraq would be a “cakewalk,” with the Iraqis throwing rose petals at the invading American forces. It didn’t quite work out that way. More Americans died in Iraq than died on 9/11, which, by the way, Iraq had nothing to do with. (Over a million Iraqis died, directly and indirectly, because of the war, and millions remain refugees.)

 

For now at least, the White House, through Carney, has it right:

 

The concern is that further militarization of the situation in Syria could lead to greater chaos, could make it harder to achieve the political transition that the Syrian people deserve. The nature and shape of and membership of the opposition are still something that we and our partners are assessing....

 

This is not to say that the rule of Bashar al-Assad is a matter of indifference to decent people. Far from it. He’s a brutal dictator from a minority sect. But no one can know what would follow his overthrow, especially one engineered by the U.S. government. Just to indicate how murky things are, al-Qaeda and Hamas — two groups the U.S. government is hardly fond of — support the rebels. Rebellions make for strange bedfellows. If the Taliban were to announce its opposition to al-Assad, the irony would be complete.

 

Iran, on the other hand, is al-Assad’s ally, which probably explains in large measure why the U.S. government wants al-Assad gone. Knocking him out would presumably deal a blow to Iran, and both the Obama administration and the Romney camp would like nothing more. That’s how deep the animosity toward Iran runs.

 

One can’t understand the U.S. anti-Assad stance apart from the Iranian context. The so-called talks between the Islamic Republic and the U.S. government plus five other countries over Iran’s nuclear enrichment are showing all the signs of a sham. Keep in mind that U.S. and Israeli intelligence say Iran is not building a nuclear weapon, and has not even decided to do so. In fact, its leader has issued a fatwa against nuclear arms.

 

The Obama administration, pressured by Congress, which is in turn pressured by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has imposed harsh trade sanctions on the Iranian people. This economic warfare is undoubtedly taking its toll on children, the elderly, pregnant women, and the infirm.

 

So, what are the talks aimed at? They are little more than a show in which the Obama administration insists that Iran stop doing what any signer of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has the recognized prerogative to do: enrich uranium for medical and energy purposes. Iran complies with the NPT and submits to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. But that’s not good enough for President Obama or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel has over 200 nuclear warheads, is not a signer of the NPT, and never submits to inspections. Moreover, any other country that acquired a nuclear arsenal the way Israel did would have been condemned by the United States.

 

The U.S. government — and most of the news media — take as an unquestionable article of faith that virtually anything that happens in the world is America’s business. Over the years, that position has brought untold death and destruction to the Middle East, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. It’s time America gave up its imperial pretensions.

 

Sheldon Richman is senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation (www.fff.org) and editor of The Freeman magazine.

McCaskill Leads Bipartisan Effort to Prevent Foreign Regulation of the Internet

Senator Claire McCaskill is spearheading an effort in the U.S. Senate aimed at blocking the United Nations or foreign governments from regulating the internet.

Citing the potential impacts on internet freedom and on technology jobs in the U.S., McCaskill has joined with Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, in taking leadership on this issue. The two have introduced a Senate resolution to make clear that the United States opposes allowing any international body or foreign country to have jurisdiction over internet management or regulation.  

Non-profit, non-governmental entities currently regulate and oversee the Internet, keeping the global network out of reach of any one government or international body. However, recent proposals—including some by the governments of Russia, China, and Iran—would turn some of the most critical Internet functions over to the United Nations, which could negatively affect innovation and dramatically expand the power of foreign countries to limit or censor speech within their borders.

“The technology sector is a true bright spot in our economy today, and now is no time to impose international regulations that could restrict growth,” McCaskill said.  “And beyond the economic impacts, I’m not interested in giving oppressive regimes an even greater ability to restrict what their citizens can see, hear, share, and communicate.”

Similar resolutions have been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, affirming that the United States should preserve, enhance, and increase access to an open, global internet.

The resolutions come ahead of a December meeting of the International Telecommunication Union, the United Nations agency responsible for communication technologies. The conference is tasked with renegotiating the International Telecommunications Regulations, which provide a framework for global telecommunications, and have not been amended since being written in 1988.

A copy of McCaskill’s bipartisan resolution is available on her website, HERE.

Opinion: Hillary's Loose War Talk

By Sheldon Richman
Future of Freedom Foundation

When President Obama spoke before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee some weeks ago, he admonished those who engaged in “loose talk of war” about Iran. Apparently, his secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, didn’t get the memo.

The Associated Press reported this week,

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made clear Saturday that time is running out for diplomacy over Iran's nuclear program and said talks aimed at preventing Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon would resume in mid-April. With speculation over a possible U.S. or Israel military attack adding urgency to the next round of discussions in Istanbul set for April 13, Clinton said Iran's “window of opportunity” for a peaceful resolution “will not remain open forever.”

She also expressed doubt about whether Iran has any intention of negotiating a solution that satisfies the U.S., Israel and other countries that believe Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons.

That’s another memo Clinton seems not to have received. Both American and Israeli intelligence say that Iran has neither started to build a nuclear weapon nor even decided to do so in the future. Both also regard the Iranian government as a “rational actor.” (The American news media occasionally reports this, but then goes back to stating, as though it were uncontroversial, that Iran is building a nuclear arsenal.)

So why the conflicting signals from the U.S. government? This conflict can be seen in Obama’s own statements. While he calls for diplomacy and warns against loose war talk, he has imposed harsh economic sanctions that make the daily lives of average Iranians miserable, has rejected “containment,” and boasted that he doesn’t “bluff.”

If Iran is not building a nuclear bomb, if it has not decided to do so, and if Obama wants to use diplomacy to discuss Iran’s uranium-enrichment program (which its government says is for peaceful purposes), why is he pushing sanctions designed to bring the Iranian economy down? Wouldn’t it make more sense, if there is really something to negotiate about, for Obama to treat the Iranian regime with respect?

The saber rattlers will say that sanctions are needed to get Iran to the negotiating table. But that’s an evasion. The official experts, as well as others, say no bomb is being built. Iran is doing what it is free to do under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty — enriching uranium for medical and energy purposes. It is subjected to inspections and its uranium is under seal by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

There is no constructive purpose to the sanctions and war talk. Clinton aggravates an already dangerous situation when she talks ominously about windows closing and clocks running. She sounds bent on war, with Obama just a bit less so.

Why?

Two reasons suggest themselves. It’s an election year. The Republican presidential candidate (unless it’s Ron Paul) can be expected to portray Obama as insufficiently bloodthirsty. Mitt Romney hopes we’ll ignore Obama’s expansion of the criminal drone war in Pakistan and Somalia, his due-process-free assassination of Americans in Yemen, his autocratic intervention in Libya, his continuation of the brutal occupation of Afghanistan, and his signing legislation to codify the president’s power to detain even American citizens indefinitely without charge or trial. Romney’s foreign-policy team are some of the same people who gave us the lie-based invasion of Iraq, which was responsible for the deaths of well over a million people and the creation of more than four million refugees. Word is that the presumptive candidate plans to hammer Obama on his handling of foreign affairs. According to the Washington Post, “In his speeches, Romney has proposed a more confrontational approach to China, Russia, Iran and other countries.”

The Obama campaign may have calculated that they can’t afford to look weak on Iran. Yet this is not the only reason. Israel’s top officials appear to have decided that an attack on Iran is imperative. But without U.S. help, Israel’s air force can do no more than set Iran’s (peaceful) nuclear program back for a brief time. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues his threatening talk, supported by the Israel lobby in the United States. Israel-partisans in the U.S. media routinely channel Netanyahu’s war talk to the American public in order to build sympathy for the nonexistent Iranian threat to Israel.

Obama says he wants peace not war. When will he begin to act like it?

Sheldon Richman is senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation (www.fff.org).

John Bolton says Israel should bomb Iran

John Bolton's quick fix solution for everything is to bomb people. Problem is, in reality, there are no quick fixes for the world we live in.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/bolton-israel-bomb-iran-mubarak-falls/

Opinion: John McCain for President

Opinion Pieces are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Sheridan Express.

By Chandra Hopkins


Thankfully, the election process is about to wind down! I know we are all tired of the ads, the claims and the counterclaims, the flowery rhetoric and the billions of promises that will never be kept no matter who is elected. With all of this "junk" we have to sift through, no doubt many will wonder if it is even worth it to go to the polls.
It is our duty to participate in this important process. Many have fought for the right to cast their ballot and for all Americans to do the same. It is also important to be an informed voter. It is our responsibility to make sure that we know who and what we are voting for. Every election is important but this election is one of the most serious we have faced. We are faced with electing a leader of this great nation at a time in history when the consequences of our actions will have an enormous effect on generations to come. How then, are we to choose who would be the best leader based on all the political campaigns? It is hard to sort through and find the truth. When the truth is hard to find the best place to find it is in the facts. Facts cannot be changed and they will not go away. They are what they are.
Neither candidate running for president was my choice. I disagree with them both on several issues. However, there is a clear choice. No matter what the talking heads and spin doctors say, there are facts that cannot be ignored. Barrack Obama is a candidate that scares the daylights out of me. There are so many issues that are deal breakers just by themselves! No matter how many times Obama's supporters tell you that things you question are irrelevant to his presidency, the issues remain and must be considered. How many of us would sit in a church for 20 years listening to our minister spew hate and tell us how horrible our country was? How many of us would sit on a so called educational foundation with someone who bombed our pentagon and ran an underground domestic terrorist organization and have that very person launch our political campaign from his living room? How many of us would be so naive to think that Iran is just a little country who couldn't hurt us? How many of us would have the nerve to run for president of the greatest country in the world and go to Germany and tell them how bad the United States is and to constantly run our country down? How many of us would let a baby born alive when an abortion is botched and want a law to let that child die because that was the original intent of having an abortion?
Doesn't it make you a little nervous that Barack Obama attracts people like Rev. Wright, Louis Farrakhan, Father Pflager, Bernadine Dorn, Bill Ayers, Hugo Chavez (dictator of Venezuela) Fidel Castro, the American Communist party, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (crazy man leader of Iran), the Hollywood leftist crazies and a host of other socialists, Marxist wing nuts? What is it about him that they subscribe to? I would venture to say that Mr Obama has the same ideas about "sharing the wealth" that socialists share. Give your money to the government and they will see to it that it is shared equally as they see fit to all Americans. Is that really what you want? Obama is running on "hope and change".....if he is elected we can "hope" that we all have a little "change" left when he gets finished "redistributing" our hard earned paychecks!! There are so very many flaws in his thinking that it would take more than a newspaper column to get it all covered. If you consider just the few things I have mentioned, there should be no doubt that there is sufficient reasons to vote for John McCain.
John McCain loves this country. It is abundantly apparent and is not something you have to wonder about. He would always have the best interests of our country in the forefront of all his decisions. We may not always agree with him but I would always be comfortable in knowing that he will be making decisions for the people of this great country and will not be thinking about being a global president. We are electing the president of the United States not the next president of the world!! Obama has delusions of turning America into Europe and of himself being the world's leader. John McCain knows that we are a capitalistic country and that socialism will not work. Our forefathers didn't set out to make us like Europe...that is why they founded a free country!
Barack Hussein Obama is an extreme socialist liberal. He is someone who is constantly apologizing for our actions and blaming America for all that is bad in the world. Liberalism has run amok enough in our country! If Obama would be elected, there would be no way to stop the insanity with congress being controlled with the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and the other liberals in charge. It is time to take it back and reclaim it for the most blessed, most generous and greatest country in the world! I urge you to vote for the man who loves his country and has proven it, who has the most common sense ideas and who will stand up for the ideals our founding fathers set forth for us years ago. For our country's sake, vote for John McCain.