Under the headline “Republicans Have Minds Made Up on Day 1 of Iran Debate”, here’s The New York Tmes front-of-the-web teaser for the Iran deal hearing story:
Republicans loyal to Israel, distrustful of President Obama and wary of Iran had some sharp words on the deal long before knowing its details.
Go to the story itself, and here’s the expanded version of that thought:
Their view seems born of genuine distaste for the deal’s details, inherent distrust of President Obama, intense loyalty to Israel and an expansive view of the role that sanctions have played beyond preventing Iran’s nuclear abilities.
That is: Republicans — elected officials within the government of the United States of America — are intensely loyal to the state of Israel.
It would seem that the party of the Confederacy still has some issues on the matter of what country it serves.
Also too, what freaking clowns:
Hours after the accord was revealed — but before classified sections were made available to Congress — Republican lawmakers raced to send out news releases criticizing it.
As always, Ted Cruz does not disappoint:
Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas and a candidate for president, rushed to give interviews after the Senate briefing to excoriate supporters of the accord as expressing “partisan loyalty to the White House” before conceding that he had not asked Mr. Kerry a single question about the deal.
And Marco Rubio shows again that he is all about waaaaay more profile than courage:
For example, Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who serves on the Foreign Relations Committee and is running for president, derided the agreement before the members and departed promptly.
These are people who should not be allowed near the controls of an espresso maker, much less a superpower.
Image: Joannes Fijt, Mushrooms, before 1661
cokane
this party deserves nominee Trump, i swear
shell
Maybe Cruz is feeling pissed cause his book dropped off the best sellers list at Amazon.
Schlemazel
@shell:
Well, after you color the first few pages it becomes rather boring & you can save your crayons for fall when school starts.
BobS
It’s not just the Republicans in Knesset West that get confused about whose constitution they swear allegiance to.
Roger Moore
I think the basic picture is pretty clear: the people who oppose this deal oppose deals in general. They think the USA should be able to dictate terms to other countries and turn them into parking lots if they fail to comply. The simple act of negotiating is proof that we aren’t going to get 110% of what we want, and that’s unacceptable to them. The details don’t matter.
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore: Yes, this.
Schlemazel
This is a case where we need a guy like LBJ, a guy who knew where the bodies were buried & people knew would follow up on his threats. The world we live in today I doubt the Dems would abide a guy like him. Reed may be good but someone needs to put a boot into some of these pathetic excuses with a D after their name & point of that this is a big fucking deal.
shell
I definitely think we need some more pet pictures tonight.
Also, I also wouldnt mind a painting of mushrooms.
Turgidson
“Loyalty to Israel” should read “Loyalty to fellow neocon wacko Netanyahu.” The Obama Administration is acting in Israel’s best interests in spite of Bibi’s childish temper tantrum that he’s not getting the war he wants so very badly.
redshirt
If’n that one is a’for it, we’re agannit. Whatever it is.
Roger Moore
@Turgidson:
Or more simply “Likudnik”.
JPL
I still want Senator Johnson to explain what the hell he was talking about.
Omnes Omnibus
@JPL: To do that, he would have to know what he was talking about.
mellowjohn
to paraphrase professor wagstaff: “no matter what is if obama commenced it, we’re against it.”
JPL
@Omnes Omnibus: Didn’t he say he would send Moniz information, since Moniz was confused. I want to see that information. If Feingold doesn’t use that segment in an ad, I’ll be disappointed.
dogwood
@Schlemazel:
How many Senate D’s are going to oppose this deal?
Betty Cracker
Quoted for truth.
Another Holocene Human
Wonkette is all over the Cruz Captain Kirk flap: http://wonkette.com/591912/ted-cruz-gets-republican-jizz-all-over-your-beloved-star-trek
Mike in NC
The only flag Republicans cherish more than the Confederate flag is the Israeli flag.
Anybody remember when the former idiot governor of Alaska claimed (lied) that she displayed it in her office? Who would actually do such a moronic thing, other than a pandering imbecile?
Elizabelle
Patriotism, meet water’s edge.
Very disappointing.
jl
” an expansive view of the role that sanctions have played beyond preventing Iran’s nuclear abilities. ”
In post a couple of weeks ago at TPM, Josh Marshall pointed out the inherent and essential bad faith and/or stupidity of that criticism.
Development of nuclear weapons by Iran was either an immense threat so grave it merited the US waging an aggressive war against Iran (which entailed large risks, remember how the last one went, anyone?) or it was not. If it was such a grave threat, then the over riding and pretty much only criteria upon which to judge a treaty is whether it prevented Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Criticizing the treat because it does not do this that or the other, or because it may allow Iran to cause more, but far less important trouble, makes no sense.
Anyone criticizing the Iran treaty on that basis needs to be confronted with that problem. I wonder how many of the GOPers spouting nonsense are being confronted with common sense and known facts, and how many are allowed to scream scary nonsense uninterrupted and unchallenged. (not, BTW, a rhetorical question, how seriously are these bums being challenged in the media?)
Edit: And of course, the GOPers probably (and stupidly and senselessly) assume whole effect of the sanctions regime was due to US sanctions alone, which unlike now, is all there will be if they manage to wreck the treaty.
Mike J
So glad Berke Breathed is back:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CKnWEzIUEAASlj_.jpg:large
redshirt
Israel worship is so strange. It’s simply totemic – I doubt many repukes can even articulate why they so strongly support Israel, other than it’s part of the tribe’s commandments.
cokane
@Mike J: eh, Maher’s orangutang bit is better
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuP1e0RNF-0
not safe for dry pants
jon
@Another Holocene Human: Related.
Schlemazel
@dogwood:
Several, including Schumer, are wavering & suggesting they don’t know. At this moment it is hard to say for sure but like so many times over the last 24 years when they should be standing together and presenting united front they are instead wetting themselves and vacillating.
lamh36
ok, not “on topic”, but a great video and it’s foreign policy based?
So POTUS is on his way to Kenya and Kenyans are, no surprised, elated!
Mandalay
Mr. Asshole is between a rock and a hard place. My heart bleeds…..
I’m guessing that he will support the deal. He loves Israel, but he loves himself even more.
Schlemazel
@jon:
love that, thanks for posting!
GxB
@JPL: I know I’ve shared this story before but Feingold and Johnson had a public debate in central Wisconsin in 2010. There was more than one instance where a question was asked and Russ answered rationally. Arguments could be made about the outcome of his stance but there was logic involved. MoRon’s response on the other hand was so out of touch with observable reality the press outright laughed as the words came out of his mouth.
Didn’t change a damn thing – more than half of the electorate in this state are brain damaged and he’s an apt representative.
Cervantes
Not a surprise, and consistent with the probability that they are far less concerned about the substance of the deal and far more with the politics (and media coverage) of it.
A Republican-hater might surmise this is partly because the substance is far beyond their ability to comprehend; I couldn’t possibly comment.
Pogonip
Well, I also prefer Kirk to Picard, but not for the reasons Cruz did. Kirk seemed to enjoy Star Trekking across the universe; Picard usually seemed like he’d rather be doing something else. Kirk was just plain more entertaining. I’m guessing both actors played it as they were told to, so maybe the writers and directors of Star Trek Round Two would rather have been doing something else.
Cervantes
@lamh36:
Thanks!
Tree With Water
“It would seem that the party of the Confederacy still has some issues on the matter of what country it serves”.
Bravo.
agorabum
@redshirt: When they see Israel on the TV, it is a bunch of somewhat European looking folks beating up on arabs. And eternally occupying their land, and bombing them every now and again. And just as Israel is an expressly Jewish state, they would love America to be an expressly Christian state. What’s not to like?
lamh36
@Cervantes: Is it bad that I thought Hakuna Matata was a made up phrase…lol?
lamh36
Iowa Old Lady
@Cervantes: When you think about the consequences of deciding the Iran deal one way or the other, their cavalier attitude is horrifying. It’s like they think this is all pretend.
Pogonip
Did anybody else get a kick out of wild-eyed Gowron on Deep Space 9? There was an actor who was really having some fun.
Cervantes
@Elizabelle:
Never cared for that maxim. It was and is a perversion of basic morality.
Both political parties collaborated in some disgusting, horrible, and murderous adventures abroad. In that context, not criticizing was far from love of country; it was cowardice at best.
Cervantes
@lamh36:
No, it’s not — and I’m glad for any opportunity to learn.
Another Holocene Human
@jon: I am dying right about now. Oh god, the fucking golf course. And I had no idea he had grifted a cool $32 mill for a vapor development in the Southwest. Shweet.
Cervantes
@Iowa Old Lady:
And when our corpses pile up and our wounded veterans shuffle home, they will be ignored, too.
And that’s completely leaving aside any consideration of the case from Iran’s point of view — something these geniuses are completely unable, therefore unwilling, to do.
boatboy_srq
@BobS:
I am so stealing that.
RaflW
I think Cruz could operate a Keurig. I’m not sure about Rubio.
boatboy_srq
@jon: Wonderful, accurate and timely.
boatboy_srq
@Pogonip: Picard would rather have been growing grapes and making wine (family enterprise) or digging up ancient cultures’ bits and bobs (scholarly pursuit). He was supposed to be the cantankerous old guy (reformable Scrooge without the nasty bits) who warmed to his young(er) crew. The idea was to hammer home that the Federation was about learning and discovery. Not exactly one of TNG’s selling points IYAM.
Cervantes
@RaflW:
Rubio’s already dehydrated. He doesn’t want coffee.
boatboy_srq
@Cervantes: Those grapes; they’re so sour.
Pogonip
@boatboy_srq: What does IYAM stand for?
I largely gave up on Star Trek Next Generation after the first few episodes but then heard it improved so watched the Really Good Ones, the four-lights one and so forth. It had improved–certainly it had nowhere to go but up from its very poor start–but I still thought the original was more entertaining and fun. At our house we preferred Deep Space Nine as it had more aliens. There were at least two orher Star Treks but we never saw those.
The Other Bob
Please tell me why I, as a non-religous American should give a shit about what happens to Isreal other than my general sympathy for the young people who have had the misfortune of being born into that shit hole part of the planet?
Brachiator
Isn’t this the entire Republican party?
And the description is doubly and ironically apt in that it puts loyalty to Israel first, and entirely omits loyalty to the United States of America. Did Israel become a superstate while we weren’t looking?
The sad thing here is that the Republicans have fully internalized the most savagely primitive doctrine of the Bush Administration, that distrust of a Middle Eastern nation which you cannot control through proxy rulers must be approached with a war footing. If Iran will not bend to our will, we must rattle sabers and consider ways of destabilizing the government or invading the country.
And loyalty to Israel really means being its patsy (as was in some ways our relationship with Pakistan).
And worst of all, distrust of Obama has an awful racial dimension. Republicans and the Netanyahu government love to dismiss Obama as weak or naive. But worst of all, it seems clear that if Obama was a white man, a good Romney WASP, he would not first seek peaceful or diplomatic means of dealing with Islamic nations. He can’t be trusted because he is the Other, and potentially one of THEM, not one of “us.” So to oppose Obama is the patriotic duty of every Republican since Obama’s efforts is a direct rejection of American Exceptionalism, the idea that White America (and those nonwhites who have fully assimilated WASP values) is and must be now and forever better than everyone else.
Cervantes
@Brachiator:
No, we were looking.
And did nothing about it.
BobS
@Brachiator: Apparently you weren’t looking in 2014 when the US Senate gave unanimous support for the Israeli invasion of Gaza. Or in 2009 when the Democratically controlled House and Senate gave near unanimous consent for another Israeli invasion of Gaza. Or in 2006 when the Senate gave unanimous consent for the most recent of Israel’s several invasions of Lebanon. Etc…
Roy G.
@redshirt: The bags of money and hookers also help. Of course, the video of the hooker play is the gift that keeps on giving for the Israeli lobby – fish meet hook.
Chris
This is easily the most fucked up part of our relationship with Israel: the number of politicians (and lobbyists, and power brokers, and just regular citizens) who consider it their obligation somehow to be loyal to a foreign power.
I mean, there are a lot of countries out there that I genuinely like and think it’s worth expending resources and, if it comes to it, blood in order to preserve (Israel isn’t one of them), but the notion of being loyal to any of these countries as opposed to one’s own makes my skin crawl.
Heck, even if we were talking pro-British supporters in 1940 and 1941, I’d still think the concept of “loyalty” was a bridge too far. And Israel’s situation today is nothing like theirs.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
Yes.
This includes foreign countries, by the way. I happen to be studying the shit out of Saudi-U.S. relations over the last decade or so, and one of the themes that pops up there is that the Saudis are basically opposed to any deal at all on Iran’s nuclear program. Not because they’re afraid of an Iranian nuke, but because they’re afraid of Iran gaining anything from a deal. Most obviously, lifting sanctions is good for their economy, makes Iran richer, stronger, which they absolutely don’t want. They were content with Iran being slowly strangled to death by a brutal sanctions regime like Iraq was in the 1990s.
Don’t know exactly what the Israeli angle is, but I think it’s similar in that Bibi opposes a deal in principle, no matter what it is.
Cervantes
@Chris:
If you’ve chanced upon Gerald Posner’s book on the subject, what do you make of it? (Just curious.)
Chris
@Iowa Old Lady:
It is all pretend, to them.
As long as American politicians feel that they face no real consequences from abroad for their foreign policy choices, they’ll continue to feel free to make foreign policy based on political and domestic considerations with basically no regard to what their policies are doing “over there.” The Iraq War is the ultimate example of this, a giant campaign commercial with a side order of graft for well-connected contractors. Of course, the actual war part went badly, but what did the Bushies care? It got them successful midterms, then a second term in the White House, and lots of money all around. (They did start to make major changes, beginning with firing Rumsfeld, in 2006 after the public handed them a slap in the face at the midterms. That kind of pressure, they respond to. But “consequences” in terms of what’s happening overseas, not so much, not until it translates into political problems for them at home).
It’s the only thing about this Iran deal that makes me kind of cringe (not Obama’s fault as there’s nothing he can do to prevent this); the next Republican president has basically no incentive not to do everything he can to torpedo this deal. The international backlash isn’t going to matter to him, and his constituents want the deal sunk.
Chris
@Cervantes:
Narp, haven’t yet. Worth reading?
Frankensteinbeck
@Chris:
The Israeli angle is that large portions of the Israeli electorate, including Netanyahu himself, believe that Muslims are inherently evil terrorists who must be genocided. Any other approach than total war inevitably means the annihilation of the Jewish people. The idea of peace with Iran infuriated and scares the shit out of them, because they can see no other outcome than Iran building a nuclear weapon and using it on Israel. The ultra-orthodox (and I know them well) absolutely believe all of this. I have no reason to think Bibi is faking these beliefs when he spouts them, as well.
Oh, and cherry on top – they really hate black people, especially black people with an Arabic name. They’re sure Obama is conspiring to kill the Jewish people.
boatboy_srq
@Pogonip: If You Ask Me. A college roommate said his mother didn’t like TNG because “they don’t sweat” – that is, that the fate of the Federation or the survival of the Enterprise didn’t hang in the balance with every episode. First season, pretty much true. After that, though…
benw
@Pogonip: THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!!! Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.
Woodrow/asim
@Pogonip:
Part of that was the writing; as I recall Roddenberry was really into his vision of Federation-as-Utopia at that point, and that included vastly reducing the amount of character friction amongst the crew (as we’d have “grown past it” by that point, in what I understand was his view).
Moreover, much of the cast/crew have poked fun at Stewart for coming onto the show with, well, a stick in his ass — including SirPatStew himself. That contributed to the sense you’re getting, and is part of why, as he relaxed into the role over the years, and Roddenberry’s contributions declined along with his health, TNG changed as a show.
Now, it’s true it never really loses that vague formality; for that, the spinoffs, esp. DS9 (great!) and ENTERPRISE (…not so…) are better choices, as folks have already noted (not so much VOYAGER, IMHO; aside from Janeway being a breakthru character and Seven’s actress inadvertently making Obama a Senator, I think it combines the worst instincts of the TNG writing staff with a huge mis-read of what made DS9 work).
Chris
@Pogonip:
This is pretty much exactly me. TOS and DS9 are a blast (but can still explore heavy, important themes), whereas TNG has quite a few episodes I enjoy (love the entire Klingon politics arc) but overall is just nowhere near as much fun.
And you did yourself a favor by never seeing VOY or ENT.
JustRuss
Apparently Real Americans(TM) love Israel and the Confederacy more than America. Whodathot?
John M. Burt
Time was, saying someone had “loyalty to Israel” or was a “dual loyalist” was a profoundly unsubtle dogwhistle used by Type I anti-Semites.*
Funny, I though Voyager was the best Trek ever: not as stupid as TOS, not as dragging as TNG, not as stationary as DS9.
*Type I anti-Semites hate Jews. Type II anti-Semites hate Arabs.
KXB
Israel has no real fear of being destroyed by an Iranian nuclear weapon. After all, they have their own. The Saudis could get one from Pakistan – it’s just a matter of writing a check.
No, what both countries fear is something else – Iran being treated like China – a normal country with which the US has substantial differences, but can also do business with. After Gulf War I, the US had a dual containment strategy towards the Persian Gulf. Neither Iraq nor Iran could be allowed to dominate the Gulf. After 9/11, when the abandoned dual containment in favor of regime change, and the first place to test the theory would be Iraq.
Dual containment helped Israel and Saudi Arabia in a number of ways. First off, both countries were kept in check by a foreign power, so Israel and Saudis did not have to spend their own money and manpower. So long as there was a perceive foreign threat, neither country had to reform domestically. In Israel’s case, it did not have to stop its expansion in Palestinian lands. For the Saudis, they continued to export an intolerant Wahhabi cult that masqueraded as the one true version of Islam.
After Iraq was leveled, Israel gained more than the Saudis did. The last potential Arab military threat to Israel was vanquished. The Saudis were worried that Shia-majority Iraq would fall into Iran’s orbit. It did not help that Shia militias and politicians did, in many cases, harass and expel Sunnis from their homes. So, the Saudis supported Sunni groups to prevent the Shia from becoming too dominant. This led Iraqi Shia to turn to Iran for help. ISIS is a result of Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states interfering in Iraqi affairs. But ISIS has broken free from its original backers and now targets Sunni nations too. Kuwait and Turkey have been hit by ISIS attacks.
So this leaves Iran as the one country that can stabilize Iraq, combat ISIS, and help extricate the US from the Middle East mess. Just as opening to China paved the way for the US to leave SE Asia, so too does Iran present a similar possibility. An Iran that is re-integrated with the world lessens the value of Israel and Saudi Arabia to the U.S.