Top House Dems back Iran engagement

[Purveyor]

March 29, 2009

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- A group of seven leading House Democrats called on President Obama to take "urgent action" to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

In a letter to the president, members of the U.S. Congress including the majority leader of the House of Representatives and chairmen of some of its top committees backed Obama's effort to engage Iran but stressed that it "cannot be open-ended" and that talks must begin "as soon as possible."

"We cannot allow Iran to use diplomatic discussions as a cover for continuing to work on its nuclear program," said the letter, dated March 26. "Iran must verifiably suspend its uranium enrichment program within at most a few months of the initiation of discussions."

The missive suggests examples of sanctions that could be used if talks fail, including on the Central Bank of Iran and energy companies investing in Iran's oil and gas sector, as well as measures that U.S. allies could take against the Iranian regime.

The signatories includes Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland; California Reps. Howard Berman and Henry Waxman, the Foreign Affairs Committee and Energy and Commerce Committee chairmen, respectively; Texas Rep. Silvestre Reyes, the Intelligence Committee chairman; Missouri Rep. Ike Skelton, the Armed Service Committee chairman; New York Rep. Gary Ackerman, the Foreign Affairs Middle East and South Asia subcommittee; and Florida Rep. Robert Wexler, a close Obama ally and chairman of the Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Europe.

MORE...

JTA: http://jta.org/news/article/2009/03/29/1004056/top-house-dems-back-iran-engagement-stress-urgency

[Sebastian Doyle]

1. I hate it that Wexler involves himself in this goddamn lunacy.

Seems like a good guy otherwise.

[Barack_America]

3. *cough*AIPAC*cough*

As far as I'm concerned, anyone on AIPAC's payroll is suspect. Which means that just about everyone aside from Kucinich is suspect when it comes to Mid East policy.

[rug]

2. The JTA is not the most disinterested outlet.

[SidDithers]

8. Yeah, not exactly without an agenda, are they...nt

Sid

[leveymg]

4. These demands to confront Iran went nowhere before. What's changed now?

Israel should have used its influence to stop, not promote, the invasion of Iraq. Until 2003, Iran was willing to deal and had suspended its nuclear program.

If Israel can live with a nuclear Saudi Arabia (Pakistan is its surrogate) then it will have to learn to live with a nuclear Iran. We're not going to start another preemptive war to allay their irrational fears, again.

[Sebastian Doyle]

5. What's changed is now there's a genocidal lunatic in charge of Israel

I believe it was the Israeli paper Haaretz that ran an article recently suggesting that NuttyYahoo was determined to start a war within his first 100 days in office. It's no secret that Iran would be his preferred target. :evilfrown:

[LooseWilly]

6. I thought all those mentioned sanctions were already in place.

I'm almost starting to feel sorry for the poor oilmen whose dreams of turning Iran back into a satellite state of the US, like the glory years of '53 to '79... the poor oilmen who see that dream of exploiting Iranian oil slipping through their fingers...
Dick Cheney, you've failed them. The shame. The humiliation...

[asjr]

7. Whatever happened to "You can

draw more flies with honey than vinegar."? Obama is perfectly capable of making up his own mind how to deal with it. I don't ignore the problem but I think we need not concur with the Bush administration.

[geek tragedy]

9. Dance, PNAC monkeys, dance! n/t