Tag Archives | Sheldon Adelson

Israel On The Offensive In Bid To Press President Obama To Attack Iran

New York, New York: It feels like Iran Week in the USA.

Using an exaggerated if fictive Iranian threat to create nuclear weapons as their pretext, Israeli politicians are blatantly and publicly inserting themselves in America’s Presidential elections, demanding that President Obama do their bidding by articulating so-called “red lines” to further threaten Tehran.

Until, now Israel has been content to mobilize its powerful lobby and media assets to apply pressure from the shadows, using political contributions and diplomacy of a covert type so that Tel-Aviv’s direct intervention could have plausible deniability. That is no longer the case.

The New York Times reports,

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel inserted himself into the most contentious foreign policy issue of the American presidential campaign on Tuesday, criticizing the Obama administration for refusing to set clear “red lines” on Iran’s nuclear progress that would prompt the United States to undertake a military strike.

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U.S. Steps Up Sanctions, Says Iran Violates International Obligations

Sheldon Adelson & family.

What are “international obligations? Does the United States have to uphold them along with other counties? Does Washington even know they are defined as “obligations owed by states to the international community as a whole, intended to protect and promote the basic values and common interests of all.” By this very definition, no one state can decide what’s best for all.

When the United States stepped up its sanctions on Iran last past week, it cited Iran’s failure to adhere to its “international obligations.” There was, of course, no reference to domestic politics where President Obama, under attack from adversary Mitt Romney, criticized his failure to stop Iran’s nuclear program.

Romney did so in Israel hoping to curry favor and donations from Jewish voters. Scholars like Juan Cole found the exercise distasteful for many reasons:

“There is a convention in US politics that you don’t criticize the sitting president, even if you are an opposition politician, while on foreign soil.

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