Iran Hearing today: Heads up, this is the next target

[TayTay]

10 a.m.
Foreign Relations
To hold hearings to examine weapons
proliferation, terrorism and democracy in Iran.
SD-419

http://foreign.senate.gov/hearing.html
Look for the web video link on the above site.
*************************************************************

HEARING
before the

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday, May 19, 2005

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Time: 10:00 AM
Place: 419 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Presiding: Senator Lugar

Witnesses:
Panel 1
The Honorable R. Nicholas Burns
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs
Department of State
Washington, DC
Panel 2
Dr. Geoffrey Kemp
Director of Regional Strategic Programs
Nixon Center
Washington, DC
Dr. Gary Milhollin
Director
Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control
Washington, DC
Mr. George Perkovich
Vice President for Studies
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Washington, DC
Dr. A. William Samii, Ph.D.
Regional Analysis Coordinator for Southwest Asia
and the Middle East
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Washington, DC

[whometense]

1. Oh my freakin' god.

Already???? My head's gonna explode. That's what I'm going to be watching.

[TayTay]

2. Live feed here

http://www.senate.gov/~foreign/

EDIT: It's starting late. The sens. are coming infrom a CLOSEd hearing that had a State Dept briefing on exactly the same subject. Have patience.

This also means that JK cannot possibly be speaking on the floor until at least 1:45 this afternoon. His subcommitte will meet at 1:00, so he might not speak at all today.

1 p.m. Foreign Relations
International Economic Policy, Export and Trade
Promotion Subcommittee
To hold hearings to examine S.883, to direct the Secretary of State to carry out activities that promote the adoption of technologies that reduce greenhouse gas intensity in developing countries, while promoting economic development. SD-G50

[whometense]

3. Got it.

Thanks. Scott Ritter appears to know what he's talking about.

[TayTay]

4. Hey, we're nuking the Senate

so we can hide this Iranian attack strategy. Nobody's paying attention to this, right?

[whometense]

5. Right.

The 'bots appear to now control Lugar.

Here's a question: where the f*** do we get off demanding f***-all from the world community? Do these people seriously think anyone's ready to line up behind us for any purpose?

[TayTay]

7. They don't care.

That's what being a neo-con means. They have their agenda and screw everyone else. That's it. They are unilateralists. They will 'pay any price, bear any burden' in order to get what they want. They hate Iran and want to invade or at least carpet bomb them.

Remember what Steve Clemons said. Getting Bolton into the UN was a leg of the plan to attack Iran. Bolton is supposed to trigger the same thing that happened with Iraq: Iran is not obeying UN Resolutions so we need inspectors. The UN has botched the inspectors. The US is the only world power that can respond. We will do so.

Scary as hell. This is what Sy Hersh warned us about way back at the time of Condiliar's confirmation hearing. I am very, very interested to see what the Dems on the panel say.

[whometense]

11. Me too.

Presumably they've learned a thing or two about what this administration is capable of.

Know anything about this guy Burns?? Neocon plant? Creeping me out.

[TayTay]

12. Looks like a career Diplo

Served under Clinton. He seems to be a straight arrow. But he might have sold-out to the neocons in order to get his latest political appointment.

This sounds like deja vu all over again.

[whometense]

13. It really does.

I'm all for banning all nuclear weapons, but I'll tell you honestly I can see an upside for Iran to having one.

[whometense]

8. I see.

Iran has a "freedom deficit."

This is giving me chills.

"Persian laguage website which serves as our virtual embassy."

Advance the cause of human rights and democracy - everywhere but at home, right?

[whometense]

14. I wonder where Biden is?? n/t

[TayTay]

15. Sen. Biden is also on Judiciary

He may be occupied with the 'Nuke' debate or in off-site discussions on what to do on that front.

IS JK there?

[whometense]

18. I haven't seen him yet.

It's almost his turn, so I guess we'll see in a minute.

[JI7]

6. hopefully this reruns later on today

for those watching now online can you please let me know how many minutes into it JK comes on if he is there.

[TayTay]

9. No C-Span coverage at all

This is flying under the radar. (Surprised?)

[whometense]

10. Shocked.

I can't wait to hear what JK has to say.

[karynnj]

20. This is scary

Thanks for the link. This really is being done under the radar. The state department guy is very smooth, but the non-involvement of the US at the table does seem to require him to mentally stand on his head. It's interesting that even the Republicans seem to support the EU process.

Iran was one of the first countries to offer sympathies after 911. I wonder if the move back away from secularization - which gave hope that Iran would become more moderate - might have been triggered by our actions in Iraq.

I want President Kerry! If he were President and saying this, I would be as scared as I was in 1962 when Kennedy was President and there were missiles in Cuba, but like then I would have trust that my President would use every bit of intelligence and skill to do the right thing.

[whometense]

21. I guess I've gone over the edge,

but I'm a lot more scared of what my government intends to do than I am of Iran.

[TayTay]

23. Me Too!

Because they lie. (It's like the line in Through the looking glass, "Verdict first, then trial.")

Karinnj has it right. I do wish JK was there. Probably watching it back in the office. Maybe working on his speech to the floor.

[TayTay]

16. According to Dodd

Iran has been a very bad international neighbor.

Question for the Bushies: Why didn't they go after them first. (Diplomatically and with our Euro allies, of course.) They were more dangerous than Iraq.

[whometense]

17. Am I wrong,

or is Dodd spanking the *ies for not being directly engaged with Iran, and for "outsourcing our foreign policy"?

Is Kerry there? I haven't seen him yet, but people keep coming and going.

[TayTay]

19. Yup, you are right

The idea is to more actively engage with the Iranian govt and not just shut the door.

[karynnj]

22. I think part of the reason was the current wisdom was that there

was an ongoing move towards modernization. There was a sense that the elected President and the majority of the young people were pushing for a more secular nation. The mullahs were the most powerful force, far more powerful than the President, but they were allowing some change.

Maybe we thought that if were greeted with flowers in Iraq, Iran which was already moving in that direction would move peacefully themselves behind their President. (The other way wouldn't work; attack Iran - you still have Saddam in Iraq.)

[TayTay]

24. True! And Iran was the second domino

that was supposed to fall in the ME. We showed the ME that they had to fear the US. Only it hasn't played out that way. We have actually succeeded in showing our weaknesses.

This next panel should be fun. Oh dear!

[karynnj]

25. The domino actually moved far in the opposite direction

Before our Iraq move, Iran could have tipped in a secular direction. Iraq has a large class of educated people who were very modern before the mullahs came to power. Iran, even if we don't attack it, it may be a secondary victim of our Iraq war.

[TayTay]

27. I agree

The *ies were wrong, wrong, wrong in their predictions for what their actions in Iraq would do to the ME. We (US) are now bogged down in a civil war and have very, very little leeway to do anything militarily. (However, we can bomb Iranian nuke facilities which would be a bad thing.)

There have been lots of reports out of Iran that indicate that the people want to modernize and free themselves from such a tight grip by the Mullahs. The US's invasion of Iraq strenghtened the hand of the conservatives. We have shot ourselves in the foot, but the neocons can't ever admit that.

[karynnj]

30. I thought at the time we attacked Afganistan

that we would have been smarter to ally with Iran rather than Pakistan. The shared heritege of the the Taliban and Pakistan made things like the escape of both Bin Laden and Mullah Omar fairly predictable. Iran had itself been anti- Taliban.

There may have been geographic reasons.

[TayTay]

32. In hindsight, you are right

Who sold nuke material into the world market. AQ Khan and Pakistan. Pakistan is still not all that forthcoming on the old network. We could have done so much better, as you said. Iran and Iraq are enemies (or were, now Iran has a lot of agents in Iraq and want to turn the country to them.)

Sigh!

[WildEyedLiberal]

42. The neocons were stupid, stupid, stupid

To think that they could bully or influence Iran by invading Iraq. They seem to forget that the two countries are VERY different, and fought a bloody vicious war in the 1980s (during which Reagan and Rummy propped up Saddam and sold him *gasp* WMDs). Iran is a theocracy whose official diplomatic position does not recognize Israel as a state and supports Syrian terrorist group Hezbollah. Iran, for all extents and purposes, was always far more of a threat as far as the terrorism angle goes than Iraq ever could've been.

That said, Iran is not stupid, and is not going to commit suicide by lobbing a nuclear weapon (which I do believe they are eventually aiming to manufacture, mainly as a bargaining chip) at Tel Aviv or wherever. The United States should join with the EU in pressuring Iran through diplomacy to give up their nuclear program, or at least abandon their nuclear-cycle program, which would enable them to manufacture weapons grade nuclear material, which then could easily be made into a weapon. In return for this compliance, the US should agree to ease sanction on Iran. Give them some incentive and back away from the hostile posturing, and they are more likely to give what we say a shred of credence. Why should Iran care what we say now? We are already a declared enemy of the state, and we have no diplomatic or economic ties with them - ergo, no leverage. If we start the same belligerent martial posturing that characterized the prelude to the war in Iraq, I guarantee that tactic will backfire, cause Iran to withdraw into their protective shell, and become even more determined to produce a nuclear program for their own security.

Amazing how the neocons, who berate the idea of diplomacy as "for sissies", always manage to create the wars they want.

[TayTay]

26. So, I'm guseesing they got

unanimous consent to keep meeting, right?

I can watch about half of this, in between actually working.

[karynnj]

28. Yes, they got an ok to continue meeting

[whometense]

29. Lugar made an announcement,

with all the proper flourishes and thanks.

I want JK to show up. I can't imagine he's not watching, though.

I've missed most of what the second panel has said. (Damned day job.)

[TayTay]

31. Perkovich made a lot of sense

He's from: Vice President for Studies
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Washington, DC

Made a lot of common sense.

[whometense]

33. Can you hear anything?

I lost the sound.

nevermind. got it back.

[TayTay]

34. Yeah, periodically I have to reload the app n/t

[whometense]

35. I'm not following what Lugar

is going for here. He seems all over the map to me.

[whometense]

36. Biden often annoys me,

but he's all over this Foreign Relations stuff. He's really smart, and he obviously enjoys it. It's reassuring to hear him deflate the gloom-and-doom.

[TayTay]

37. I just got back

SO i missed the last 20. Thank goodness I get to skim the transcripts. It gets choppy, trying to follow these things.

[TayTay]

38. What Dodd said

Love it. "We are watching you to see if the military options are real or a ruse." He is so good.

[whometense]

40. He and Biden

were both really good. Lugar just seemed to be buying into the scare tactics, for some reason. He should know better.

btw, very relevant post in today's Huffington Post, The Rise and Fall of American Soft Power.

The US has discovered that by acting in Iraq without the legitimacy conferred by consent of global public opinion, the political objectives for which our military might was deployed, and for which we are draining our treasury, cannot be met. The ability of America to dominate the global environment -- power--is thus frustrated if not entirely defeated.

In short, the US has been demoted by the public opinion of even its closest allies from a hegemon to a merely preponderant military power about which most of the world has grown suspicious. .

And there is a paradoxcial but profound strategic consequence: By acting unilaterally as it has over the past few years, the Bush Admininstration has finally pushed the multipolar world order out of its post-Cold War womb. Whether Europe, East Asia, India or Latin America -- all are now acting in their own interest because they can't trust the superpower to take them into account. Only the weakest powers abide by American leadership these days.

[TayTay]

41. True and so sad

The awful sabre rattling by the *ies has made America weaker.

The only ray of light in this is that the American people are beginning to wake up to this fact. 51% believe Iraq was not worth the cost. A day late and a dollar short (and all those lives lost, my Lord) but the American people are coming to their senses. Let's hope they say that we will not get fooled again.

[whometense]

39. No Kerry :-(

Wonder what he was up to this morning?