Everybody Needs To Worry About Dennis Ross's Roadmap To War With Iran

Is Obama the Change We Can Believe In? Or is he Bush third term? Or is it Clinton third term? At anyrate, is this the change we voted for?



Dennis Ross Prepares For War On Iran

Jim Lobe suspects Dennis Ross is trying to maneuver Obama into attacking Iran:

"According to a variety of sources, Ross was the main drafter of Obama’s pander (except on the settlers) to AIPAC’s annual convention here in May and has since raised his hopes for a top post in an Obama administration, possibly even secretary of state. Frankly, I doubt that the latter prospect is realistic, but — and here’s the main point — I have it from several sources close to the campaign that he is more eager to gain control over the Iran portfolio (possibly special envoy) than to work on the problem that he knows best from his long experience, the Israel-Palestinian conflict. If he succeeds in his quest and if this report is any reflection of his views, then the U.S. could very well find itself at war with Iran within a remarkably short period of time."

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Everybody needs to worry about Dennis Ross having the president’s ear, day to day in the Obama White House, promoting an attack on Iran.
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It should be repeated again and again: the National Intelligence Estimate concerning the question of Iran’s nuclear program, representing the consensus of the 16 different U.S. intelligence agencies in 2007 concluded in “high confidence” that Iran does not even have an active nuclear weapons program. (The report appeared after nearly a year’s delay due to apparent obstruction by Dick Cheney’s office, the neocon headquarters).
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Dennis Ross is an NIE-denier. With no real expertise on Iran or Persian linguistic competence, and no understanding of nuclear science---but lots of experience in U.S.-Israeli relations and settler advocacy garnering him the nickname “Israel’s lawyer”---Ross was principal author of an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal eight months after the NIE appeared.

Sensationalistically entitled “Everybody Needs to Worry about Iran,” it alluded blithely, offering no evidence, to the Iranian regime’s drive to become “a nuclear state” and announced a drive to “mobilize the power of a united American public in opposition.” Co-signators included Richard Holbrooke, currently Obama’s special envoy to “Af-Pak;” former CIA director and Project for a New American Century operative James R. Woolsey and Mark D. Wallace, a former UN ambassador who heads up with Woolsey and others something called “United Against a Nuclear Iran.” (All were major proponents of the Iraq War.)

This group, in other words, wants to mobilize and unite U.S. public opinion against the consensus of the intelligence community about the nature of empirical reality, substituting for it the need to worry about Iran.
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Ross’s change of jobs was announced in the midst of the street demonstrations following the contested election results in Iran last week. He will now literally move into the White House and provide day to day counsel to Obama on how to “deal” with a leadership he wants to topple.
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http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp06232009.html

Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University, and Adjunct Professor of Religion. He is the author of Servants, Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan; Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan; and Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's merciless chronicle of the wars on Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, Imperial Crusades.

He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu

"Who is Dennis Ross, what does he advocate, how was he positioned to become the adviser on Iran in the Obama Administration and what will he do to Iran if he gets the chance? Let me briefly review the case.

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Who Is Dennis Ross?

"Dennis Ross is best known as the dishonest broker who led the so-called negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians during the Clinton Administration. He was “Israel’s lawyer,” to use Aaron David Miller’s apt description of the role that Ross’s “negotiating team” played in the Clinton era, particularly in 1999-2000. [2]"
http://www.counterpunch.org/sasan02272009.html

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Israel's Lawyer

"Unfortunately, too often we lose sight of the need to be advocates for both Arabs and Israelis. The most recent example of this was the Clinton administration's effort in 1999-2000 to broker final deals between Israel, Syria and the Palestinians."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/22/AR2005052200883.html

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How we got into Iraq after 9/11
"After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Ross supported the advocacy work of PNAC, a neoconservative-led letterhead group that advocated overthrowing Saddam Hussein in response to the attacks, even if he was not tied to the them. 31 Ross signed two PNAC open letters on the situation in post-war Iraq, both published in March 2003. The first of these, “Statement on Post-War Iraq,” was issued on March 19, 2003, the day before the United States began its invasion. The letter argued that Iraq should be seen as the first step in a larger reshaping of the region’s political landscape, contending that the invasion and rebuilding of Iraq could “contribute decisively to the democratization of the wider Middle East.” Other signatories included Max Boot, Eliot Cohen, Thomas Donnelly, Joshua Muravchik, and several other core neoconservatives. 32 "

Road Map To War With Iran

"Calling the report a “roadmap to war,” Jim Lobe of the Inter Press Service wrote, “In other words, if Tehran is not eventually prepared to permanently abandon its enrichment of uranium on its own soil—a position that is certain to be rejected by Iran ab initio—war becomes inevitable, and all intermediate steps, even including direct talks if the new president chooses to pursue them, will amount to going through the motions (presumably to gather international support for when push comes to shove).… What is a top Obama advisor [Dennis Ross] doing signing on to it?” 46"

http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Ross_Dennis
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