The Republican candidates for president are not the only politicians who use Iran, and its nuclear program, as a magnet to pull in campaign dollars. The same dynamic can be seen in Los Angeles where two Democratic House members, Howard Berman and Brad Sherman, are trying to out hawk each other on Iran in preparation for a June 2012 primary.
To be fair, both Berman, a former chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and now its ranking Democrat, and Sherman, two AIPAC stalwarts, were hardliners on Iran long before being pitted against each other in a primary.
That has meant promoting those "crippling" sanctions bills which supporters argue are specifically targeted at those Iranians who are involved in its nuclear program.
But Sherman, in his determination to demonstrate that he is tougher on Iranians than Berman, is now pushing AIPAC-drafted legislation that would, if implemented, almost surely lead to the deaths of innocent and random Iranian and Iranian-American men, women and children. (AIPAC's spring 2011 talking points for its members specifically called for "a ban on all Iranian-origin imports, and an almost total ban on selling aircraft or repair parts to Iranian aviation companies."
Sherman's legislation would prevent the president from permitting the inspection and repair of U.S.-manufactured engines on Iranian civilian aircraft. The planes in question were sold to the Iranians back in the 1970's (when the shah was in power) and are now dangerously out-of-date. Current Iran sanction laws prohibit the sale of new planes and parts to Iran, but a humanitarian exception in the law permits repairs and the replacement of parts necessary to prevent civilian air crashes. It is that exception Sherman is hell-bent to remove.
On March 16, President Obama informed Congress that he would use his authority under the law to allow Iran to repair 15 General Motors engines used in civilian planes that were recently deemed a safety risk by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Sherman went ballistic, immediately firing off a letter to the President demanding that he not permit the planes to be repaired.
There is no reason we should be helping the Iranians keep these planes in the air... Fixing these aircraft is in 180 degree opposition to our sanctions policy, which if properly implemented, would provide for Iran's increased economic and political isolation.
Sherman either overlooks or doesn't care about the one reason the United States should permit the repair of those planes: saving lives.
Flying is already dangerous for Iranians, thanks to sanctions that have prevented upkeep of the civilian fleet. In the past decade more than a thousand people have been killed in civilian air crashes. The most recent occurred in January when a Boeing 727, built in 1974, crashed with a loss of 93 civilian passengers, including children.
According to a Christian Science Monitor report on that crash:
The aging Boeing-727 plane... broke into pieces when it crashed near the city of Orumiyeh after dark. State television showed rescuers battling thick snow to find dozens of survivors among the 104 on board.
The crash is the latest to afflict Iran's aging fleet of aircraft, much of it delivered before the 1979 Islamic revolution and hobbled ever since by poor maintenance and a shortage of new planes and American-made spare parts due to sanctions.
President Obama, who has supported tough sanctions on Iran, clearly prefers that innocents not die in the effort to punish the Iranian regime. No doubt, he imagined that his decision to waive the ban on repairing the Iranian planes wouldn't be controversial. Who, after all, wants to see innocent people killed?
But Sherman says that punishing innocent Iranians is precisely what the United States should do. "Critics [of sanctions argue that these measures will hurt the Iranian people. Quite frankly, we need to do just that."
It is in that spirit that he introduced -- along with Reps. Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Poe (R-TX), Maloney (D-NY), Royce (R-CA), Shuler (D-NC) and Berkley (D-NV), a bill to deter Obama from preventing civilian air crashes in Iran.
Sherman's bill is the most ugly expression yet of this country's almost bizarre obsession with punishing Iran, its people along with its government. But it won't be the last.
In March, AIPAC will hold its annual conference with the president and some 300-400 members of Congress in attendance. Like last year, and every year over the past decade, the number one item on its agenda will be targeting Iran with sanctions and, even more, making sure that bombing the country is not declared "off the table." (For AIPAC, only diplomacy must be off the table).
No doubt Brad Sherman will hold forth about the merits of his legislation that will ensure that Iran's civilian air fleet is the most dangerous in the world. And he will be cheered. If we are lucky, Howard Berman will respond that one can sanction Iran without crashing its planes, but perhaps not. He rarely, if ever, deviates from the AIPAC line either.
The bottom line is that our Iran policy is nuts, and not just Brad Sherman's either. Our sanctions policy in general makes little, if any distinction, between targeting the Iranian regime and targeting Iran's people. Although most supporters of sanctions have not specifically gone after civilians, as Sherman does, few seem to care that it is civilians and not the mullahs or the Revolutionary Guard, who suffer because of them.
This is something new in American life. The Soviet Union was the most powerful and dangerous enemy the United States ever had (neither Nazi Germany nor Imperial Japan had nuclear arsenals). But even at the height of the Cold War, Presidents like Kennedy and Reagan emphasized that it was the Soviet government that was our enemy, not the Russian people. And, it hardly need be stated, Members of Congress did not suggest doing our best to encourage Aeroflot planes to fall out of the air.
But back then there was no lobby (or campaign donors under its direction) demanding it. Today the lobby demanding sanctions and/or war against Iran is, by far, the most powerful foreign policy lobby in the history of this country. It, almost always, gets what it wants even downed civilian planes. That is why AIPAC's latest sanctions package (including Sherman's plane crash provision) is likely to pass the House. It already has 349 co-sponsors.
So far, the Senate's "companion" bill does not include the Sherman language. Of course, AIPAC's conference is still five months away.
Follow MJ Rosenberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mjayrosenberg
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I am surprised by many of the comments that I have read on this thread. Either people have no clue what these draconian sanctions placed on Iran are or else they show no compassion for humanity.
Some don't seem to understand that not only has the U.S. placed sanctions on Iran but has forced many of the countries to do the same. So for many of the comments of why Iran can't purchase aircrafts from other countries, or spare-parts; 1. Countries who do business with Iran cannot do business with the U.S. - Therefore no aircrafts or spare-parts can be sold to Iran by other countries; 2. Russian aircraft are equally un-safe ; 3 If any component of the aircraft has technology that was made in the U.S. it is also banned, even it if is a screw.
More importantly these are passenger airlines - the U.S. keeps preaching that they do not want to harm Iranian civilians, and that these sanctions are supposed to hurt the regime, in contrast they have done exactly the opposite, they have harmed innocent civilians. So next time Ms. Clinton or Pres. Obama go on the tv to address the Iranian people and preach their support - Iranians beware the U.S. only cares if you rise up against the regime in order that it may install its own puppet until then you will be punished in every which way by sanctions and hardships.
The US is under no obligation to fix planes dating back to the 70s. If Iran chooses to neglectfully fly those dangerously out-of-date planes anyway then the Iranian government is the one responsible for the death of innocent and random Iranian citizens.
I guess we all have our priorities, and public safety doesn't seem to be high on Tehran's priority list.
The issue here is called humanitarian. The U.S. goes along preaching how it wants to help the poor innocent civilians who live under dictatorial regimes, but it is exactly the sanctions that it has imposed on Iran which has brought much suffering to the Iranian people.
Iranians beware this huff and puff about democracy and safeguarding your rights is nothing but to fool you to succumb and give up your rights as an independent state.
But, hey, that's their own decision.
And how many Iranians died in the past decade in car accidents caused by poor maintenance of cars? Is USA to be blamed for THAT as well? Maybe it is our "humanitarian duty" to supply every Iranian with a brand new Ford Focus??
More importantly, how many Iranians were executed by the mullahs' regime in the past decade for "crimes" ranging from homosexuality to adultery, "promiscuity" (read: girls having sex out of wedlock), "blasphemy" and other "crimes against God"??
Those who pretend to be concerned about "humanitarian" issues should militate for the removal of the mullahs' regime. It, not aging aircraft, is the biggest hazard to innocent Iranian civilians.
Sheesh.
Being executed by the mullahs' regime is not "dying for other reasons". It is a direct consequence of that regime. Airplane crashes are an indirect consequence.
Supporting the mullahs' regime kills more innocent Iranians than denying it spare parts.
The Valley once had three Veterans facilities and now, it has one, the Sepulveda Veterans Hospital. Most Valley residents are not aware that its existence is in jeopardy. Sherman has given his blessing to the giveaway of 14+ acres to a private developer. The remaining acres could suffer the same fate. Where are our veterans going to go to get their medical services?
Sherman and Berman will use smoke and mirrors to distract you from their voting records. While we pay record prices for gas and food, Sherman and Berman both voted down drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, voted to add 2.8 trillion to our Federal deficit, and voted down the Homeland Security budget. Both of them view immigration as a “dog and pony show.” I wonder who the dog is and who the pony is.
Our country was not built by unions, labor, management, Republicans or Democrats. It was built by Americans and the mutual respect we have had for each other’s talents, which have been offered in the building of the greatest nation in the history of the world. The free marketplace has given us the tools to wage a war on poverty for over two hundred years. Every day we fail to acknowledge this, we work to undermine the freedoms we enjoy.
I ran against the policies of Sherman last year and I am running again in the West San Fernando Valley. If Berman runs in this district, we can get rid of both of them in one election. Visit my website MarkReedforCongress.com send me an email mark@markreedforcongress.com or contact my office at (818) 353-8777 to join the Mark Reed for Congress team. God bless you and God bless America,
Mark Reed
Yup, free publicity for a wannabe and advertisement for another politician.... LoL
http://www.rferl.org/content/qatar_conquers_irans_airspace/24382213.html
No it's not. Let Iran worry about her nationals, it's not America's problem. Iran is an enemy of the US, a sanctioned enemy. They get their nuclear supplies from various places, let them get the plane parts from those places as well. Nothing criminal about it.
Second no other country can sell aircrafts to Iran - the U.S. has sanctioned them.
Finally do explain how Iran is America's enemy. You need some real history lesson before you make such nonsensical remarks.