https://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12944

June 6, 2008
Obama Capitulates to the Israel lobby by Justin Raimondo

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's visit to the U.S. is part of a concerted effort, by the Israeli government and its American lobbyists, to convince U.S. lawmakers and, most of all, President George W. Bush that the time to attack Iran is now. The Israeli newspaper Yediot Achronot reports that Olmert will tell Bush "time is running out" on diplomacy and that he'd better launch an attack.

In his speech to the AIPAC conference, Olmert's message was harsh and unrelenting: Iran, he said, "must be stopped by all possible means" from acquiring a nuclear capability. Yes, sanctions must be tightened, but these are only "initial steps": what's needed, he averred, are "more drastic and robust measures" and that can only mean one thing.

Israel would rather not act alone, but Olmert signaled that he was willing to do so if pushed: ""Israel will not tolerate the possibility of a nuclear Iran, and neither should any other country in the free world," he declared, in what was clearly a threat of unilateral action. Citing Israel's record in regard to Iraq in the eighties and Syria last year, Tim Butcher warned in the Telegraph: "The speech shortens the odds significantly on military action against Iran's nuclear program."

The U.S. would almost certainly be drawn into the conflict if Israel carried out its threat, and Olmert knows that. So does Bush, who, in any case, may not need much persuading. After all, in his speech to the Israeli parliament last month, the President declared:

"Permitting the world's leading sponsor of terror to possess the world's deadliest weapons would be an unforgivable betrayal for future generations. For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon."

For the sake of peace, we must make war: a familiar refrain that echoes down through the years, mocking the living and the dead.

The clock is ticking, and time is running out for the War Party: they must get in their licks before the most pro-Israel president, ever, leaves office. As Butcher writes: "Among Israeli supporters of military action against Iran there is concern something must be done before Mr. Bush's end of office next January as Mr. Bush is perceived as closer to Israel than any potential successor." Don't look to Barack Obama for deliverance from this looming conflict. In his
speech to AIPAC, he clearly signed on to the Lobby's latest project, departing from his prepared text to declare:
"I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear
weapon. Everything in my power. Everything."
"Everything" includes murdering tens of thousands of Iranians, mostly
civilians driving the price of oil up above $300 a barrel and destroying the
US economy and involving us in a war that will make the
Iraq conflict look like a Sunday school picnic. And for what?
The irony, of
course, is that Iran is nowhere near obtaining nuclear weapons, as the President's
own intelligence agencies recently
informed him: but no matter. That's a small obstacle to those who disdain "the
reality-based community," and see themselves as Making History while the rest of
us watch, helpless and aghast.
As Ha'aretz recently reported
"Olmert will try to convince Bush to set aside the National Intelligence
Estimate on Iran's nuclear program in favor of data presented by Israel, and
determine the administration's policy on Iran accordingly."
The coming war with Iran has nothing to do
with "weapons of mass destruction" no more than the invasion of Iraq ever did.
It's all
about preserving Israeli
hegemony in the Middle East by wiping any and all recalcitrant Arab-Muslim
states off the
map. First Iraq, then Iran and Syria will have its turn soon enough, along
with poor prostrate Lebanon, once
the jewel of the eastern Mediterranean and now an economic and political basket
case.
It is almost certain we will be at war with Iran before a new President is
inaugurated: now that Obama has capitulated to the Lobby, nothing but Divine
Providence can stop it.
God help us all.
I have to say I was wrong dead wrong about Obama.
In my eagerness to find a bright spot in a rapidly darkening world, I grasped on
to his alluring rhetoric and his at-times trenchant critique of the Bush foreign
policy, like a sinking man holding on to a life-jacket. But looking for hope in
all the wrong places doesn't create opportunities for peace it only prolongs
our illusions. We must face the prospect of a much more terrible conflict than
we have ever known, and look it squarely in the face, without flinching or
looking for false messiahs. I know many of you are disappointed, and some of you
are now exclaiming "I told you so!" All that we can do now is hope, and pray,
that our country and the Iranian people will somehow survive the coming
catastrophe.
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
I'm sitting here looking at the just-published
reprint of my 1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of
the Conservative Movement, and it sure is handsome! With a great painting by Jasper Johns on the cover, and a new introduction by Professor George W.
Carey of Georgetown University. Here's what Ron Paul had to say about it:
"When I was deciding whether or not to run for President as a Republican,
I re-read Justin Raimondo's Reclaiming the American Right and it
gave me hope that the anti-interventionist, pro-liberty Old Right, which had
once dominated the party, could and would rise again. Here is living history:
the story of an intellectual and political tradition that my campaign invoked
and reawakened. This prescient book, written in 1993, could not be more relevant
today."
What more do you need to know? Order your copy today.
Oh, and don't forget: I'll be speaking this coming Saturday at the Future of Freedom
conference: get a day pass and please come up and say hello.
~ Justin
Raimondo