Chis Coons Off-The-Cuff and Unwise Decision

Courtesy of the Economist (since removed)

There is an old saying I’m fond of repeating….

It takes great courage to stand up to one’s enemies.  It takes even greater courage to stand up to one’s friend….

Chris Coons, Delaware’s Junior Senator who happens to be up for election this year, apparently lacks that amount of courage.  (The Senior Senator, with more experience, does not seem to lack that courage (maybe from all those flights in a C-135…))

The bill known as the Schumer-Kirk-Menendez Bill is a poison pill designed to break the sanctioned negotiations with Iran.  It was written, paid for, and lobbied by Israel.  It has only one purpose and one purpose only;  to put limitations on the President and Secretary of State in their negotiations over Iran’s non-proliferation….

(It is now dead btw.  It does not have enough votes to override a Presidential veto…)

Sadly it shows we have kooks in our Senate running our foreign affairs, and unfortunately for Delaware, one of ours is one…. By kooks, I mean people who sign on to a bill without reading it, (probably not one’s regular definition of kook).

But a kook he is….

Benefit for signing on?  A) money for campaigns and B) protection from the whacky Christian right (think O’Donnell)…  If the bill were dead in the water, if it were just for a show, I could see some sensibility in trying to look good to a certain “whacky” constituency.  After all, sad to say, that is political reality. One has to do, what one has to do….

But this bill would do severe damage.  This bill would allow the nuclear process of Iran to continue.  This bill would keep the sanctions in place, ensuring the nuclear process would indeed be the only option Iran would have at its disposal.

The “zero Iranian enrichment” option demanded by Netanyahu and his allies in the Senate is thus not only a non-starter in negotiating terms, but is not grounded in international law. One must assume that the AIPAC folks who wrote Kirk-Schumer-Menendez understood this, which is why they wrote their bill the way they did — not to “aid” Obama in negotiations as some senators often disingenuously claim, but to kill the negotiations.

We have been cold enemies with Iran a long time.  This negotiation is the equivalent of Ronald Reagan’s reaching out to Gorbachev earlier in our lifetimes.  Imagine if upon Ronnie’s return from Reykjavik, the US Congress bought and paid for by then Communist China, had passed a resolution saying that no thaw could occur until the Soviets dismantled everyone of their nuclear missiles and silos, and destroyed everyone of their Atomic submarines…. We’d still be at war with Russia.

That is the equivalent stupidity of what this piece of legislations does. AND CHRIS COONS SIGNED ON TO IT!  HAS HE LOST HIS FREAKING MIND?

Many of you may not remember but when Ronnie came back, there were a few hawks in the Senate who said exactly what I mentioned above.  BUT WE ALL KNEW THEY WERE KOOKS….

Like the pontifications of Ted Cruz today, nobody, nobody, nobody of any import, took them seriously.  Reagan was instead encouraged by the majority to go forward and meet with Gorbachev again…

Unlike those fine statesmen of the 80’s, our Senate is bought and paid for and according to Diane Feinstein, has apparently sworn to AIPAC put the cause of Israel above our own interests! And it is not to all of Israel’s interests they subscribe … it is strictly the war-mongering Conservative Hawks in Israel to whom they subscribe… Close to fifty percent of Israel is not Conservative!…. Simon Peres who recently passed, once led the other half of Israel, the half  which sees progress involving cooperation and diplomacy.  Israel’s Conservatives only get power when there is a crises involving war.  That is behind their drumbeat for war with Iran.  If in the middle of constant conflict, they can keep their hold of the Knesset. But once cooperation appears fruitful…. oops… out they go….

And so somehow they get Chris Coons to sign on to derailing the negotiations…. They got all the Republicans and a number of Democrats.  At one point they gloated they had 77, a veto proof majority….

The bill argues for the US to declare war on Iran, if Israel attacks it..

REALLY CHRIS COONS?  YOU SAID WE WRONGLY WENT TO IRAQ FOR 9/11. NOW YOU COMMIT US TO ANOTHER, VERY MAJOR, AND AGAINST A SMART ENEMY, A 1000 TIMES MORE POWERFUL THAN THE AFGHANISTAN TALIBAN, JUST IF ISRAEL SENDS A MISSION INTO IRAN?

The US, according to this provision, “should stand with Israel and provide…diplomatic, military, and economic support” should Israel launch a preventative war against Iran in what it deems to be self-defense. Though this language is in the nonbinding “Findings” section of the bill, its sense is to partially delegate to the government of Israel a decision that would take the United States to war with Iran. Senators report that AIPAC’s advocacy of the bill has been intensive, even by its usual standard.….

If Chris had not listened to AIPAC, and listened to Allan Loudell of WDEL he probably would have known that Iran is at the negotiation table because the Iranian people demand it, by voting for the one candidate who promised to try to end their isolation. They want to be on more friendly terms with the West. A more cooperative Iran could yield any number of real benefits, including help in stabilizing Afghanistan (which we will need on the way out), the possibility of tamping down the civil war in Syria, and perhaps above all as positive role model of a modernizing and democratizing Islamic state—something of clearly global historical significance. Not to mention economic benefits for U.S. companies…..

SO CHRIS COONS… WE HAVE A BREAK-THROUGH FOR PEACE WITH VERY TANGIBLE BENEFITS BECAUSE A DEMOCRATIC NATION THREW OUT THEIR TOTALITARIAN, AND WE GET LOCKED INTO GOING TO WAR IF THE CONSERVATIVES OF ISRAEL FEEL THE NEED TO CHALLENGE IRAN, THEN STEP BACK WHILE WE GO IN TO DO ALL THE FIGHTING?  AGAINST A DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED REGIME?

What was it I said above?   Yes.  ARE YOU FREAKING OUT OF YOUR MIND?

Lots of love back at you. Just don’t let it happen again, ok?