war hawk
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2/19</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">see neo-neo con vulcans</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">also chickenhawks</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">mofo</font></div><div><p style="margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">BRITTANY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">KAISER</span>:</strong> Absolutely. So, the <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">files on Ambassador <b>John Bolton</b> show the work that Cambridge Analytica was paid to undertake for the John Bolton super <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PAC</span>. That was work that started in 2013</span>. I<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">t was actually one of the biggest first projects that Cambridge Analytica undertook in the United States. And that was to find five different psychographic groupings of voters and target them with psychographic messaging meant to resonate with your psyche and engage you, depending on whether you’re open, conscientious, extroverted, agreeable or neurotic.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And those videos were targeted over television and YouTube pre-roll in order to convince people, one, that national security was the most important political issue; two, that Ambassador John Bolton was the biggest authority on these topics; and, three, that whoever John Bolton was endorsing — for example, Thom Tillis — would be a better candidate — than Kay Hagan, for example, in that specific race. So, these ads were paid in order to manipulate people into being more interested in his hawkish foreign policies than in their own best interest.</font></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> So, can you talk about the ad, that is not radio-friendly because it’s mainly music with script over it? But this is an ad for Thom Tillis, right?</font></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">BRITTANY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">KAISER</span>:</strong> Yes. And it was an ad targeted at a group of people identified as being highly neurotic, and, therefore, it is black and white. It’s eerie. You get very emotional music, that shows surrender flags on all of America’s most prominent landmarks.</font></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> Let me play it, and I’ll read what it says on the screen. So we’ll listen to that music and play the ad, and you can then comment further.</font></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There’s white flags going up, white flag on the Brooklyn Bridge, over the White House — over Congress. And it says, “America’s never surrendered before. What happens if we start now? On November 4, vote Thom Tillis.”</font></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An ad paid for, 2014, by the John Bolton super <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PAC</span>. The ad was titled “White Flags.” <b>Tillis went on to win his Senate race.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">BRITTANY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">KAISER</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">:</span></strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Yes, he did, indeed. And they used these tactics in a very successful manner. In fact, the John Bolton super <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PAC</span> paid for a third party to rate how successful Cambridge Analytica had been. And they saw, on this ad specifically, that there was over a 36% uplift in engagement on these ads versus the communications that they had already been running.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And so, what scares me so much is that I know that these tactics are being used right now.<b> We are being manipulated in order to support going to war with Iran.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">We are being manipulated in order to believe that this type of violence is acceptable and that we should support candidates that support this violence.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> There are some who have suggested that President Trump did this, possibly in part because he’s so deeply concerned about his impeachment trial, and this specifically could be targeted for John <b>Bolton, the former national security adviser, who almost immediately tweeted, “We have been working on this for a long time,” talking about the assassination, </b>and that Trump is afraid of what he might say, and so this would appease him.</font></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">BRITTANY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">KAISER</span>:</strong> Another important tranche of documents that I released are in the Iran folder, which actually shows that Cambridge Analytica and other right-wing organizations, like <b>America Rising</b>, that does all of the opposition research for the <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOP</span>, were polling to see how many people in the United States were interested in the Iran deal, to drop sanctions, or if they were against the Iran nuclear deal and more <b>interested in war. </b></span>So you can see the types of questions that were asked, and that they were using that to model and identify people who could be persuaded to go against Iran, and whether or not that would be favorable for electoral fodder, I should say. And right now that same polling is happening. So, if you are identified as being a persuadable, you are going to see more of this propaganda in order to convince you that war is in our best interest, when it obviously is not.</font></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> Emma Briant, what makes this different from regular polling? Why do you see this as evil?</font></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">EMMA</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">BRIANT</span>:</strong> It’s not polling I think is evil; it’s what it’s being used for. I’d like to put this in a little bit of a wider context, if I may, and talk a little bit about what I know about <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">SCL</span> and —</span></font></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> You have 30 seconds, and then we will do Part 2.</font></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">EMMA</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">BRIANT</span>:</strong> — Iran. Oh, OK, sure. So, basically, they were working also in the Gulf from 2013. And it’s really important to note that the Saudis and the <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">UAE</span> were also very keen to oppose the Iran deal, and Trump’s election was followed by a huge spike in arms sales to the Saudis. And I think that this being a military contractor is extremely important to remember in the light of these recent developments on Iran.</span></font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><p style="margin: 1em 0px;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fox News is gearing up for a war. Houthi rebels in Yemen claimed credit for a drone attack that took out a lot of Saudi Arabia's oil processing capability. In the days since, Trump <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=106433587a36291d5024e420bd5f353a0b211ee78d2c539aa46f408b48e0c3dd23882746d67a2137f3bbdd61bc84419c6a2a8721b44d73fc" title="has announced" style="">has announced</a> that American troops are deploying to Saudi Arabia. It is clear that Fox News personalities want war.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" line-height="line-height"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fox & Friends co-hosts <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=106433587a36291d5fc917d018baaf8688eb25013aa23f1000059c8c9b3c7ffcdc41976d9e9a133ab52d46bac16cd3841012744ecc257640" title="pushed" style="">pushed</a> Trump to take direction against Iran this week. It was clear when Tucker Carlson talked Trump out of striking Iran months ago that hawks at the network would only try again -- especially since the approach of Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=106433587a36291ddcbe16118099b85ee2e8e5317e7ea0886b7aa8f1dc0af354e6967fa9b4d7fed23044435ff34807a90c63ac4510b178ce" title="only making the underlying situation worse" style="">only making the underlying situation worse</a>. As <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=106433587a36291ddbbc4eeaeec15a267c789283f57b0e1076c8b38a6612aa5acc20748e4657e77607cd051397590a3616601c75233c0f17" title="I wrote in July" style="">I wrote in July</a>, it's only a matter of time before Trump starts thinking about how the media loves a wartime president.</font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/06/what-war-with-iran-really-depends-on/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2019/06/what-war-with-iran-really-depends-on/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">tucker oppose strike so called off?!</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/06/hawks-pushing-trump-toward-war-can-it-be-stopped/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2019/06/hawks-pushing-trump-toward-war-can-it-be-stopped/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">digby AN no lnx twt</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">right and early Thursday morning, President Trump angrily declared on Twitter: “Iran made a very big mistake!” He had obviously heard the news that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards had shot down a very expensive American unmanned drone over international waters. (You know how he feels about money.) It was obviously some kind of threat but not too much later he met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and told the assembled press corps that he had “a feeling … that it was a mistake made by somebody,” giving the impression that he either knew this wasn’t an act ordered by the top Iranian brass or was just trying to offer them a way out.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Later in the evening, this happened:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Peter Baker</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@peterbakernyt</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> · 14h</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Trump approved a strike on Iran to be launched tonight in retaliation for drone shutdown but then abruptly changed his mind and pulled back. @shearm @EricSchmittNYT @michaelcrowley @maggieNYT https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/20/world/middleeast/iran-us-drone.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage …</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Let’s see what happens,” President Trump said Thursday after Iran shot down an American surveillance drone.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump Approves Strikes on Iran, but Then Abruptly Pulls Back</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Military and diplomatic officials still expected a strike as of 7 p.m. Thursday in retaliation for Iran shooting down an unmanned American drone.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">nytimes.com</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Peter Baker</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@peterbakernyt</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As late as 7 p.m., military and diplomatic officials were expecting the strike. The president had approved attacks on a handful of Iranian targets, like radar and missile batteries. But then he pulled back, at least for now.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to the New York Times, the operation was already underway with planes in the air and ships in position to fire missiles just before dawn on Friday. As of this writing nobody seems sure what prompted Trump to pull back when he did. There’s no word on whether or not it was due to a change in the situation or simply another of his impulsive actions. The fact that the news media found out about it so quickly argues for the latter. People don’t leak something like that unless they are shocked by what went down.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Considering Trump’s behavior on Thursday, it’s possible he is simply playing out some elaborate “Madman” kabuki. But I’m afraid it’s even more likely that he was watching Tucker Carlson, who argued on his Fox News show that war with Iran wouldn’t be popular with the Republican base. (If so: Thank you, Tucker.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Whatever the case, we very nearly went to war on Thursday night. And yes, this is 100% Trump’s fault. He and his team have been putting what they call “maximum pressure” on Iran and this is the result. Evidently, Trump thought the Iranians would immediately start sending him “beautiful letters” but they are trying a different tack.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">You’ll recall that during the early months of the 2016 campaign, when asked about the Iran deal, Trump told “Meet the Press” that he expected Iran to get nuclear weapons and bring on a nuclear holocaust. He nonetheless said he wouldn’t violate the non-proliferation agreement because “it’s very hard to say, ‘We’re ripping it up.’” As the campaign unfolded he changed his mind but until he fired former national security adviser H.R. McMaster and hired John Bolton, the most fanatical anti-Iran hawk in America, he had been persuaded to stick with the nuclear deal.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>When Bolton joined the team, the agreement was quickly abrogated and the inevitable escalation began. Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was able to keep Bolton on a short leash for a while but when fellow Iran hawk Mike Pompeo became secretary of state and Mattis resigned (to be replaced by a player to be named later) all bets were off.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ever since, the administration has been more and more provocative, hitting Iran with crippling sanctions, designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization (against the advice of the State Department) and letting Bolton run his mouth with ever more belligerent rhetoric, daring the Iranians to respond. Meanwhile, Trump dithers,<b> pretending that his inability to understand the situation or make a decision is actually a conscious strategy of being “unpredictable.”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s credibility is nonexistent around the globe so nobody believes him no matter what he says. Russia, North Korea, China and Iran are all starting to circle, flex their muscles and poke at the beast to see what it will do. And here we are.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Jacob Heilbrun, writing in the Spectator USA, points out that Trump really doesn’t want war with Iran but observes that he’s unknowingly assembled a war Cabinet:</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">If Trump stumbled into war, he would resemble Kaiser Wilhelm during World War I, who backed Austria, only to be sidelined by his generals once the conflict began.</span> Trump would be utterly at sea in trying to preside over a war in the Persian Gulf that could easily spiral out of control. If Trump can’t even appoint a permanent defense secretary, why would anyone imagine he has the competence to conduct a war against Tehran?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s very unclear if his war hawks are any more competent than he is. Heilbrun notes that Pompeo has even been advancing “loopy theories, reminiscent of the George W. Bush administration’s folderol on the eve of the second Gulf War, that the Iranians are in cahoots with al-Qaeda.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In response to that fatuous argument, which was clearly designed to make the post-9/11 Authorization for Use of Military Force against al-Qaida apply to these planned military strikes, the House voted to end the AUMF. (That legislation will die in the Senate, of course.) But Pompeo should have checked with the fourth horseman of the apocalypse, Attorney General William Barr, who would have told him there’s never any need for congressional authorization for military action. That’s what he told President George H.W. Bush when he was contemplating launching the first Gulf War. (In Bush’s defense, he didn’t buy it, asked the Congress and the UN for a vote and pulled together a global coalition.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As many of you no doubt remember, back during the crazed days after the terrorist attacks on 9/11, these arguments were flying all over the place. George W. Bush got a vote in Congress with no problem but couldn’t get global buy-in because his rationale for invading Iraq was nonsensical and everyone knew it. It was well known that certain hard-right war hawks were hoping that it would be just the first step. As Paul Krugman noted at the time:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It’s a matter of public record that this<b> war with Iraq is largely the brainchild of a group of neoconservative intellectuals, who view it as a pilot project</b>. In August a British official close to the Bush team told Newsweek:<b> ”Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran.”</b> In February 2003, according to Ha’aretz, an Israeli newspaper,<b> Under Secretary of State John Bolton told Israeli officials that after defeating Iraq the United States would ”deal with” Iran, Syria and North Korea</b>.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Remember, allegedly reluctant warrior Donald Trump is the one who hired that guy to be his national security adviser. He also hired Pompeo. And he is almost certainly listening to his good buddy, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who’s been advising him that he needs to get “points on the board,” meaning he must use military force somewhere in order to be taken seriously. (Graham was pushing for a Venezuela invasion, but Trump has lost interest in that one, so Iran will have to do.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I suspect that argument carries some weight. But Trump really only cares about one thing: re-election. If they want to convince him to let the bombs fly to prove he’s got brass, his hawks are going to have to convince him that his base will love it. They will, of course. They are America’s most fervent supporters of military action and if Trump does it they’ll love him all the more.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Shh. Don’t anybody tell him about Republican voters’ love of war. His ignorance of that fact is the only thing keeping the peace.</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cotton blasted as ‘delusional’ for claiming that war with Iran could be won in only ‘two strikes’</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AN</font></div><div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/06/gops-tom-cotton-calls-for-unauthorized-retaliatory-strike-on-iran-with-the-fire-and-fury-of-the-military/" style="font-weight: 700; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="font-weight: normal;">GOP’s Tom Cotton calls for unauthorized ‘retaliatory strike’ on Iran with ‘the fire and fury of the military’</font></a></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">POMPEO playing gulf of tonkin card hard</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/05/interests-pushing-for-hard-line-against-iran"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/05/interests-pushing-for-hard-line-against-iran</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tensions between the United States and Iran have skyrocketed in recent weeks following <a href="https://www.apnews.com/713dce1fbe51478abc393f3676160eb0" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">American military movements</a> in the Persian Gulf and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/20/iran-ramps-up-uranium-production-throwing-brick-on-the-accelerator.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">resumed uranium production</a> by Iran. Decades of animosity worsened by the collapse of the 2015 nuclear deal have sparked a major standoff, as both nations review <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/13/world/middleeast/us-military-plans-iran.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">strategy</a> while <a href="https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1128346939446181894?s=21" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">denying</a> any desire for war. <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/ship-sabotage-mystery-raises-fears-accidental-conflict-iran-n1004876" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Experts fear</a> that an error on either side could spark a regional maelstrom that would <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/the-iraq-war-was-a-failurewar-with-iran-would-be-worse/589534/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">dwarf</a> the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in scope and lethality.<br style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;" /></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But while many members of Congress are seeking a way to prevent the potential conflict, others are pressuring the administration to maintain its aggressive stance. In a <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wnet/firing-line/video/tom-cotton-f1xdiw/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">recent interview</a> with PBS, Sen. <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/summary?cid=N00033363" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Tom Cotton</a> (R-Ark.) said the U.S. could end a potential war with Iran in two strikes, “the first strike and the last strike.” While he said he doesn’t want to go to war, he insisted that the U.S. would retaliate massively if provoked. Sen. <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/summary?cid=N00009975" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Lindsey Graham</a> (R-S.C.) <a href="https://twitter.com/LindseyGrahamSC/status/1130948813722722304" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">demanded</a> Monday that the U.S. “respond militarily and in an overwhelming fashion” if Iranian forces or proxies harm the United States or its allies in the region. </span><br style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;" /></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There may be more than genuine concern behind such aggressive stances towards Iran. Dozens of government officials, from Congress to the White House, have received financial support from an expansive network of interest groups, political action committees, foreign lobbyists and wealthy donors pushing for the hardest line possible against Iran. <br style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;" /></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>At the heart of the rising hostility is National Security Advisor John Bolton, known throughout the political world for his hawkish foreign policy views and support for intervention in North Korea, Venezuela, Syria, Cuba and Iran.</b> Rising to prominence during George W. Bush’s administration as the State Department’s undersecretary for arms control, Bolton has been a central figure in provoking the conflict between the U.S. and Iran. He recently sparked fears of war by suggesting that Iranian leaders wouldn’t “have many anniversaries left to enjoy” in a <a href="https://twitter.com/whitehouse/status/1095060986787258368?lang=en" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">video</a> posted by the White House and personally ordered updates to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/13/world/middleeast/us-military-plans-iran.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">military plans</a> that would send over 120,000 troops to the Middle East. <br style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;" /></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Bolton’s <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00542431&cycle=2018" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">PAC</a> and <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00542464&cycle=2018" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">super PAC</a> serve as the central financial mechanism of the wide-ranging influence network. </b>Founded by Bolton in 2013, these groups quickly began to attract prominent megadonors who shared his aggressive view of foreign policy and his apprehension towards Iran. Over a five-year period up until when Bolton took office in 2018, the groups raked in more than $24 million in contributions, the vast majority of which came from a handful of large backers aligned against the Obama administration’s efforts to seek a diplomatic solution with Iran.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Chief among Bolton’s backers is Robert Mercer</b>, the reclusive billionaire who was <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/01/trump-donors-1-year-later/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Donald Trump’s top donor</a> in the 2016 presidential election. Over the course of the 2014, 2016, and 2018 election cycles, Mercer donated $5 million to The John Bolton Super PAC, a quarter of the super PAC’s lifetime receipts and one-sixth of Bolton’s combined contributions from both groups. OpenSecrets <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/04/exclusive-robert-mercer-backed-a-secretive-group-that-worked-with-facebook-google-to-target-anti-muslim-ads-at-swing-voters/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">previously</a> reported that Mercer was a primary funder of a secretive nonprofit that targeted swing voters with three disturbing anti-Muslim videos during the 2016 election.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Another prominent supporter is Bernie Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot </b>and ardent critic of nuclear diplomacy with Iran. Marcus donated $530,000 to Bolton’s super PAC over its lifetime. Marcus has publicly scoffed at the prospect of conducting diplomacy with Iran, saying in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNYhHRlhNT8" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">2015 interview</a> with Fox Business, “When you do business with the devil, you’re in deep trouble, and I think Iran is the devil.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He also notably <a href="https://lobelog.com/are-billionaire-donors-driving-trumps-iran-policy/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">donated</a> $3.5 million to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington think tank that has decried the Iran nuclear deal and <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/25/trump-iran-foreign-policy-regime-change-239930" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">submitted a memo</a> to the Trump White House in 2017 outlining ways to stoke domestic unrest in Iran with the ultimate goal of regime change. The FDD’s suspected close ties with the Trump administration were further confirmed when Bolton <a href="https://nationalinterest.org/feature/john-bolton-taps-iran-regime-change-advocate-40917" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">selected</a> a senior adviser at the organization to be his assistant in January 2019.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Bolton’s connections to hardliners don’t end with the committees. Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, the <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/topindivs.php" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">top individual political contributors</a> for the 2018 midterms and <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/01/trump-donors-1-year-later/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">major Trump donors,</a> personally <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/22/us/politics/adelson-trump-republican-donor.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">lobbied the president</a> to select Bolton as deputy secretary of state</b>. While this effort ultimately failed, Bolton eventually joined the administration as national security advisor- that move came after Sheldon Adelson supported <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/22/us/politics/adelson-trump-republican-donor.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">publicity campaigns</a> against Trump’s first national security advisor, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, that claimed McMaster was anti-Israeli in an effort to open the position for Bolton. Adelson is also a prominent supporter of major anti-Iranian lobbying groups, having donated more than $1.04 million to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee since 2007 and $1.5 million to the FDD between 2008 and 2011. <br style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;" /><br style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;" /><b>Bolton and Adelson share strikingly similar beliefs: </b>in 2013, Adelson<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sCW4IasWXc" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;"> publicly suggested</a> that the U.S. drop an atomic bomb in the Iranian desert as a warning to the government to abandon its nuclear programs. In 2015, Bolton followed suit, writing an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/26/opinion/to-stop-irans-bomb-bomb-iran.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">op-ed</a> in The New York Times entitled “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran”, in which he advocated for a pre-emptive strike on Iranian military facilities to stymie potential nuclear weapons development.<br style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;" /></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Also among Bolton’s financial backers is the Mojahedin-e Khalq (M.E.K.), <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/mujahadeen-e-khalq-mek" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">an Iranian opposition group</a> with a history of violence towards Iranians and Americans alike.</b> Founded in 1965 by left-leaning Iranian students in opposition to the Shah, the group committed dozens of terrorist acts throughout the 1970s that killed thousands of Iranians and numerous American citizens. <br style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;" /><br style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;" />Supporting Ayatollah Khomeini’s forces in the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the group quickly came to blows with the new government, conducting the <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1981/08/31/252948.html?action=click&contentCollection=Archives&module=LedeAsset®ion=ArchiveBody&pgtype=article&pageNumber=59" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">1981 bombing</a> that killed Iranian president Mohammad Ali Rajai and prime minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar as well as six other senior officials. They fought alongside Saddam Hussein in the 1980 Iran-Iraq War and formed <a href="https://theglobepost.com/2018/08/01/mek-unpopular-iran/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">a close alliance</a>with the dictator over the next two decades, killing thousand of Iranian soldiers in combat and launching brutal campaigns of repression against the Kurdish people of northern Iraq.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The group was long-labeled a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government, with <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/12/mek-backtalk-iranian-group-214526" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">numerous Congressional transcripts</a> showing the group was responsible for decades of terrorism. The group, whose philosophy is heavily influenced by Marxism and Islamism, has been described by many researchers as a <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/07/07/mek-iran-rajavi-cult-saudi-gingrich-terrorists-trump/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">cult</a>, with women being forbidden to marry and all followers pledging near-fanatical support to the group’s leader, <a href="https://english.mojahedin.org/eventsen/115/introduction-of-maryam-rajavi-as-president-elect-of-the-iranian-resistance" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">“Iran’s future president” Maryam Rajavi</a>. The group’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/07/world/middleeast/john-bolton-regime-change-iran.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">goal</a> has remained constant since its inception: overthrow the Iranian government.The M.E.K has dramatically expanded its presence in American policy spheres, attracting prominent political fans and spending millions on lucrative speaker fees to gain allies in Washington. The M.E.K.’s political arm, the <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=F212490%20%20%20&year=2018" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)</a>, led a multimillion-dollar influence campaign beginning in the latter half of the 2000s that lobbied dozens of congressmen to push the State Department to remove the group from its designated terrorist organizations list. Three of Washington’s top lobbying groups — <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/firmsum.php?id=F221813" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">DiGenova & Toensing</a>, <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/firmsum.php?id=F221813&year=2012" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Akin Gump</a> and <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/firmsum.php?id=D000021569&year=2012" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">DLA Piper</a> — were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/sep/21/iran-mek-group-removed-us-terrorism-list" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">paid</a> over $1.5 million dollars in 2012 to lobby for the delisting and protection of the group’s members in Iraq. The effort was ultimately successful, as then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton removed the M.E.K from the list in 2012.<br style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;" /><br style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;" /><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Their lucrative speaking deals have attracted some of the <a href="http://www.ncrius.org/iran-freedom-gathering-2018.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">biggest names</a> in American politics, among them former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, former FBI director Louis Freeh, and former Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Robert Joseph.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The M.E.K’s influence extends to many members of the current government. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao was <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/donald-trump-elaine-chao-cabinet-iran-mek-a7563746.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">paid $50,000</a> to give a five-minute speech to a meeting of the NCRI in 2015. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/07/10/hey-donald-trump-heres-newt-gingrich-palling-around-terrorists-saddam-armed/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">spoke</a> at the group’s 2016 gala in Paris, commending the group’s dedication and promising to tell the Trump campaign about their demands for regime change in Iran.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Bolton has always been the star of the show. Records show that the M.E.K has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/02/iran-mek-cult-terrorist-trump-allies-john-bolton-rudy-giuliani" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">paid Bolton</a> at least $180,000 in speaker fees to attend the group’s annual Paris conference for more than a decade. At the 2017 annual summit, Bolton <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9HCQek9ZbE" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">declared</a> that the president’s review of Iranian policy should conclude that the Ayatollah’s government shouldn’t survive into its fortieth year, promising the crowd in attendance that they would meet again in 2019 to celebrate their victory in Tehran.<br style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;" /></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The M.E.K is finding themselves welcomed by many on Capitol Hill who have been funded by Bolton’s political action committees and allies. Cotton, described by some as the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/05/18/i-get-same-intel-iran-threat-exaggerated-by-gop-hawks-rep-gallego-says/?utm_term=.cb3a3d4b028e" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">loudest voice advocating for escalated conflict</a> alongside Bolton, also <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/gop-hawks-raise-cash-for-tom-cotton-093509" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">received</a> thousands of dollars in contributions from Sheldon Adelson and $5,000 from John Bolton PAC in 2014 and <a href="https://lobelog.com/tom-cotton-allies-himself-with-the-mek/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">spoke</a> at a 2015 event run by the Organization of Iranian American Communities, which is closely aligned with the M.E.K. <br style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;" /></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Cotton was joined there by Sen. <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/summary?cid=N00035492" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Thom Tillis</a> (R-N.C.), who, in addition to being backed by $1.37 million in independent expenditures from Bolton’s super PAC, <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/senior-us-senators-meet-iranian-opposition-leader-in_b_598f68fae4b063e2ae058020" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">journeyed to Albania</a> in 2017 to meet with Rajavi and express admiration for the former terrorist group’s “struggle for democracy and human rights in Iran.” Joining him in Albania was Sen. <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/summary/roy-blunt?cid=N00005195" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Roy Blunt</a> (R-Mo.), current chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee and another Bolton beneficiary. </span><br style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;" /></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Overall, 28 sitting senators have received sizable contributions from John Bolton PAC during the election cycle, as have nine representatives on the House defense, foreign affairs, and homeland security subcommittees.<br style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;" /></font></p><div class="widget_text awac-wrapper" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;"><div class="widget_text awac widget custom_html-5" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; margin-bottom: 20px;"><div class="textwidget custom-html-widget" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px;"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; border: 1px dotted; padding: 11px; border-radius: 15px; margin-top: 40px; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit the Center for Responsive Politics.</span><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"> </span></font></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For permission to reprint for commercial uses, such as textbooks, contact the Center: <a href="mailto:info@crp.org" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">info@crp.org</a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div></div></div></div></div><div class="related-box" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; width: 760px; padding: 8px 0px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 12px;"><span class="txt" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; float: left; line-height: 28px; text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: -0.03em; margin-right: 15px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">RELATED TOPICS</font></span><ul class="related-list" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; margin: 0px -5px; padding: 0px; list-style: none;"><li style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; margin: 0px 5px 10px; padding: 0px; list-style-position: inside; float: left;"><a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/bernard-marcus/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background: rgb(236, 238, 242); text-decoration-line: none; display: block; padding: 5px 11px; border-radius: 3px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">bernard marcus</font></a></li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; margin: 0px 5px 10px; padding: 0px; list-style-position: inside; float: left;"><a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/iran/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background: rgb(236, 238, 242); text-decoration-line: none; display: block; padding: 5px 11px; border-radius: 3px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">iran</font></a></li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; margin: 0px 5px 10px; padding: 0px; list-style-position: inside; float: left;"><a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/iran-deal/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background: rgb(236, 238, 242); text-decoration-line: none; display: block; padding: 5px 11px; border-radius: 3px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">iran deal</font></a></li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; margin: 0px 5px 10px; padding: 0px; list-style-position: inside; float: left;"><a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/john-bolton/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background: rgb(236, 238, 242); text-decoration-line: none; display: block; padding: 5px 11px; border-radius: 3px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">John Bolton</font></a></li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; margin: 0px 5px 10px; padding: 0px; list-style-position: inside; float: left;"><a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/john-bolton-pac/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background: rgb(236, 238, 242); text-decoration-line: none; display: block; padding: 5px 11px; border-radius: 3px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">john bolton pac</font></a></li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; margin: 0px 5px 10px; padding: 0px; list-style-position: inside; float: left;"><a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/john-bolton-super-pac/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background: rgb(236, 238, 242); text-decoration-line: none; display: block; padding: 5px 11px; border-radius: 3px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">john bolton super pac</font></a></li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; margin: 0px 5px 10px; padding: 0px; list-style-position: inside; float: left;"><a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/robert-mercer/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background: rgb(236, 238, 242); text-decoration-line: none; display: block; padding: 5px 11px; border-radius: 3px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Robert Mercer</font></a></li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; margin: 0px 5px 10px; padding: 0px; list-style-position: inside; float: left;"><a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/roy-blunt/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background: rgb(236, 238, 242); text-decoration-line: none; display: block; padding: 5px 11px; border-radius: 3px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Roy Blunt</font></a></li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; margin: 0px 5px 10px; padding: 0px; list-style-position: inside; float: left;"><a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/sheldon-adelson/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background: rgb(236, 238, 242); text-decoration-line: none; display: block; padding: 5px 11px; border-radius: 3px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Sheldon Adelson</font></a></li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; margin: 0px 5px 10px; padding: 0px; list-style-position: inside; float: left;"><a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/thom-thillis/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background: rgb(236, 238, 242); text-decoration-line: none; display: block; padding: 5px 11px; border-radius: 3px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">thom thillis</font></a></li></ul></div></div><div><h1 class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></h1><h1 class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></h1><h1 class="firstHeading"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></h1></div></div><div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><a href="https://original.antiwar.com/danny_sjursen/2019/06/03/the-view-from-tehran-americas-sordid-history-of-meddling-in-iran/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://original.antiwar.com/danny_sjursen/2019/06/03/the-view-from-tehran-americas-sordid-history-of-meddling-in-iran/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The </font></div><header class="entry-header" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h1 class="entry-title" style="box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; margin: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; line-height: 1.27273; hyphens: none; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">View From Tehran: America’s Sordid History of Meddling in Iran</font></h1></header><footer class="entry-footer" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.61538; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="byline" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline;"><span class="screen-reader-text" style="box-sizing: inherit; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px); height: 1px; overflow: hidden; width: 1px; position: absolute !important; overflow-wrap: normal !important;">by <a href="https://original.antiwar.com/author/danny_sjursen/" title="Posts by Maj. Danny Sjursen, USA (ret.)" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Maj. Danny Sjursen, USA (ret.)</a></span><b> <span class="posted-on" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span class="screen-reader-text" style="box-sizing: inherit; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px); height: 1px; overflow: hidden; width: 1px; position: absolute !important; overflow-wrap: normal !important;">Posted on</span><a href="https://original.antiwar.com/danny_sjursen/2019/06/03/the-view-from-tehran-americas-sordid-history-of-meddling-in-iran/" rel="bookmark" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;"><time class="entry-date published" datetime="2019-06-03T21:00:24-07:00" style="box-sizing: inherit;">June 04, 2019</time></a></span></b></span></font></footer><div class="entry-content" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; border-color: rgb(209, 209, 209);"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">No war yet! That’s the good news…for now. A few weeks have passed since unhinged National Security Advisor John Bolton – who never saw a regime he didn’t want to change – <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/13/world/middleeast/us-military-plans-iran.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">reportedly</a> ordered the Pentagon to update plans to send 120,000 additional troops into the Persian Gulf. All this preparation and the inherent threat to strike Iran was ostensibly based on vague and unsubstantiated intelligence that Tehran had planned attacks on U.S. troops in the region. Murky and secretive intelligence, preemptive war plans, and <a href="https://original.antiwar.com/danny_sjursen/2019/03/18/empire-of-absurdity-recycled-neocons-recycled-enemies/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">unrepentant</a> neocons sowing fear within the American populace. We’ve all seen this movie before, in Iraq, just sixteen years ago, and it didn’t end well. US troops are <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">still</i> there and may be so indefinitely.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If the purported Iranian threats seem manufactured, its because they likely are. And all the wrongs Tehran allegedly perpetrated against the US are exaggerated and overblown. Sure, Iran is, like all countries, an imperfect actor. The Islamic Republic did hold America’s embassy staff hostage during the Carter years. Tehran has backed Hezbollah and Hamas, both of whom once specialized in suicide bombing attacks on civilians.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Still, its worthwhile – particularly in the serious business of war and peace – to step back, slow down, and walk a proverbial mile in others’ shoes. Let me offer, then, the view from Tehran; to see the world and the US through Iranian eyes. An honest historical appraisal of the complicated U.S.-Iranian relationship demonstrates that it was often Washington and its western allies that meddled in the region and acted as the aggressors.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Let us begin in 1941.</b> Though Tehran declared neutrality in that war, Russia and Britain jointly <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Soviet_invasion_of_Iran" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">invaded</a> and occupied the country to secure control of its oil reserves. Then, in 1953, when a democratically elected prime minister – Mohammad Mossadegh – dared <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/01/31/690363402/how-the-cia-overthrew-irans-democracy-in-four-days" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">nationalize</a> Iranian oil (which had been largely under foreign, Western corporate control) the CIA coordinated a coup with MI6 to overthrow the government. The dictatorial Shah was promptly put in power and ruled with an iron fist for the next 26 years. So much for America’s self-proclaimed title as the "beacon of democracy."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">T<b>hen, in 1980, when Iraq invaded and threatened to destroy Iran, the US openly backed the Saddam Hussein’s aggressive regime</b>. The US <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4859238" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">provided</a> key intelligence in the form of satellite photos to the Iraqi Army, and granted Baghdad over $1 billion in economic aid. President Reagan, in absurd twist of irony, sent a special envoy, Donald Rumsfeld, to meet with Saddam. Their now infamous picture shaking hands is all over the web. Saddam regularly employed poison gas to attack Iranian formations. It is largely <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4859238" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">agreed</a> that U.S.-supplied satellite imagery allowed Iraq to better calibrate these illegal, immoral, chemical attacks. Remember how this was viewed from Tehran: the American superpower, which had already overthrown Iranian democracy, was now backing Saddam in an aggressive war that posed an existential threat to the Islamic Republic.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During the eight-year Iran-Iraq War, which caused perhaps a million deaths, the US Navy waged an undeclared maritime war in the Persian Gulf. In the "Tanker War," the US again tacitly backed Iraq, flew the stars and stripes on Kuwaiti vessels to protect them from attack, and, finally, overtly <a href="https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1988/may/tanker-war" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">sank</a> the majority of the Iranian Navy in a one-sided sea battle. At the end of the war, a US naval vessel even shot down a civilian Iranian airliner, killing 290 people. The US commander, Captain Rogers, claimed his crew mistook the jet for an Iranian fighter, but even so the plane was fully in Iranian airspace.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In a final twist of the diplomatic "knife," then Vice President George H.W. Bush <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/01/george-hw-bush-quotations.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">refused</a>, during a presidential campaign stop, to apologize for the shoot-down. He callously announced<b> "I will never apologize for the United States – I don’t care what the facts are. … I’m not an apologize-for-America kind of guy.</b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">" Oh, and as for Captain Rogers – he was awarded the Legion of Merit for "exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service." This, despite the fact that his ship,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> the USS Vincennes, was actually in <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">Iranian</i> territorial waters when it murdered the innocent civilians onboard the flight.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Then, after the 9/11 attacks – which Iran had nothing to do with – Bush the Younger counted Tehran among Iraq and North Korea in an "axis of evil." Soon enough, Bush II illegally invaded Iraq and toppled America’s one-time friend, Saddam Hussein.</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> By 2003, Iran had American armies stationed on its western (Iraq) and eastern (Afghanistan) borders. It felt genuinely threatened, which was understandable given recent American military actions nearby</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> and the fact that administration neoconservatives were </span><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4122038?seq=1" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">itching</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> for regime change in Iran. "</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran,</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">" was a common trope around neocon circles in Washington. Given this history, it becomes rather more understandable that Iran would back militias and seek to keep the US military mired in an Iraqi quagmire. If it didn’t, Iran’s leaders worried – </span><i style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: inherit;">they might be next</i><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">!</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">None of this sordid history should be misconstrued to obviate Iran of responsibility for its own imperfect foreign affairs, but it does add complexity and nuance to a challenging relationship. Remember that the US<i style="box-sizing: inherit;">still</i> imposes crippling sanctions on Tehran, surrounds Iran with its military bases, and maintains a naval presence along its coastline. Combined with America’s nefarious history of meddling in and threatening Iran, its hard not to empathize with the Iranian point of view.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Seen in this light, one understands why an average Iranian sees America as the aggressor in the Mideast. Well, frankly, it sort of <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">is</i>!</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">Danny Sjursen is a retired US Army officer and regular contributor to </span><a href="http://antiwar.com/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">Antiwar.com</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">. His work has appeared in the </span>LA Times, The Nation, Huff Post, The Hill, Salon, Truthdig, Tom <span style="box-sizing: inherit;">Dispatch, among other publications. He served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Riders-Baghdad-Soldiers-Civilians/dp/1611687810" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge</a><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">. Follow him on Twitter at </span><a href="https://twitter.com/SkepticalVet" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">@SkepticalVet</a>.</font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div></div><div><h3><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></h3><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">gulf war 3?</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/the-trump-administration-beats-the-drum-for-conflict-with-iran-as-republicans-call-for-unity-in-an-easy-war/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/the-trump-administration-beats-the-drum-for-conflict-with-iran-as-republicans-call-for-unity-in-an-easy-war/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Wednesday morning,<b> the State Department</b></span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/iraq-travel-advisory.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">issued a “Do Not Travel” advisory </a></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>for Americans considering going to Iraq, ordered nonessential personnel to leave the country, and warned of a “high risk for violence and kidnapping.”</b> This action comes after the United States indicated that Iran was behind attacks on four oil tankers just outside the Persian Gulf. Iran has denied those accusations, but as tensions in the region increase, Republicans are lining up to spread the message that war with Iran</span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/05/14/1857682/-#%C2%A1#*@!+%C2%A7-Sen-Tom-Cotton-suggests-war-with-Iran-would-be-a-cakewalk" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"> would be easy</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, and that it’s time for</span><a href="https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1128619127755689985" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"> everyone to get behind Donald Trump</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></div><div class="p1_12" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On Tuesday, Republican Sen. Tom Cotton declared that the United States could win a war in Iran with just “Two strikes: the first strike and a last strike.” This is completely at odds with the evaluation of military strategists. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">There is little doubt about the ability of the U.S. military to overcome that of Iran in the field, but the military of Iran is <em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">much </em>more capable than that of Iraq, where the “easy” victory has been followed by well over a decade of low-grade warfare, bombings, and terror attacks in which over 4,400 U.S. soldiers have lost their lives and over 31,000 have been wounded—often severely. In addition, estimates of civilian deaths range from 150,000 to over 650,000. In addition, the war in Iraq generated an increase in international terrorism, including acting as a primary factor in the rise of ISIS. And that was a war that was supposed to be a walkover on all counts.</span></font></p><div class="p2_12" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Iraq’s military <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/iraq-iraqs-prewar-military-capabilities" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">was a fraction</a> of what it had been before the 1991 Gulf War when the U.S. invaded in 2003. Its fleet of armored vehicles was aging, short on parts, and completely outmatched by American tanks. The tiny Iraqi Air Force had not one plane from later than the 1980s, and in fact not a single plane got off the ground to challenge the U.S. in the air. None of these things is true of Iran. Not only is the Iranian military generally modern and in good repair, but the nation has also conducted an aggressive program of missile development, including short-range missiles that can be fired from mobile platforms. Included in this are a number of special anti-ship missiles developed especially because Iran <em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">expected </em>to be threatened by U.S. carriers. In addition, Iran sports a fleet of “midget” submarines especially designed to create havoc in the Gulf and act against both military and civilian craft. While there is little doubt the U.S. would overcome organized opposition quickly, it’s much less clear that this could be done without significant losses of equipment and lives, as well as a major disruption of the world economy.</font></p><div class="p3_12" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The current increase in tensions with Iran is directly related to Donald Trump’s precipitous unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear treaty—an action that was definitely not supported by other signatories to that treaty. And if the United States believes it will have a coalition of allies going into Iran … it had better think again.</font></p><div class="p4_12" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a title="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/14/world/middleeast/trump-iran-threats.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The New York Times </em>reports</a> that a British military official—who also happens to be the deputy commander of the coalition fighting ISIS—has stated that he sees “no increased risk from Iran or allied militias,” but the U.S. has fired back to say there are “identified credible threats” that generated the State Department warnings. That’s not to say that European officials and coalition members aren’t seeing aggressive moves in the Middle East. It’s just that those moves have “originated not in Tehran, but in Washington.”</font></p><div class="p5_12" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">There is an increasing fear that Trump, spurred on by <b>national security adviser John Bolton, thinks that a conflict with Iran could give him a Gulf War-style popularity boost going into 2020</b>. Republicans aren’t making that theory look any weaker by not just manufacturing a case for war, but arguing—already—that it’s time to have Trump’s back in this not-yet-conflict.</font></p><div class="p6_12" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On Wednesday, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio issued<a title="" href="https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1128631766078709760" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"> a series of tweets</a> that started with a claim that the “U.S won’t start a war with Iran, but it will win one that Iran starts.” Rubio continued through a set of statements claiming that “Iran’s proxy forces” in Yemen and Iraq “plan to attack Americans with the intent of inflicting mass casualties,” and that Iran has “spent years” building the ability to attack America through these proxy forces. He provided no evidence for this extraordinary claim.</font></p><div class="p7_12" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Rubio then jumped to a new level of odd in spinning a pre-propaganda statement warning that “internal political divisions” in the United States, and the legacy of the Iraq War, will lead “a substantial percentage of Americans” to blame Trump for any war. Because, he says, Iran will use social media to spread this message. Sure, says Rubio, some people might argue that Trump’s pulling out of the treaty without justification might have started this whole series of actions, but just ignore that. Instead, it’s time to show Iran that we are “united.”</font></p><div class="p8_12" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Shorter Rubio: If a war starts, it’s not our fault. And even if it is our fault, why are we arguing about whose fault it is anyway? Just support it.</font></p><div class="p9_12" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The facts are that Donald Trump has profoundly destabilized not just the Middle East, but the entire world, by showing that America cannot be trusted to abide by the international agreements that it has signed. Pulling out of that treaty not only sparked a potential conflict, but it also all but guaranteed that the United States would go into any such conflict alone.</font></p><div class="p10_12" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Any war in Iran should be expected to be an order of magnitude worse than the experience in Iraq—both in the immediate execution and in the aftermath. And no one will be cheering on the United States or providing troops and assistance.</font></p><div class="p11_12" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Except, of course, for Saudi Arabia, which is ecstatic about the possibility of Trump taking out its major rival. It appears that someone in the region really has learned about using proxy forces to inflict mass casualties.</font></p><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/this-right-wing-senator-just-said-the-u-s-could-quickly-win-a-war-against-iran-with-two-strikes/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/this-right-wing-senator-just-said-the-u-s-could-quickly-win-a-war-against-iran-with-two-strikes/</font></a></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/10/18/is-there-a-more-dangerous-member-of-congress-than-tom-cotton/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://theintercept.com/2017/10/18/is-there-a-more-dangerous-member-of-congress-than-tom-cotton/</a></font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.1em; box-shadow: rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px 1px 0px, rgb(17, 17, 17) 0px 4px 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"> RESHUFFLING OF</span> President Trump’s foreign policy apparatus, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/30/us/politics/state-department-tillerson-pompeo-trump.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">reported by The New York Times</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> on Thursday, would see Secretary of State Rex Tillerson ushered out the door, to be replaced by current director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">That opening at the CIA would, in turn, be filled by Tom Cotton, a Republican senator from Arkansas.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Is there a more dangerous member of Congress than Tom Cotton?</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The hawkish Republican senator and former U.S. Army captain has never hidden his relentless obsession with confronting Iran. He has led the charge on Capitol Hill to dismantle the nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic while constantly banging the drum for tougher sanctions and even airstrikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. With apologies to <a href="https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/winstonchu141781.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Winston Churchill</a><b>, Cotton wants “war-war” not “jaw-jaw” —</b> and he seems to have won over the know-nothing president of the United States. Last week, President Donald Trump <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/10/13/557622096/transcript-trump-s-remarks-on-iran-nuclear-deal" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">refused</a> to certify to Congress that the Iran nuclear deal is in the U.S. national interest and warned that U.S participation in that agreement could “be cancelled by me, as president, at any time.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>You might call Cotton, who is now being <a href="https://www.axios.com/the-next-cia-director-after-pompeo-could-be-tom-cotton-2497135822.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">touted</a> as the next director of the CIA, the “Trump whisperer.”</b> In fact, <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/getting-to-no/article/2009955" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">according to the Weekly Standard</a>, in a recent meeting with his top national security and foreign policy advisers, “having failed to receive the decertification option from his own team, Trump called Senator Tom Cotton and put him on speakerphone. The president asked Cotton to make the case for decertifying the Iran deal. Cotton took five minutes and walked Trump and his team through the case, emphasizing one point in particular: re-certifying the deal would be declaring that it was in the national security interest of the United States, something Cotton understood that Trump didn’t believe.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Weekly Standard report added that Trump “left the phone call” convinced that the decision to decertify was “the right one.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Got that? The reality TV star who now occupies the Oval Office defied the advice of his own inner circle, including <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/mattis-trump-iran-deal-will-us-stay-in-2017-10" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Defense Secretary James Mattis</a>; ignored the <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2017-10-13/trump-upsets-european-allies-with-iran-decision" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">pleas</a> of America’s closest allies; and dismissed the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/31/iran-nuclear-deal-trump-un" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">evidence</a> offered by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran is in compliance with the terms of the deal. Instead, he decided to go with the advice of a 40-year-old freshman senator from Arkansas, who has zero expertise in Middle East diplomacy and none in the field of nuclear proliferation.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If Cotton’s service in Iraq is being held up as evidence of his patriotism, then all to the good. But patrolling dangerous neighborhoods in Baghdad is not the equivalent of a training in foreign policy, just as serving as a deckhand on a ship isn’t much of an education in ship building. And it can’t be said that by living hard realities Cotton was drawn to his ultra-conservative politics.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> No, he’s been an outspoken conservative <a href="http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3238267/posts" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">since he arrived on Harvard’s college campus.</a> Cotton gives the impression of the type of right-wing student who loved little more than to debate and enrage liberals, arming himself with as many factoids as possible to embarrass his hapless opponent</span>. He started as a young man with the view of the world he has today and built credentials around it. Don’t be fooled.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">L</font></font><span style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;">est we forget, this is the same Cotton who was accused of</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;"> </span><a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/editorial-un-patriot-games-article-1.2143378?sdadsaf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box;">“treachery”</a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;">and</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;"> </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2015/03/13/tom-cotton-picked-apart-by-army-general-over-mutinous-iran-letter/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box;">“mutiny”</a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;">after penning a 2015 </span><a href="https://www.cotton.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=120" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box;">“open letter to the Leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran,”</a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;">in which he asked them effectively to ignore the foreign policy of the president of the United States, because the next one might undo it. “The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time,” he warned.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This is the same Cotton who compared the Iran nuclear negotiations to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr3BD2dm6CA" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">“appeasement”</a> of Nazi Germany in the 1930s; the same Cotton who shot to prominence in conservative circles after writing a <a href="http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/10/a-fateful-letter-to-the-editor-of-the-times.php" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">letter</a> to the New York Times from Iraq in 2006, calling for three of the paper’s journalists to be put “behind bars” for their coverage of a secret Bush administration program (one of those<a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/08/14/reporter-and-press-freedom-advocate-james-risen-to-join-the-intercept-and-first-look-media/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;"> reporters, James Risen,</a> is now a colleague of mine at The Intercept); the same Cotton who once said his only objection to Guantánamo Bay was that <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/05/tom-cotton-guantanamo-bay_n_6622750.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">“there are too many empty beds”</a></span>; the same Cotton who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/magazine/tom-cotton-is-not-mailing-it-in.html?r=1" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">claims</a> to enjoy eating birthday cake every day of the week. (OK, admittedly, this last point is not relevant to his knee-jerk hawkishness, but it’s still worth noting. What kind of maniac eats birthday cake <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">every single day</em>?)</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.1em; box-shadow: rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px 1px 0px, rgb(17, 17, 17) 0px 4px 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">IN MANY WAYS<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">,</span></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Cotton is the GOP foreign policy equivalent of House Speaker Paul Ryan: disingenuous, ignorant, and out of his depth, yet feted by the D.C. press corps as a Very Serious Person — a resume and a vocabulary as a substitute for seriousness.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">There is, however, nothing serious about him — despite his <a href="https://www.axios.com/the-next-cia-director-after-pompeo-could-be-tom-cotton-2497135822.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">two degrees from Harvard</a>. Like Ryan, Cotton’s policy ideas fall apart the minute they are applied to the real world. “The policy of the United States should be regime change in Iran,” Cotton <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/25/trump-iran-foreign-policy-regime-change-239930" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">declared</a> in June, before explaining how he believed the United States should “support internal domestic dissent” in Iran by backing minority ethnic groups, including Arabs, Turkmen, and Baloches, who “aren’t enthusiastic about living in a Persian Shia despotism.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This is madness. Have we forgotten how much blood was spilled in Iraq thanks to such a nakedly sectarian <a href="https://www.alternet.org/story/73103/the_myth_of_sectarian_violence_in_iraq" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">“divide and rule”</a> strategy? Are we supposed to ignore the way in which outside powers stirred up “internal domestic dissent” in Syria, by <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/world/middleeast/jihadists-receiving-most-arms-sent-to-syrian-rebels.html?pagewanted=all" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">arming and funding</a> vicious jihadist groups?</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Then again, though Cotton may now be the most hawkish senator in the United States — step aside John McCain and Lindsey Graham — we should perhaps thank him for his bluntness. Remember: Every time former President Barack Obama or a member of his administration framed the argument over the nuclear deal as a choice between diplomacy or war, Republicans would cry foul. This, they would say, was a false choice; critics of the deal merely wanted <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">a better deal</em>.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Cotton is clear about regime change. He is clear about airstrikes. He is clear about wanting to crush Iran. Consider his <a href="https://www.cfr.org/event/conversation-iran-nuclear-deal-senator-tom-cotton" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">recent remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations</a> where, referring to the impact of sanctions on Iran’s economy, Cotton said: “One thing I learned in the Army is that when your opponent is on his knees, you drive him to the ground and choke him out,” later adding, “If they’re on their knees in surrender, then you accept their surrender.”</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_hawk"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_hawk</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-republicans-try-to-rally-caucus-to-pass-fiscal-outline/2015/03/17/9860b89c-cc9f-11e4-a2a7-9517a3a70506_story.html?noredirect=on"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-republicans-try-to-rally-caucus-to-pass-fiscal-outline/2015/03/17/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">hawkish on mic spending?</font></div><div><span style="" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Most Republicans seemed inclined to support the measure, drafted by the new House Budget Committee chairman, Tom Price (R-Ga.), who hails from the conservative wing of the GOP caucus and proclaimed the proposal would “provide a contrast” to Obama’s own budget submitted last month. Price gave a guardedly optimistic assessment of the plan’s chances at winning approval in the House.</font></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">neocons</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/trump-clinton-neoconservatives-220151"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/trump-clinton-neoconservatives-220151</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">... interviews with POLITICO, leading GOP foreign-policy hands — many of whom promoted the Iraq War, detest Putin and consider Israel's security non-negotiable — said Trump would be a disaster for U.S. foreign policy and vowed never to support him. So deep is their revulsion that several even say they could vote for Hillary Clinton over Trump in November.</font></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Hillary is the lesser evil, by a large margin,” said Eliot Cohen, a former top State Department official under George W. Bush and a strategic theorist who argues for a muscular U.S. role abroad. Trump's election would be “an unmitigated disaster for American foreign policy," Cohen said, adding that "he has already damaged it considerably.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cohen, an Iraq war backer who is often called a neoconservative but said he does not identify himself that way, said he would "strongly prefer a third party candidate" to Trump, but added: "Probably if absolutely no alternative: Hillary."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a March 1 <a href="http://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11141308/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-max-boot" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.25s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">interview</a> with Vox, Max Boot, a military historian at the Council on Foreign Relations who backed the Iraq War and often advocates a hawkish foreign policy, said that he, too, would vote for Clinton over Trump. "I'm literally losing sleep over Donald Trump," he said. "She would be vastly preferable to Trump."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cohen helped to organize an open letter signed by several dozen GOP foreign policy insiders — many of whom are not considered neocons — that <a href="http://warontherocks.com/2016/03/open-letter-on-donald-trump-from-gop-national-security-leaders/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.25s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">was published</a>Wednesday night by War on the Rocks, a defense and foreign policy website . “[W]e are unable to support a Party ticket with Mr. Trump at its head,” the letter declared. It cited everything from Trump’s "admiration for foreign dictators” to his “inexcusable” support for “the expansive use of torture."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The letter was signed by dozens of Republican foreign policy experts, including Boot; Peter Feaver, a former senior national security aide in George W. Bush's White House; Robert Zoellick, a former deputy to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; and Dov Zakheim, a former Bush Pentagon official; and Kori Schake, a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and a former Bush State Department official.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Several other neocons said they find themselves in an impossible position, constitutionally incapable of voting for Clinton but repelled by a Republican whose foreign policy views they consider somewhere between nonexistent and dangerous — and disconnected from their views about American power and values abroad.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"1972 was the first time I was old enough to vote for president, and I did not vote. Couldn't vote for McGovern for foreign policy reasons, nor for Nixon because of Watergate," said Elliott Abrams, a former national security council aide to George W. Bush who specializes in democracy and the Middle East. "I may be in the same boat in 2016, unable to vote for Trump or Clinton."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Weekly Standard</i> Editor Bill Kristol, something of a dean of Washington neoconservatives, said he would seek out a third option before choosing between Trump and Clinton.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If it's Trump-Clinton, I'd work with others to recruit a strong conservative third party candidate, and do my best to help him win (which by the way would be more possible than people think, especially when people — finally — realize Trump shouldn't be president and Hillary is indicted),” Kristol wrote in an email.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kristol and Abrams have advised Florida senator Marco Rubio, the preferred choice of several neoconservatives, who admire his call for "moral clarity" in foreign policy and strong emphasis on human rights and democracy.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Alarm brewing for months in GOP foreign policy circles burst into public view last week, when Robert Kagan, a key backer of the Iraq War and American global might, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-the-gops-frankenstein-monster-now-hes-strong-enough-to-destroy-the-party/2016/02/25/3e443f28-dbc1-11e5-925f-1d10062cc82d_story.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.25s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">wrote</a> in the <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Washington Post</i> that a Trump nomination would force him to cross party lines.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton,” Kagan warned. “The party cannot be saved, but the country still can be.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an interview, Kagan said his opposition to Trump "has nothing to do with foreign policy."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"What it has to do with is the health and safety of American democracy," he added. "I don't even know what Donald Trump's foreign policy is. I don't think anybody does."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Though Trump's foreign policy views don't fit any familiar category, he has outlined several clear positions at odds with neoconservative doctrine.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While neoconservatives believe America plays a unique role in defending global order and Western values, Trump has <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/donald-trump-first-campaign-speech-new-hampshire-1987-213595" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.25s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">long</a> complained about America's military presence abroad and the protection the U.S. provides to prosperous allies like Saudi Arabia, Japan and South Korea.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Neocons depict Russian President Vladimir Putin as a sinister tyrant challenging America; Trump calls Putin a strong leader with whom he'd "get along very well" and proposes a more cooperative relationship with Moscow.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Neocons believe the U.S. must forcefully defend Israel. But while Trump insists his presidency would be "the best thing that could ever happen to Israel," he has alarmed pro-Israel Republicans with his pledge to be a "neutral" arbiter in talks between Israel and the Palestinians.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump has shown little interest in the neoconservative cause of an interventionist foreign policy guided by principles like democracy and human rights. And he says the neocon project of invading Iraq may have been "the worst decision" in presidential history.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some conservative foreign policy insiders opposed to Trump stop short of saying they would vote for Clinton, despite elements of her foreign policy record, such as her 2002 Senate vote to authorize force against Iraq, that they find appealing.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I could never vote for Clinton under any circumstances,” said Abrams.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I would ask Bob [Kagan] what job he thinks Sidney Blumenthal will have at the NSC before pulling the lever for Clinton,” he added — a reference to the longtime Clinton adviser and <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">bete noir </i>of the right.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Danielle Pletka, a defense expert at the American Enterprise Institute said she, too, would seek some alternative to Trump and Clinton.</font></p><aside class="story-related" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-right: 344.859px; border-top: 1px solid rgb(232, 232, 232); border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(232, 232, 232); padding: 0.625em 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; overflow: hidden;"><article class="story-frag format-sm" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table; width: 658px; table-layout: fixed;"><figure class="thumb" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table-cell; margin: 0px; vertical-align: top; width: 5.625em;"><div class="fig-graphic" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/the-day-the-republican-party-ruptured-220108" target="top" data-tracking="mpos=inside body&mid=ParentheticalModule&lindex=Unknown&lcol=Unknown" class="js-tealium-tracking" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.25s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">
</font></a></div></figure><div class="summary" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; line-height: 1.2; display: table-cell; vertical-align: top; padding-left: 0.625em;" /></article></aside><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"[W]hile I will never vote for a Democrat in wolf’s clothing like Trump, I will also never vote for a candidate as dishonest, as rapacious, as Hillary Clinton," she wrote in an email. "My vote is a precious thing, and while I will certainly go to the polls, if those are my choices, I will write someone in. And no, it won’t be Bloomberg. :)"</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The word "neoconservative" is subject to interpretation, and some conservatives consider it pejorative. Originally used to describe Democrats who adopted hard-line anti-Communist views during the Cold War, the word's colloquial meaning roughly amounts to “hawkish GOP foreign policy intellectual.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Neocons have shown little enthusiasm for Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who has singled them out for scorn. Speaking to Iowa voters in December, Cruz bashed what he called the "crazy neocon invade-every-country-on-earth and send our kids to die in the Middle East” element of his party.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cruz has also attacked Rubio in debates for supporting military action to topple Middle Eastern dictators in Libya and Syria, and has said the world was better off with former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in power.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the neocons reserve special scorn for Trump.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"A Trump presidency would represent the death knell of America as a great power," Boot <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/selling-america-short/article/2001271" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.25s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">writes</a> in the March 7 issue of the <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Weekly Standard</i>, along with Council on Foreign Relations economist Benn Steill.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Steill and Boot — who also has advised Rubio — call Trump "singularly ill-equipped to manage the resulting turmoil" from his policies. They recall the September radio interview in which Trump <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/trump-terror-hewitt-213333" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.25s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">confused</a> the Kurds with Iran's elite military Quds force and admitted he was unfamiliar with the leaders of major Islamist terror groups.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cohen also added that he doesn't oppose Trump solely on foreign policy grounds, calling the Manhattan mogul “the most dangerous demagogue in American politics in my lifetime.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Several other prominent neoconservatives, including former Bush Pentagon official Paul Wolfowitz and Liz Cheney, daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney, did not respond to requests for comment.</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>