Will Obama Stand Up to the War Party?

Don't bet the ranch on it

By Justin Raimondo

"If you want to know what the future holds in store, just take a look at what John McCain said recently to the AIPAC conference......

In short, a military blockade that would amount to having Iran in a death-grip, precisely what Franklin Delano Roosevelt did to the Japanese in order to provoke them into attacking. What the War Party is hoping for is another Pearl Harbor, a rationalization to launch a new world war.

Barack Obama's response has been appeasement – not of the Islamic Republic of Iran, but of the Republicans here at home. Which is why the charge of appeaser, coming from the GOP, will tend to stick........

The Lobby's crime is not just that it puts Israel first. Worse, it represents the more unreasonable factions of that government, or possible future governments – the Likud-rejectionist wing that opposes any settlement of the Palestinian question except by expelling the whole lot of them to Jordan.

That its power is now being effectively challenged by the J Street organization shows just how politically isolated are the traditional Zionist groups, which have long dominated the debate over U.S. policy in the Middle East. The Lobby's main base of support is not in the Jewish community, but in the dispensationalist wing of the "born again" Christian evangelical movement, epitomized by the Rev. John Hagee. The founder of Christians United for Israel has taken Jew-hating to a new level altogether, wedding ultra-Likudnik rhetoric to obvious contempt for the Jewish tradition. Hagee believes that, come the End Times – after the Final War between God and Satan, one pitting Israel and the U.S. against the Muslims and the Russians, with the Chinese probably thrown in for good measure – the grateful Jews will finally see the light and be converted to Christianity. The rest will, naturally, burn in Hell.

The question that tantalizes is this: if Bush takes the hint and imposes a military blockade, will Obama get on board, or will he stand up to the War Party? I don't pretend to know the answer to that question; I can only hope he will, but I'm not betting the ranch on it."