SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Opposing Two States, Netanyahu Unmasks GOP-Likud Agenda of Fake Diplomacy
Mar 16, 2015
Congressional Republicans who are trying to blow up U.S.-European diplomacy with Iran would desperately like Americans to believe that they have some alternative besides war to the Administration's multilateral efforts to reach a diplomatic agreement with Iran.
If any fair-minded man or woman who reads newspapers retains any doubt that this claim is fraudulent, let incumbent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - whom Congressional Republicans constantly invoke as their Supreme Guide on diplomacy with Iran - put these doubts to rest. (If the Jewish Daily Forward's JJ Goldberg is correct in his handicapping of the Israeli election Tuesday, Netanyahu may not be Israeli Prime Minster for much longer.)
The New York Times reports:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said Monday that as long as he is the leader, a Palestinian state would not be established, reversing his support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
What does this mean for Iran diplomacy? It means that the man whom Congressional Republicans have been touting as their Supreme Guide on Iran diplomacy has just spectacularly exposed himself as a diplomacy fraud.
The cornerstone of international diplomacy to try to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict is that the endgame is the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.
Netanyahu just moved to blow that up. He's just told the world: if I am re-elected as Prime Minister, forget about a diplomatic resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict. That's what Netanyahu and the Tom Cotton Republicans want to do to multilateral diplomacy with Iran: blow it up.
It's understandable how the Netanyahus and Cottons of the world came to see Iran diplomacy the way they do. Until now the world has mostly let Netanyahu get away with being a diplomacy faker in his dealings with the Palestinians. The Netanyahu formula has been: pretend that you support a two-state solution to the conflict, negotiate in bad faith, blame the Palestinians if you can't reach agreement.
So, perhaps it's natural for Netanyahu and the Cotton 47 to think: Netanyahu has gotten away with fake diplomacy with the Palestinians, why can't the U.S. do fake diplomacy with Iran?
Even on the Israel-Palestine front, it's far from obvious that the Netanyahu conclusion is stable. Every year that passes without a diplomatic resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict sees significantly more strength in Europe for the belief that a resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict will be impossible without the imposition of biting sanctions on the Israeli government.
But regardless of that, negotiations with Iran are fundamentally different from negotiations with the Palestinians, because the negotiations with Iran are fundamentally multilateral in a way that the negotiations with the Palestinians have not been, and Iran has levers to make the West unhappy if the West negotiates in bad faith that the Palestinians do not have.
The sanctions that are biting Iran are fundamentally multilateral sanctions. The U.S. cannot maintain or extend these sanctions without the cooperation of Europe, Russia, China, and other countries. Only in Republican John Wayne fantasyland does the U.S. get to order these countries about. Cooperation with these countries was essential to getting the sanctions in place, and if Congress blows up diplomacy with Iran, some of these countries are sure to say, well, there's no reason for us to comply with these sanctions anymore, because the premise of the sanctions when these countries agreed to them was that the purpose of the sanctions was to pressure Iran to seriously negotiate. Blowing up diplomacy would mean blowing up the sanctions regime. Of course, some of the Tom Cotton Republicans would be totally delighted, because their real agenda is war with Iran, and blowing up the sanctions regime would bring war closer.
This is why it is crucial to keep Senate Democrats off of the Corker-Menendez bill, the main Republican legislative vehicle right now for blowing up diplomacy. Republicans have now made "blow up diplomacy" the Republican Party Line. It is telling that Rand Paul signed the Iran letter of the Tom Cotton 47. It is telling that Rand Paul is a co-sponsor of the Corker-Menendez bill. The closer we get to 2016, the more the GOP is making Rand Paul drink the Iran warmonger Kool-Aid. The fact that even Rand Paul is now running with the Iran warmongers increases the urgency of pulling Senate Democrats away from them. You can urge your Democratic Senators to oppose the Corker-Menendez bill here.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Robert Naiman
Robert Naiman is Policy Director at Just Foreign Policy. Naiman has worked as a policy analyst and researcher at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. He has masters degrees in economics and mathematics from the University of Illinois and has studied and worked in the Middle East.
Congressional Republicans who are trying to blow up U.S.-European diplomacy with Iran would desperately like Americans to believe that they have some alternative besides war to the Administration's multilateral efforts to reach a diplomatic agreement with Iran.
If any fair-minded man or woman who reads newspapers retains any doubt that this claim is fraudulent, let incumbent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - whom Congressional Republicans constantly invoke as their Supreme Guide on diplomacy with Iran - put these doubts to rest. (If the Jewish Daily Forward's JJ Goldberg is correct in his handicapping of the Israeli election Tuesday, Netanyahu may not be Israeli Prime Minster for much longer.)
The New York Times reports:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said Monday that as long as he is the leader, a Palestinian state would not be established, reversing his support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
What does this mean for Iran diplomacy? It means that the man whom Congressional Republicans have been touting as their Supreme Guide on Iran diplomacy has just spectacularly exposed himself as a diplomacy fraud.
The cornerstone of international diplomacy to try to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict is that the endgame is the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.
Netanyahu just moved to blow that up. He's just told the world: if I am re-elected as Prime Minister, forget about a diplomatic resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict. That's what Netanyahu and the Tom Cotton Republicans want to do to multilateral diplomacy with Iran: blow it up.
It's understandable how the Netanyahus and Cottons of the world came to see Iran diplomacy the way they do. Until now the world has mostly let Netanyahu get away with being a diplomacy faker in his dealings with the Palestinians. The Netanyahu formula has been: pretend that you support a two-state solution to the conflict, negotiate in bad faith, blame the Palestinians if you can't reach agreement.
So, perhaps it's natural for Netanyahu and the Cotton 47 to think: Netanyahu has gotten away with fake diplomacy with the Palestinians, why can't the U.S. do fake diplomacy with Iran?
Even on the Israel-Palestine front, it's far from obvious that the Netanyahu conclusion is stable. Every year that passes without a diplomatic resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict sees significantly more strength in Europe for the belief that a resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict will be impossible without the imposition of biting sanctions on the Israeli government.
But regardless of that, negotiations with Iran are fundamentally different from negotiations with the Palestinians, because the negotiations with Iran are fundamentally multilateral in a way that the negotiations with the Palestinians have not been, and Iran has levers to make the West unhappy if the West negotiates in bad faith that the Palestinians do not have.
The sanctions that are biting Iran are fundamentally multilateral sanctions. The U.S. cannot maintain or extend these sanctions without the cooperation of Europe, Russia, China, and other countries. Only in Republican John Wayne fantasyland does the U.S. get to order these countries about. Cooperation with these countries was essential to getting the sanctions in place, and if Congress blows up diplomacy with Iran, some of these countries are sure to say, well, there's no reason for us to comply with these sanctions anymore, because the premise of the sanctions when these countries agreed to them was that the purpose of the sanctions was to pressure Iran to seriously negotiate. Blowing up diplomacy would mean blowing up the sanctions regime. Of course, some of the Tom Cotton Republicans would be totally delighted, because their real agenda is war with Iran, and blowing up the sanctions regime would bring war closer.
This is why it is crucial to keep Senate Democrats off of the Corker-Menendez bill, the main Republican legislative vehicle right now for blowing up diplomacy. Republicans have now made "blow up diplomacy" the Republican Party Line. It is telling that Rand Paul signed the Iran letter of the Tom Cotton 47. It is telling that Rand Paul is a co-sponsor of the Corker-Menendez bill. The closer we get to 2016, the more the GOP is making Rand Paul drink the Iran warmonger Kool-Aid. The fact that even Rand Paul is now running with the Iran warmongers increases the urgency of pulling Senate Democrats away from them. You can urge your Democratic Senators to oppose the Corker-Menendez bill here.
Robert Naiman
Robert Naiman is Policy Director at Just Foreign Policy. Naiman has worked as a policy analyst and researcher at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. He has masters degrees in economics and mathematics from the University of Illinois and has studied and worked in the Middle East.
Congressional Republicans who are trying to blow up U.S.-European diplomacy with Iran would desperately like Americans to believe that they have some alternative besides war to the Administration's multilateral efforts to reach a diplomatic agreement with Iran.
If any fair-minded man or woman who reads newspapers retains any doubt that this claim is fraudulent, let incumbent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - whom Congressional Republicans constantly invoke as their Supreme Guide on diplomacy with Iran - put these doubts to rest. (If the Jewish Daily Forward's JJ Goldberg is correct in his handicapping of the Israeli election Tuesday, Netanyahu may not be Israeli Prime Minster for much longer.)
The New York Times reports:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said Monday that as long as he is the leader, a Palestinian state would not be established, reversing his support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
What does this mean for Iran diplomacy? It means that the man whom Congressional Republicans have been touting as their Supreme Guide on Iran diplomacy has just spectacularly exposed himself as a diplomacy fraud.
The cornerstone of international diplomacy to try to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict is that the endgame is the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.
Netanyahu just moved to blow that up. He's just told the world: if I am re-elected as Prime Minister, forget about a diplomatic resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict. That's what Netanyahu and the Tom Cotton Republicans want to do to multilateral diplomacy with Iran: blow it up.
It's understandable how the Netanyahus and Cottons of the world came to see Iran diplomacy the way they do. Until now the world has mostly let Netanyahu get away with being a diplomacy faker in his dealings with the Palestinians. The Netanyahu formula has been: pretend that you support a two-state solution to the conflict, negotiate in bad faith, blame the Palestinians if you can't reach agreement.
So, perhaps it's natural for Netanyahu and the Cotton 47 to think: Netanyahu has gotten away with fake diplomacy with the Palestinians, why can't the U.S. do fake diplomacy with Iran?
Even on the Israel-Palestine front, it's far from obvious that the Netanyahu conclusion is stable. Every year that passes without a diplomatic resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict sees significantly more strength in Europe for the belief that a resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict will be impossible without the imposition of biting sanctions on the Israeli government.
But regardless of that, negotiations with Iran are fundamentally different from negotiations with the Palestinians, because the negotiations with Iran are fundamentally multilateral in a way that the negotiations with the Palestinians have not been, and Iran has levers to make the West unhappy if the West negotiates in bad faith that the Palestinians do not have.
The sanctions that are biting Iran are fundamentally multilateral sanctions. The U.S. cannot maintain or extend these sanctions without the cooperation of Europe, Russia, China, and other countries. Only in Republican John Wayne fantasyland does the U.S. get to order these countries about. Cooperation with these countries was essential to getting the sanctions in place, and if Congress blows up diplomacy with Iran, some of these countries are sure to say, well, there's no reason for us to comply with these sanctions anymore, because the premise of the sanctions when these countries agreed to them was that the purpose of the sanctions was to pressure Iran to seriously negotiate. Blowing up diplomacy would mean blowing up the sanctions regime. Of course, some of the Tom Cotton Republicans would be totally delighted, because their real agenda is war with Iran, and blowing up the sanctions regime would bring war closer.
This is why it is crucial to keep Senate Democrats off of the Corker-Menendez bill, the main Republican legislative vehicle right now for blowing up diplomacy. Republicans have now made "blow up diplomacy" the Republican Party Line. It is telling that Rand Paul signed the Iran letter of the Tom Cotton 47. It is telling that Rand Paul is a co-sponsor of the Corker-Menendez bill. The closer we get to 2016, the more the GOP is making Rand Paul drink the Iran warmonger Kool-Aid. The fact that even Rand Paul is now running with the Iran warmongers increases the urgency of pulling Senate Democrats away from them. You can urge your Democratic Senators to oppose the Corker-Menendez bill here.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.