September 14 ,2009

Afghanistan isn't the only focal point of neocon pressure President Obama is confronting. Perhaps even more important is Iran--and the Israel Lobby.

Obama has given Iran until the end of September to respond to his offer of diplomatic engagement--and that may well turn out to be the mechanism that will unleash pressure on Obama to reverse his policies of trying to engage Iran. One key event, Iran Advocacy Day , sponsored by the United Jewish Communities (formerly the UJA), already took place on September 10 as a bipartisan effort to urge Congress to pass more sanctions against Iran to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear arms capability "because the grave threat that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose to fundamental U.S. national security interests and to world peace."

So what does that mean specifically?

According to a piece by the Inter-Press Service's Daniel Luban and Jim Lobe andIt means that the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act, a bill designed to stop the flow of refined petroleum to Iran, has become the top priority for hardliners such as American Israel Public Affairs Committee and an advocacy group called United Against Nuclear Iran(UANI) which has started an intensive TV campaign asserting that the US must prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. 

How much support mght such policies get from the Obama administration? As it happens, two co-founders of UANI are key officials in the Obama administran--Richard Holbrooke, who is now the State Department czar, I mean envoy, in charge of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Dennis Ross, who is in charge of Iran policy at the National Security Council. 

Meanwhile, The New York Times  reported last week that "American intelligence agencies have concluded in recent months that Iran has created enough nuclear fuel to make a rapid, if risky, sprint for a nuclear weapon." In addition, Iran's scandalous presidential election, which raised questions about Ahmedinejad's legitimacy, and Ahmedinejad's vague response to Obama's offer of diplomatic engagement, make it difficult for President Obama to offer further entreaties to the Islamic Republic.