Why is Congress ducking a debate on the Iran War?
Because the American Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC) will not allow a debate
On June 17th Representatives Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., introduced a War Powers Resolution, which would prohibit the “United States Armed Forces from unauthorized hostilities in the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Senator Tim Kaine, D-Vs., introduced similar legislation in the Senate on the 16th.
So far, no action has been taken on either resolution.
Republicans control both houses of Congress but have not allowed the resolutions to come to the floor for debate. Why is a debate about this war not taking place? Article 1 Section 8 of the US Constitution gives Congress, not the President, the power to declare war. For many decades Congress has shirked this responsibility. Why is this war, which a majority of Americans oppose, not being debated?
Is it because our corrupt campaign finance system allows Congress and the President to be bribed with campaign cash, or blackmailed with compromising material? As a result of this corrupt system of money and undue influence the US military is being used as “the muscle” for foreign interests including international banking, transnational corporations, England, the EU, and Israel, to achieve their political and military objectives. Meanwhile, the US taxpayer pays the tab, and US soldiers do the fighting and the dying. If our elected officials are allowing this to happen in exchange for campaign cash, or because of undue influence, this is an issue of national security. These wars are destroying our country.
Item: Republicans resist curbing Trump’s war powers ahead of Iran decision. The only Senate Republican on Capitol Hill who appeared visibly concerned about Trump’s apparent willingness to strike Iran was Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky) although he did not commit to supporting Kaine’s resolution.
From Sludge: Meanwhile, Kaine and Ro Kahana are being undermined by their own party. “AIPAC-Funded Dem Leaders Duck War Powers Resolution on Trump and Iran”. Sen. Schumer and Rep. Jeffries are defending Israel's attack on Iran and have refrained from backing resolutions to prevent Trump from getting the U.S. military more involved.
Here’s Sludge: “Democratic congressional leaders, in their responses to President Trump’s saber-rattling over Iran, are echoing Israeli leaders’ claims that Iran must not be allowed to possess nuclear weapons, even though U.S. intelligence continues to hold that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and no evidence to the contrary has been presented. The talking points come after the pro-Israel group AIPAC unleashed an enormous wave of spending in the last election cycle to support House and Senate Democrats, and a recent push by AIPAC to pressure House Democrats to release statements copying its messages backing Israel’s war aims.”
Is the US a “democracy” that follows the constitution? If we are, we should be having a debate over the wisdom of this war, but we are not. Why? A debate will not be allowed because Congress’s funders in AIPAC will not allow a debate.
AIPAC fears an honest debate about Israel staring this war, the US’s relationship with Israel, the cost, including the ongoing savagery of Jewish Nationalism in Gaza and elsewhere, which US taxes support. If such a debate were allowed, some experts believe the lobby would lose.
From Mark Wauck’s Substack: “Trump Playing at Hamlet”
Professor John Mearsheimer was on Judge Napalitano’s You Tube Show.
Judge: Professor Mearsheimer, shouldn't there be a great debate in America about the nature and extent of our involvement in a war that could be as disastrous as is happening? Why should a person who changes his mind every 10 minutes meet in a windowless room with five people telling him what he wants to hear make this decision rather than great debates on the floor of the House and the floor of the Senate about the role of America in the world and why we really want to kill Iranians.
Professor Mearsheimer: Oh, it's very simple. You can't have a great debate on any issue involving Israel. It's just impermissible--The Lobby won't allow it. And all The Lobby's cutouts--you see them in the Senate, you see them in the House, you see them in the media--these cutouts working with The Lobby will not allow us to have a debate. And the reason they won't allow us to have a debate is it won't come out in Israel's favor. You want to understand that the main reason that we have an Israel Lobby that goes to enormous lengths to shut down discourse about Israel and to smear anyone who is critical of Israel--to ruin their career--is because if you had an open discourse Israel would come out on the losing side.
Judge plays a video of Tony Benn speaking in Parliament against the Iraq War.
Judge: Hard to imagine that Thomas Massie, or Rand Paul, or even Bernie Sanders would be permitted to make arguments like that on the floor of the House or the Senate.
Prof: Well, they probably would be permitted, but they would be assaulted--verbally assaulted--afterwards, and everybody would go after them hammer and tong, as is so often the case. I would also note, just to add to what Mr. Benn said, that after World War II it was not only the scourge of war that we were trying to eliminate, it was the scourge of genocide--and we don't want to lose sight of the fact that while this war between Iran and Israel is being waged a genocide is taking place in Gaza on a daily basis.
Judge: And we're continuing to fund Ukraine on a daily basis. Let's not lose sight of that. So the president of peace is funding genocide in Gaza and a losing effort in Ukraine and is acting like Hamlet --or wants us to think he's acting like Hamlet--with respect to Iran.
Professor Mearsheimer: Professor Mearsheimer wrote a book with Stephen Walt in 2007 called “The Israeli Lobby and US Foreign Policy”. From the book’s blurb. "This book provoked both howls of outrage and cheers of gratitude for challenging what had been a taboo issue in America: the impact of the Israel lobby on U.S. foreign policy. A work of major importance, it remains as relevant today as it was in the immediate aftermath of the Israel-Lebanon war of 2006.”
Since the publication of this book, nothing changed, and if anything, the lobby has become even more powerful. Now the proponents of Zionism and Jewish Nationalism are trying to get the US involved in a major war the US seems completely unprepared for, a war that could easily spread and lead to a world war. Jewish Nationalists recently identified additional countries for regime change; Pakistan and Turkey. Meanwhile, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq continue to be bombed and abused by Israel. Israel would not be able to do any of this without the free use of the US military.
The US is gathering Military Resources in the Middle East
There are reports today of 6 B-2 bombers, loaded with ammunition, flying over the Pacific towards the Middle East. Experts believe it will take 4 B-2’s loaded with bunker busting bombs, dropping the bombs in succession, on the same location, to reach the Iranian facility buried deep in a mountain. A B-2 is stealthy but not invisible. The development cost is $2.3 billion each--the production cost for each is $800 million. They will have to fly deep into Iran to carry out this mission.
— 22 KC-135 Stratotankers
— 53 F-16 Fighter Jets
— 10 C-130 Hercules transport aircraft
This is in addition to other US military assets in the region, along with assets from Britain and Germany.
Whether or not there will be a war is still unknown, but it is clear the US is preparing for a major attack on Iran.
Why is this happening?
I found a very interesting essay in Russian on Telegram. This is a machine translation. I cannot vouch for the source or the conclusions. I offer it here because the ideas are worth considering. By “London” I interpret the essay to mean western international banking and transnational corporate interests.
“The strike on Iran is not a reaction, but a code operation aimed at eliminating the alternative within the United States itself. At the first level, everything looks traditional: Israel is supposedly responding to the threat, Iran is a source of tension, the West is keeping its distance, and Trump is either silent or making harsh and incomprehensible statements. But in the subsurface layers, a multi-stage special operation is being formed with a double vector: 1) the transformation of the Middle East and 2) the political neutralization of Trump as the bearer of a non-systemic alternative in American foreign policy. The world is entering not just an escalation, but a reformatting of the mechanisms of power, in which the point of control is once again shifting from Washington to London.”
“In reality, the conflict between Israel and Iran is being used as a platform to dismantle a whole group of undesirable actors. Iran is being weakened through military blackmail. Trump — through political involvement in an undesirable scenario. Russia and China, as systemic opponents of the global architecture, are becoming targets in their strategic scope. The blow is aimed not so much at the territory as at the principle of subjectivity. For Iran, it is weakened through open confrontation, for Trump, through provocative involvement in a pattern of aggressive behavior, which he promised to end.”
“Trump is seen not as a figure, but as a deviation from the algorithm, and therefore it is necessary either to force him to act according to the old patterns, or to destroy him symbolically. Provocation through a strike on US bases by proxy structures with a false pro-Iranian footprint is becoming almost inevitable. Such an action will create the necessary casus belli, in which Trump will be trapped: either he follows the path of war, destroying the image of an anti—systemic peacemaker, or refuses to react – and loses support at all levels.”
“The presence of a British coordinator adds additional complexity. London is no longer playing second fiddle — he is writing the score. Management is carried out not through solutions, but through event chains and proxy structures. The figure of Fiona Hill is not just a source of leaks, but a marker of a new chain of command, in which the intelligence services and narrative centers of Great Britain acquire the function of external control of allies.
The triple purpose of the operation is obvious: the military goal is to destabilize Iran, the political goal is to involve Trump and deprive him of electoral stability, and the geo—economic goal is to change the logistics of the region and squeeze Russia and China out of the Caspian—Indo—European contour. This is not an imperialism of weapons, this is an imperialism of meanings. In it, the main victory is the destruction of alternatives. Therefore, an attack on Iran is an attack, including on Trump, and on any idea of a sovereign future.”
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Militarism, neoliberalism, and neoconservatism will dominate our future until the American people put aside their differences and unite behind needed reforms.
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