A Colorado reader emailed Senator Michael Bennet’s office to ask why he was co-sponsoring the AIPAC bill that drastically moves the goalposts on the Iran negotiations whose terms have already been set, adds a whole range of non-nuclear issues into the bargaining, includes demands that both the president of the United States and Iran have already ruled out, and commits the US in advance to joining a pre-emptive war on Iran, led by Israel. Here’s the money quote from the letter he received from Bennet’s office:
I support the ongoing negotiations and the President’s efforts to engage Iran and its people through direct diplomacy; I am also cognizant of the security risks Iran poses to our allies in the region and the international community at large. That is why I am a co-sponsor of the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013 (S. 1881). The bill would impose economic sanctions against Iran only if it violates any interim or final agreement that is reached with respect to its nuclear program.
S.1881 has been placed on the Legislative Calendar but is not currently under consideration on the Senate floor. I will continue to follow the negotiations closely and will keep your thoughts in mind should this legislation be brought before the full Senate.
There are three possible conclusions to be drawn from this:
a) Bennet hasn’t read the full bill he is co-sponsoring, which includes several AIPAC-inserted poison pills for any realistic negotiation with Iran; b) Bennet has read the bill, knows it’s a poison pill that could only, if passed, end all negotiations and commit the US to an Israeli war, and believes war with Iran is the right course of action; or c) is deliberately misrepresenting the scope of the bill to his constituents, privately opposes it, won’t vote to bring it to the Senate floor, and is doing all this because he is shit-scared of AIPAC, and what crossing them might do to his political future.
At best that’s cowardly; at worst, it’s craven; in its entirety, it’s pure Washington – the kind of politicking that Bennet once promised he would oppose. In other words, Bennet is just another calculating Washington pol, prepared to sabotage his own president’s negotiations and provoke another Middle East war for his own careerist reasons.
Readers are encouraged to write their Senators, especially Democratic ones undermining their own president, to ask why they support the AIPAC bill. The Dish will publish the responses. It’s one way to get some accountability on this. And to get the Democrats who favor war with Iran on the record now. Let’s give the night-flower some sunlight, shall we?
(Photo: Senator Bennet with the president whose negotiations he is threatening to sabotage. By Mark Wilson/Getty.)
The Dish 