So, Senator Chuck Schumer, D-NY, is standing up for his faith and followers. Maybe he should be standing up for his country. He’s a U.S. citizen, not one of Israel.
He preserved support from his hawkish pro-Israel base with his promise to vote down the Iran nuclear deal; now, he must answer to a group of anti-war liberal advocacy organizations who say that his opposition to the diplomatic accord with Iran renders him unfit for the role of the party’s leader in the Senate.
For example, MoveOn, a progressive advocacy group, has committed to withhold $8.3 million they would have contributed to Schumer, the group told the Huffington Post last week.
Schumer reportedly is in line to take over the Senate Democratic leadership with the retirement of Harry Reid of Nevada. He has plenty of money in his campaign box but losing support from MoveOn doesn’t help his standing.
Schumer’s decision came after several wavering Democrats, including Senators Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Tim Kaine of Virginia and Bill Nelson of Florida vowed to back the nuclear agreement.
I’ve long questioned how congressmen abandon what is right for the country to vote special interest constituency. Sure, certain provincial issues demand a strong voice in Congress. But Congressmen must weigh that against the value to the country.
Coal state legislators knock down pollution controls. Mining state legislators knock down EPA regulations on such toxic chemicals as arsenic. Agriculture state legislators knock down bills that would cut farm subsidies. Urban state legislators knock down bills that would aid rural living. What effect do these issues have on the country as a whole? That is what the question should be for Congressmen, not some parochial argument.
David Bromwich, a professor at Yale, posted a blog that pointed out how Benjamin Netanyahu is laying siege to Congress, adding that he has channeled his influence into the arena of American legislative politics to abort the nuclear P5+1 settlement with Iran.
Netanyahu made it plain that Obama was an obstacle to be overcome by any means necessary.
“The story was to be circulated that Obama, possibly from motives of racial resentment, was profoundly unfriendly to the state of Israel,” Bromwich wrote. Of course, that is untrue because the President has done so much for Israel.
Bromwich singled out Netanyahu’s speech to Congress: “The gesture embodied by such a speech bears a family resemblance to incitement to treason. Imagine a leader of India puffing himself up to deliver a special address to Americans of Indian descent, asking them to subvert the authority of the president who signed a trade deal the Indian prime minister judges to be disadvantageous.”
The defection to the Republican side by Schumer was predictable, Bromwich said, but the terms in which he cast his decision says much about the man and the situation.
Schumer has often said, with an artless self-love, that his name in Hebrew, “shomer,” means “guardian” and he takes pride in the fact because he thinks of himself as the appointed guardian of Israel’s interests in the US, Bromwich said, adding, “How bizarre and again how unprecedented this is!. Think of any other nation in the world. Imagine an Italian-American named Frank Consiglieri assuring his listeners that his name means “advocate” in Italian and he is supremely vigilant for the interests of Italy as a lawmaker in the U.S.”
Schumer voted for the Iraq war on a rationale similar to the one he now urges as the path of reason and good sense with Iran.
“He may or may not recognize that he is only assisting the Likud and the neoconservatives with part three of the Middle East ‘clean break’ strategy: Iraq, Syria, Iran,” Bromwich said. “Their prognosis is simple. When the work of destruction is complete, one country in the region will stand upright and intact amid the surrounding rubble.”
How many Americans know that the Iran deal is supported by the vast majority of Israel’s defense and security establishment? The opinions of the security officials within Netanyahu’s government are impossible to discern, Bromwich said, because they have been placed under gag order; but the suffrage of qualified judges in Israel, as also in Europe, Russia, China and the IAEA, forms a strange contrast with the current alignments in America is subordinated to a point of near invisibility in the New York Times and other American outlets.
Obama spelled out the reasons why the deal’s acceptance would surrender no opportunity while rejection would squander a chance that will not return. If, in a worst-case scenario, Iran violates the deal, the same options that are available to Obama today would be available to any U.S. Pesident in the future.
Neoconservatives have spread fear in each and every issue in the Middle East. They have been wrong. And America suffers from their misdeeds. They are wrong on their current criticisms. No where — just look and search — do they deal with alternative specificity to war in Iran if the deal falls through.
Please, someone in the news media ask these anti-deal advocates what would they do to halt nuclear progress in Iran? Specifics, specifics, specifics.
Meanwhile, 58 members of Congress were scheduled to land back in the U.S. after a trip to Israel paid for by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. This is a gesture of abject servility. Bromwich said by agreeing to take the trip at this time, these captive representatives in effect had declared their confidence in Netanyahu and their dependence on his favor.
Schumer is even wrong in his presentation against the deal. He says the U.S. cannot demand inspections unilaterally. He’s wrong. He’s drawing from a richly publicized Netanyahu obstruction.
Here’s Schumer conceding a point that goes to the heart of the deal: he says the agreement works against the development of nuclear weapons quite effectively. That is what all the negotiations were about, Senator.
What offends Schumer and Netanyahu is the prospect of Iran’s re-entry into the global community as a trading partner and a non-nuclear regional power of some resourcefulness, Bromwich reasoned.
Schumer says he does not want a war with Iran but the preponderance of influential persons who side with him, as they did on Iraq in 2003, do indeed breast-beat and talk of bombing Iran. In fact, Scott Walker, the Republican candidate now ranked third in some polls, has said he would bomb Iran on his first day as president.
Lawmakers are scheduled to vote on a resolution of disapproval of the Iran deal when they return to Washington in September. Ultimately, the resolution needs the backing of two-thirds of the House and Senate to sustain a presidential veto.