Daily Beast – by Eli LakeAmerica’s largest pro-Israel lobby has deployed its organization in Congress to push for the president’s war authorization against Syria, according to a senior official with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) who called the effort a “full court press.”
Earlier Tuesday, AIPAC issued a strong statement supporting the president’s call for congressional authorization of limited airstrikes against Syria. A senior official at AIPAC tells The Daily Beast that the organization’s leadership received a phone call from a senior White House official on Saturday, after the president’s surprise announcement that he would be seeking congressional authorization for a Syria strike, asking what AIPAC’s position would be on a congressional resolution. This official said the lobby received similar calls from Republican and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate.
While AIPAC lobbies Congress for a stronger U.S.-Israel relationship, the group rarely deploys its lobbyists in favor of war resolutions like the one before Congress on Syria. During the Iraq War debate in 2002 and 2003, the group did not make the war resolution a priority. In the days after the 9/11 attacks, AIPAC did not take a position on the authorization of the use of military force against al Qaeda.
Instead, the pro-Israel lobby has focused much of its congressional efforts on pressing sanctions legislation against Iran in recent years, as well as working on the annual foreign aid budget. Israel has been the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid since the 1979 Camp David peace accords the Jewish state signed with Egypt.
The senior AIPAC official said the conversation with the White House was informational. “‘Where are you going to be on this?’ That was a similar message that came from the Hill as well,” this official said in describing the call from the White House and congressional leaders. “It was not so much an ask as much as an inquiry of where you are going to be.”
But, this official also said, the message was clear that AIPAC’s participation in the lobbying effort to pass the authorization “would be helpful.”
One reason AIPAC has decided to engage in the congressional fight over the Syria war resolution is that it sees a direct connection to Iran. “We see a direct link to this vote and dealing with the Iranian nuclear issue,” this official said. “Our view is that if this vote goes down, it will be devastating to American credibility and send a very clear message to Iran that they can press the accelerator on moving forward with their program. At this point Assad and Hezbollah are merely franchises for Iran.”
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Eli Lake is the senior national-security correspondent for Newsweek and The Daily Beast. He previously covered national security and intelligence for TheWashington Times. Lake has also been a contributing editor at The New Republic since 2008 and covered diplomacy, intelligence, and the military for the late New York Sun. He has lived in Cairo and traveled to war zones in Sudan, Iraq, and Gaza. He is one of the few journalists to report from all three members of President Bush’s axis of evil: Iraq, Iran, and North Korea.
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/09/03/aipac-in-full-court-press-on-syria.html
It wouldn’t matter if the phone calls to Congress were 10,000 to 1 against attacking Syria. If AIPAC says we are to go into Syria, their bought and paid for servants in Congress will do as they are told. They haven’t been listening to the people they represent for a long time. Remember, I think 79% of the people were against NAFTA, but we got that, too, and jobs started going by the wayside. Calls to Congress=waste of time, IMO.
I remain hopeful, and pray, that Assad is not taken down like Muammar Gaddafi.
Just how does a leader of a sovereign country come to terms with the fact that they too are potentially meant to meet the same fate? What goes through his mind as he watches the U.S. Administration and Congress decide the fate of his country and his life in the media?
. . .
“What goes through his mind as he watches the U.S. Administration and Congress decide the fate of his country and his life in the media?”
Bending over as far as he can for Yahoo.
AIPAC needs to shut the hell up. Another bunch of crazy bastards who have their noses so far up Barry Obama’s ass.
We need to stop AIPAC and keep them out of our government and send them all back to Israel before Iran starts the rain of bombs on that terrorist State.