In a shocking development, John Edwards cast aside his progressive veneer and veered to the hard right to support the escalation of Bush’s wars in the Middle East to engulf Iran.
During a lamentable speech he made in Tel Aviv, Edwards sanctioned a US war against Iran; denied the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group (ISG) and bashed the Palestinian people.
According to a report on the website, TotallyJewish.com, John Edwards proclaimed his support for the neoconservative agenda of the Israel Lobby, and he even echoed the bellicose rhetoric of George Bush vis a vis Iran – “Hinting to possible military action.”
In his speech before the Herzilya Conference in Tel Aviv, John Edwards echoed the neoconservative ideology of George W. Bush who is threatening to bomb Iran. In Israel, Edwards is now regarded as a strong supporter for American military intervention in Iran and the de facto expansion of the war in Iraq that would then engulf Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan in a flaming arc of war, terrorism and ultra-violence.
Edwards’ position on Iran places him to the right of Bush’s newly installed Secretary of Defense, William Gates, who warned the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that any such expansion of the war into Iran would have, “devastating consequences.”
Additionally, Edwards criticized Syria for not doing enough to prove it was serious about negotiating the return of the Golan Heights in exchange for its help in fostering peace between Israel and the Palestinians and stabilizing the increasingly turbulent situation inside Iraq.
His position on Syria places Edwards to the right of the bipartisan ISG that recommended negotiations with Syria for the resolution of both the war in Iraq and a peace settlement with Israel.
To top those blunders, Edwards then criticized the Palestinians for democratically electing the Hamas government.
In the same disastrous speech, Edwards refrained from criticizing Israel for withholding hundreds of millions of dollars of the Palestinians’ funds and creating chaos among the already deeply repressed population. Israel’s deliberate withholding of the Palestinians’ funds exacerbated the already dreadful conditions in the Occupied Territories and the Gaza Strip where the United Nations describes Israel’s harsh repression of the Palestinian people as one of the most egregious violations of human rights in the world today.
At no time in his entire career has John Edwards ever publicly expressed any concern for Israel’s refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Neither has Edwards criticized Israel’s refusal to acknowledge the existence of her powerful nuclear arsenal that is known to contain over 200 nuclear warheads making her either the third or fourth most powerful nation on earth.
In a statement that tacitly condoned Israel’s repressive policies: targeted assassinations; house demolitions; military attacks on civilian targets; detentions of thousands of Palestinian political prisoners and the persistent violation of the human rights of the Palestinians – Edwards proclaimed his allegiance to the agenda designed by the American Israel Political Action Committee, (AIPAC). In their now well-known paper, two highly distinguished American academics, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, exposed AIPAC as the political core of the Israel Lobby.
While John Edwards has capably expressed his support for the deconstruction of the premiere project of the Israel Lobby – the US war in Iraq – he leaves the impression that he is now ready, willing and able to launch their next foolish project – a US attack against Iran.
The fact that Edwards condones the humiliating violations of the human rights of the Palestinian people places him far to the right of former President Jimmy Carter whose latest book: Palestine: Peace not Apartheid is now soaring at the top of the bestseller lists in America.
All of this inconsistency with Edwards’ pledge to uphold human rights is deeply disappointing. Edwards’s neoconservative attitudes will be disappointing to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
Edwards promised to be a progressive candidate, but he now appears to be a devotee of the Democratic Leadership Council masquerading as a progressive who is obviously under the heady ether of the Israel Lobby.
References
Edwards: Iran Threat Serious
The Israel Lobby
