Small signs of hope from the USA.
Yesterday I wrote ‘Getting Dennis Ross a Job‘ – an article about obvious Zionist efforts to ‘bump’ Ross into a senior post in the Obama Administration. Ross has repeatedly been touted as the ‘soon to be announced’ Special Envoy for Iran. This has been going on for weeks. Still no announcement from Barak Obama or Hillary Clinton.
President Obama and Dennis Ross - a graft that hasn't taken?
I posted an update after I saw an article in Alternet that must have been published almost simultaneously. It suggested a primary source for the “Ross appointment is imminent” rumour: the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), described as “the policy arm of American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a key component of the Israel lobby in the United States”.
Today there’s a remarkable new twist in the saga, carried by Reuters a couple of hours ago: Dennis Ross Chairmanship of Israeli Government Funded Think Tank Could Torpedo Iran Envoy Job
Reuters cites the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy as its source.
This is the kind of news that hasn’t come out of Washington for a long time.
It’s an encouraging indication Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton may have the fortitude to stand up to blatant Israel Lobby hardball – and intend to restore the USA’s foreign policy independence from the clammy embrace of Israel firsters.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Former Clinton Administration Middle East diplomat Dennis Ross is under consideration as US State Department envoy to Iran. Ross is currently the chairman of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute (JPPPI) in Jerusalem, established by the Jewish Agency in 2002. Ross could face legal challenges under the 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, if he enters US government service.
FARA protects the American people and Congress from stealth propaganda and foreign lobbying through strict public disclosure filings. The Jewish Agency has repeatedly surfaced during investigations in the US. In the 1960s the Senate Foreign Relations Committee uncovered a network of stealth Jewish Agency “conduits” financing grassroots Israel lobby startup groups through the American Zionist Council (AZC). During 1963 hearings the Senate revealed the equivalent of $35 million went toward US lobbying, including $38,000 to American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) founder Isaiah Kenen between 1960-1961.
Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy ordered the AZC to register as the Jewish Agency’s foreign agent in November of 1962. The AZC shifted lobbying activities over to AIPAC and shut down. In 1969 the Department of Justice ordered the Jewish Agency to file its secret 1953 Covenant Agreement with the Israeli government. The Covenant agreement reveals the Jewish Agency’s ongoing receipt of Israeli government funds for operations and powers such as executive review of legislative matters before they go to the Knesset. The Jewish Agency New York office, like the AZC, quickly shut down only to reorganize under a new US shell corporation in 1971.
Since 2002 former American diplomat Dennis Ross has filed no FARA activity declarations. This could be a problem according to IRmep director Grant F. Smith. “The US Department of Justice has always asked US recipients of Jewish Agency funding — whether the American Zionist Council and its US executives, or the Jewish Agency’s New York office — to register as agents of a foreign principal. With US-Iran diplomacy and restoration of productive relations looming so urgently, now is certainly not the time to resurrect foreign agent registration battles.”
Researchers may view newly released documents about the Jewish Agency and the US Department of Justice Foreign Registration Act in the the Israel Lobby Archive – a unit of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) in Washington.
Interestingly, the Institute for Research Middle Eastern Policy website doesn’t seem to carry any brand new information – but its homepage does feature an article from 23rd January 2009 entitled Qualifications for Obama’s Top Iran Diplomat: (emphasis added):
President Barak Obama has passed over naming Dennis Ross to top Middle East or Iran policy jobs. This is an intelligent move. Ross has been correctly associated as a major negative factor in the failed Clinton administration peace negotiations. Ross has also been perceived to be too much in the service of the objectives of the state of Israel and its US lobby to effectively negotiate on behalf of broader American interests.
His recent policy paper “Strengthening the Partnership: How to Deepen U.S.-Israel Cooperation on the Iranian Nuclear Challenge” (chartered by an AIPAC affiliated think tank) is a short roadmap for US military confrontation with Iran. It advocates blockades (an act of war which has brought poverty to Gaza) and ultimately military strikes on Iran. But US policy outcomes toward Iran are neither a foregone conclusion, nor should they mirror failed Israeli strategies.
Any “super” US envoy to Iran needs proper qualifications and reputation. They will have to have to gain the confidence of the Iranians and American voters. He or she must be deeply knowledgeable about the region and willing to engage in bona fide negotiations, rather than merely insisting on unilateral concessions under the veiled threat of military force. An American envoy must also break with the curious but useless tradition of “strategic ambiguity” regarding the Israeli nuclear arsenal. To do otherwise makes it look as though the United States is merely asserting Israeli nuclear hegemony over the region rather than seeking peace.
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UPDATE 1: Update 2.30 pm, Brisbane time 30th January 2009.
I published this article above about Dennis Ross approximately eight hours ago. Just before, I did a last minute Google web search for the exact phrase “Dennis Ross Chairmanship of Israeli Government Funded Think Tank Could Torpedo Iran Envoy Job” (enclosing the phrase is inverted commas). I wanted to see how many websites had run the Reuters story, then less than two hours old. The search returned ten results.
I repeated the search two hours ago. There were 226 results to be found. So the story has got around fast!
Now I repeat the search, expecting to find even more listed links. But the total has dropped, just a little, to 223. That’s odd.
In any case, no-one seems to have told the Washington Post. This is what it published on the web just over two hours ago, a contribution from staff writer Glenn Kessler (emphasis added):
Dennis Ross, the former Middle East envoy who will be Clinton’s senior adviser on Iran, has recommended that the initial approach to Iran take place through a “direct, secret back channel,” which would be one way to avoid empowering Ahmadinejad or publicly undercutting the ongoing nuclear negotiations.
“Keeping it completely private would protect each side from premature exposure and would not require either side to publicly explain such a move before it was ready,” Ross wrote in a lengthy paper, titled “Diplomatic Strategies for Dealing With Iran,” published by the Center for a New American Security in September. “It would strike the Iranians as more significant and dramatic than either working through the Europeans or non-officials — something that is quite familiar.”
Ross said the United States should ask the Iranian representative during the private talks to explain how his government sees U.S. goals toward Iran and how Iran thinks the United States perceives Iranian goals. The purpose of this dialogue, he wrote, is to “find a way to show the Iranians that we are prepared to listen and to try to understand Iranian concerns and respond to them, but ultimately no progress can be made if our concerns cannot also be understood and addressed.”
Ross conceded that it may be difficult “to set up such a direct channel that is also authoritative,” because in the Iranian system, the president has much less power than the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Perhaps this is a modern form of magic that the Washington Post and other ‘leading’ opinion-makers have developed? First assume an outcome – then start chattering about the fine detail. A little like Cindy McCain drawing up interior design plans for the West Wing sometime last October?
Let’s hope that in the Dennis Ross case the magic is equally unsuccessful.
UPDATE 2
Phil Weiss has an article published 31st January 2009 on the Dennis Ross (non?)-appointment. It has provoked qut a debate on the dual loyalty issue. See Dual loyalty issue said to damage Ross bid to honcho Iran portfolio
Still, it seems, no formal announcement from President Obama or Clinton.
K Bhadrakumar writes in the Asian Times that US Vice President Biden will have a chance to make informal contact with a high-ranking representative of the Iranian Government at the forthcoming Munich Conference on Security Policy – see Biden may hold unclenched Iranian hand
Even though the image of Ross strapped to ordinance, Dr Strangelove-style, had fleeting appeal, God forbid that a single missile or bomb is ever fired at Iran, of course. The ongoing chatter by Zionist leaders about attacking this populous nation is a reminder how dangerous Israel remains, despite welcome signs of sanity from Washington.
