On Friday, the Christian Scientist Monitor published what may be the first mainstream editorial linking the push for “crippling sanctions” against Iran as laying the groundwork for war with Iran.
From “Sanctions on Iran’s gasoline imports? That’s war talk.”:
In this post-9/11 age, the idea of preemptive war against a terrorist-prone country supposedly went out of favor after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.
Yet Congress is now pushing President Obama toward steps that could easily be interpreted as an act of war against Iran over its nuclear ambitions.
The House and Senate are moving quickly on a bill to force US sanctions on the sale of gasoline to the Islamic Republic of Iran. In theory, the measure would only punish US and foreign companies that export refined oil products to Iran which, despite being a major exporter of petroleum, lacks sufficient oil refineries.
But there’s a big problem: The only way to really enforce such a crippling sanction against the Iranian economy would be through an American-led naval blockade which, by international law, is an act of war.
Meanwhile, the Zionist Organization of America(ZOA) issued a press release this past Friday announcing that, having spent several years lobbying for gasoline sanctions as “the first step”, now that those sanctions are moving forward, they are beginning to lobby Congress on the next step: war.
“Hundreds Of ZOA Activists On Capitol Hill Saying: Crippling Sanctions On Iran & Stop Pressuring Israel”:
Hundreds of Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) activists from 19 states, including dozens of students, took part in ZOA’s annual activist Mission to Washington, D.C., on April 21 to urge Members of Congress to support legislation for immediately imposing new, robust sanctions upon Iran and enforcing the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 as the first step to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. Mission activists urged the necessity of military action should peaceful, diplomatic measures fail to stop Iran’s drive to obtain a nuclear weapons capability…
That hawkish organizations support possible war with Iran is not news. But the fact that organizations are openly lobbying Congress on this point means a new but all too familiar threshold is now being crossed.
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