So I guess we now get to find out if there is at least one U.S. senator with the combination of a triple-digit IQ and the normal number of vertebrae.

What, 11 months before an election?

In one word... nope.

had me laughing harder at an FP blog post than I've ever laughed before - and I'm a pretty regular customer.

A former student

In another worrisome display of bad judgment, J Street has backed the bill while expressing certain reservations.

That's J Street for you - always willing to talk big on peace, but they welch away into nothing when something involving Israeli - oops, I mean American security comes up.

Actually the only question is whether the Senate will pass its version of of the Iran sanctions legislation in December, 2009 or January, 2010. The House Bill has 344 co-sponsors and will pass with an overwhelming majority. In fact, even members who voted against the House Resolution to repudiate the Goldstone Report have signed on to vote for the anti-Iran legislation.

In the Senate, the companion bill was proposed by Christopher Dodd, the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee who is an extremely tough reelection fight. The bill is co-sponsored by the Ranking Member on the Banking Committee, Richard Shelby of Alabana. The bill has already passed the Senate Banking Committee by a vote of 23-0. Using a "unanimous consent" request is merely a way to save time that is urgently needed for the health care debate and other issues. In the unlikely event that a Senator objected to the "unanimous consent" request (unlikely because while these "holds" are usually anonymous if the Senator's name came out it would put him/her in a very untenable position politically) it would merely delay the inevitable passage of the bill. If the Senate has to wait until January to pass S2799 it won't change anything; the bill is likely to pass 100-0. There is almost certainly not even one Senator who will say anything negative about the bill, let alone vote against it (even Vermont's Bernie Sanders is on record supporting S2799).

AIPAC is already working hard to insure passage in both the House and Senate. I live in South Florida and several of us have already contacted our neighbors urging them to get in touch with Senators Nelson and LeMieux (acting Senator replacing Mel Martinez)to vote in favor. The entire Florida House delegation has promised to vote "yes" as well.

To be honest, working to insure passage of this measure isn't even challenging; after all it's just a sanctions bill and according to the recent Pew poll well over 60 percent of Americans would favor U.S. military action to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Working to insure passage of the House resolution criticizing the Goldstone Report posed at least a little challenge; this one is just a slam dunk.

Call it a "lobby" all you want; I call it democracy.

Isn't the First Amendment just grand?

Arms Control Today has a good article on sanctions by Jim Walsh, Thomas Pickering, and William Luers:

http://armscontrol.org/act/2009_12/WalshPickeringLuers

Arms Control Today has a good article on sanctions by Jim Walsh, Thomas Pickering, and William Luers:

http://armscontrol.org/act/2009_12/WalshPickeringLuers

is actually very funny. One is envious because one couldn't have put it in better terms.
khairi janbek.paris/france

New U.S. sanctions towards the Islamic Republic- even if directed towards the lifeblood of its economy- will have nothing but a symbolic effect on the Iranian regime. China will simply step up and fill the void, as they have done numerous times in the past with regimes on the wrong side of America's watch (North Korea, Burma, and Sudan to name a few). What is the point of passing a new sanctions resolution if the Chinese will simply step in and take advantage of the situation for themselves? More money for the Chinese, and no change in behavior from the Iranians. Talk about a double-digit IQ.

We cannot forget about Venezuela either. Hugo Chavez has already promised Tehran 20,000 barrels of refined oil and gasoline per day from their own reserves in the event of more sanctions. So much for using the economy as an effective foreign-policy tool.

http://depetris.wordpress.com

let your intention be that He bless us with a leader or leaders with balls big enough to say what everyone knows to be true.

Israeli hawks are bleeding America to death, and we're simply laughing along and watching.

Here's an idea, instead of spending more than a trillion dollars on two wars against Muslim countries only to make more and more of them insistent on killing us, why don't we just take HALF that money and give it to every candidate for Congress so they don't have to bend over in front of the Israel Lobby every time they want to run for office?

Its pathetic fealty tests like these sanction bills that cause Muslims to hate us and insist that we aren't an impartial broker in the Middle East.

The next time one of our boys dies over there or there is an attack, know that our elected representatives have blood on their hands because of crap legislation like this.

Where does the White House stand on this madness? Just asking, for the record. Team Obama is already following down the same path the Cheney Regency took in the run-up to the gratuitous invasion of Iraq, which path was similar to that followed by Bush I and Bubba Clinton. First sanctions, combined with covert destabilization measures, then bombing and war. The purpose of our foreign policy should be uncomplicated and self-serving, while at the same time benefiting humanity: to make friends and influence people. Dale Carnegie had it right. Instead, we have this ridiculous, self-destructive behavior by Capitol Hill and the White House, largely to please the Israel Lobby in return for campaign contributions and other perks. Still, there has got to be one sane Senator left. If so, my bet would be on Robert Byrd. Let's see what happens.

Germanicus

It's interesting thinking about the motive behind this sanction movement. I seriously doubt that anyone really believes they will be effective in the way it is being sold to the public—that is, in moving Iran in "our" direction in the nuke talks.

On the other hand I suspect that anyone who has any sense of the Iranian situation believes that the real effect of these sanctions will instead be to simply inflame Iranians and their people, cut the legs out from under the dissenters there, strengthen the current regime and very possibly lead to some inflammatory situation developing.

Whoever is behind this movement for sanctions knows and desires this I thus suspect, as does the Obama administration. And so as regards the latter it seems to me this is its first real big decision it has to make in the ME.

With every other decision it has made so far there I think it has believed that it wasn't tempting fate at all, and that it knew what the consequences of same were going to be. And this includes the decision to surge in Afghanistan; at worst they think they will just reverse the decision in 18 months.

Here however it's different: No-one can overlook the possibility of the Iranians doing just about damn near anything if these sanctions are imposed. And what about the cost of oil going through the roof?

Given same I'd bet that at the very least Obama will seek to have inserted into any final bill the condition that such sanctions will not be imposed unless *he* decides to impose them. So far at least I suspect he's seen how unpredictable the consequences can be over there to words or actions that he sees as not all that important (such as saying he was opposed to any settlement expansion), and unless I miss my guess he couldn't be happy with a situation where the Congress essentially creates a casus belli for whatever that he then is looked upon as being responsible for.

Indeed, that's exactly the way he ought to look at this too if he has any smarts: A naked attempt to start a conflagration with his name written all over same.

Gee thanks guys....

For what's it worth, the impression one gets still, from reading Iranian and pro-Iranian publications, is that in the eyes of the Iranian regime, neither the west in general nor the USA in particular believe that Iran seriously intends to develop nuclear weapons. Rather, the aims of the west are to stop Iran from becoming a developed nation outside western influence, or at best, allow it to become a developed nation, but under western supervsion and dependence. Essentially, such publications claim that the west and the USA particularly, want Iran and its people to be subservient to the USA.

Also, there is a blunt indication in those publications, to the effect that Iran doesn't believe it will be attacked by the western powers, and that the US will always impose restrictions on Israel to undertake unilateral military action against Iran, despite the fact that Israel will continue to threaten Iran, not because it takes seriously the allegations of Iranian attempts to develop nuclear weapons, rather because Israel doesn't want to have its power challenged by an Islamic regime in the area. I would say, if the Iranians are wrong in their calculations, they would be in for a very big surprise.

As for the sanctions, I would agree with the assessment of fellow contributors whom think that, no form of sanctions would work against Iran, especially when we all know too well, that there are many countries whom are more than willing to be sanctions-busters for the right price, a price which is presumably, more profitable than a US boycott.
khairi janbek.paris/france

Yes, J-Street hovers over American foreign policy like a stern headmaster but in the long run that will correct itself. At some point there will come a time when a choice must be made between either American or Israeli foreign policy and security interests. PAC money and intimidation will count for little if it appears to voters that the elephant has become merely a client state mouse to Tel Aviv. This situation will remind us that ‘states cannot not have friends merely interests’.