EUROPE

In Piece Undermining Obama On Iran, ‘NYT’ Leaves Out AIPAC Connection And Dennis Ross Role At Israeli Thinktank

June 22, 2012   ·   0 Comments

Source: Mondoweiss

By Philip Weiss:

Last week MJ Rosenberg reported in “New AIPAC Letter To Sink Iran Negotiations,” that a letter being circulated in the Senate to shut down Iran negotiations was drafted by the Israel lobby group. Well, [yesterday] Mark Landler writes about that letter in the Times without informing his readers of this fact.

Landler’s article seeks to undermine Obama’s policy. His lead states, “the Obama administration is under mounting pressure to rethink a diplomatic exercise” on Iran. But where’s the pressure? The only experts Landler quotes to support his tendentious thesis are the AIPAC letter, which only got 44 signatures, and two pro-Israel zealots, Dennis Ross and Brad Sherman.

Ross is mentioned seven times. But Landler doesn’t tell the reader that Ross is co-chairman of the Israel-based thinktank, Jewish People Policy Institute. Landler:

“The issue here is, ‘How do you deal with a process that’s going to be harder and harder to justify?’ ” said Mr. Ross, who left the administration in December and is now a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “If it looks like you’re engaging in a process for the sake of process, that’s a bigger problem.”

Other critics are even blunter, labeling the talks a “charade” and demanding that Congress pass another round of sanctions against Iran. On Friday, 44 Republican and Democratic senators sent a letter to President Obama urging him to abandon the negotiations if the Moscow meeting failed to produce any concessions from Iran.

“Talks are going slowly but Iran’s centrifuges are moving quickly,” said Representative Brad Sherman, a California Democrat and member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who has taken a tough line against Tehran.

Mr. Sherman said the United States should impose sanctions against all of Iran’s banks that go beyond unilateral measures aimed at cutting off its Central Bank. Those measures, which will take effect at the end of the month, could still cause a change of heart on the part of the Iranians, administration officials say.

Claustrophobic journalism. I’d rather read Robert Wright or Larry Derfner. Wright says the Israel lobby is pushing Obama toward war. Derfner says that while he doesn’t buy the Walt and Mearsheimer theory that we wouldn’t have had an Iraq war without the Israel lobby, this war is different:

Iran is different. Israel and AIPAC have been leading the charge on this one for years, and they’re hardly hiding it - the Israeli campaign for America to get tough, tougher, toughest on Iran has been as bombastic as could possibly be. If America ends up bombing Iran first (unlikely), or being drawn into a war as a result of Israel’s bombing Iran first (much more likely), that American war will be stamped “Made In Israel” – not by Walt and Mearsheimer, but by everyone with eyes and ears in his or her head.

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.

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