sarah posner’s fundamenta-list #38

Sarah Posner, American Prospect, June 18, 2008

1. Election of New Southern Baptist Convention President
Signals Return to Past. Will the Membership Follow?
After two years under the leadership of Frank Page, a culturally and theologically conservative South Carolina pastor who tried to steer the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) away from overt politicking, the SBC last week elected Johnny Hunt as president. The move is evidence of the continuing strength of the conservative political insiders who staged a takeover of the SBC in the 1970s. David Key, Director of the Baptist Studies Program at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University, told me that, unlike Page, incoming President Hunt was the favored “inner circle candidate” who “buys into the Falwellian ‘we’ve got to take back America’ Puritan model.” Yet while the SBC’s political machine flexed its muscle within the denomination, said Key, it faces increased marginalization as the SBC’s membership rolls stagnate and SBC churches face competition from independent, non-denominational churches and the burgeoning charismatic movement. No other single denomination or organization — apart from the National Association of Evangelicals, which represents 30 million evangelicals — could claim to be able to mobilize such a large chunk of voters to the polls. But with the proliferation of independent, non-denominational churches, free of denominational bureaucracy and top-down orthodoxy, evangelicals have more choices for both worship and political involvement. While the SBC remains the largest Protestant denomination in the country with 16 million members, its flagging membership suggests that it is losing its three-decades long position as the standard-bearer of the religious right. During the heyday of the conservative takeover, SBC insiders believed they could grow the denomination by being as conservative as possible. Rank and file Southern Baptists, while still conservative and Republican, Key went on, are not looking for the SBC to be a political machine. The machine Southern Baptists, said Key, “are living in the past era. The world keeps going, the train hasn’t stopped, and yet they’ve stayed on the same platform as 1980.” As a result, the SBC “looks more and more marginalized.”

2. SBC Resolution Calls on Members to Vote for
McCain according to “Biblical Values.”
Along with Hunt’s election, the SBC passed a resolution on “political engagement,” urging Christians to “seek to apply their spiritual and moral values to the political process … We plead with all Christians to exercise vigorously their responsibilities to participate in the political process by registering to vote, educating themselves about the issues, and voting according to their biblical beliefs, convictions and values.” The resolution, of course, is code for voting for anti-choice, anti-gay, and culturally reactionary candidates. (The SBC also passed a resolution condemning the California Supreme Court’s decision legalizing gay marriage.) Does John McCain fit the bill? SBC members say they would “rather have a third-rate fireman than a first-class arsonist,” SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission’s Richard Land told the Baptist Press. Hardly a ringing endorsement, but a recent poll by the anti-choice site Lifeway showed that 80% of SBC pastors intend to vote for McCain; only 1% for Obama, with 15% undecided.

3. Obama Meets In Secret With Christian Leaders.
McCain will end up being the default candidate of the religious right, but Obama sees a clear opening to peel away the votes of more moderate and liberal evangelicals. Polling shows he’s made some headway beyond John Kerry’s share of that same demographic in 2004, but it’s not an overwhelming shift (up seven points among centrist evangelicals and nine among modernist evangelicals from Kerry’s share in May 2004, according to the recent Calvin College Henry Institute on Religion and Public Life). The numbers in Obama’s favor are not accompanied by shifts to Democratic party affiliation though; evangelical defectors from the GOP are largely becoming independents. When Obama met with about thirty Christian leaders behind closed doors in Chicago last week, it was another clear sign that he’s bending over backwards to diffuse both the rumors he is a Muslim and the perception, post-Jeremiah Wright, that he’s some sort of radical anti-white Christian unfit to hold public office. Although the meeting was off the record (a disturbing development from the candidate who claims to value transparency), some participants divulged a few details. Doug Kmeic, the former Reagan Administration official who has endorsed Obama (Kmeic, who is Catholic, was denied communion over the endorsement) was one of the attendees. He hailed Obama’s claim that he wants to reduce the number of abortions, even though Kmeic recognized that they part ways on the choice issue. Richard Cizik, who heads the political arm of the NAE, said he told Obama during the meeting that “religious Americans want to know why is it you love this country and what it stands for and how we can make it better.” Do they need a different answer than other Americans?

4. Huckabee, the Southern Baptists,
and the Future of the Religious Right.
In my interview with Professor Key, I asked him why Mike Huckabee did not appeal to the SBC insiders during the Republican primary. Huckabee, Key said, has a reputation within the SBC of having served as a moderate president of the Arkansas Baptist Convention, a position he held before running for governor of Arkansas. The SBC’s chief political spokesperson, Richard Land, has a distaste for Huckabee that “is personal,” said Key, because Huckabee beat out the SBC’s favored candidate for the post and prevented conservatives from dominating the state convention. Even though Huckabee turned right during the 2008 Republican primary, he was hampered by “lingering distrust in the partisan machine.” Huckabee’s embrace of the charismatic movement, as evidenced by his self-identification as a “Bapticostal” during guest sermons at charismatic churches, including John Hagee’s, during the campaign, could also rankle Southern Baptists, said Key. Independent charismatic churches, many of which are just as conservative on social issues as the SBC but offer a different kind of emotional and worship experience (including female pastors), provide competition to the SBC within the same socioeconomic class.

5. Hagee and the Anti-Defamation League’s
Abe Foxman Exchange Love Letters.
Last week, John Hagee and Abe Foxman exchanged letters making amends over Hagee’s sermon about God and the Holocaust. How long will this go on? There’s no shortage of nutty things Hagee has said and written; after all, he’s been on television daily for decades now. His Jewish allies have decided to make a political bed with him because Israel (they think) just doesn’t have enough friends. But as Jeremy Ben-Ami, Executive Director of J Street, the new pro-Israel, pro-peace lobby group, told me, “The fundamental problem with John Hagee and the close alliance between Christians United for Israel and established Jewish leaders can’t be erased by a series of apologies.” True enough. The bottom line is that Hagee is opposed to any territorial concessions by the Israelis, which doesn’t serve Israeli, American, or (something always left out of Hagee’s discussions) Palestinian interests. As Ben-Ami, whose J Street PAC endorsed seven Congressional candidates this week, put it, “We believe Pastor Hagee’s opposition to any concessions by Israel for peace is counter to Israel’s best interests.” Ultimately the Hagee alliance will never lose its potency over theology. It will have to be shaken by a rejection of his political stance by Jews and Christians alike, and by a political establishment that has been far too reflexive in accepting the dogma that Hagee’s politicking is good for Israel.

he could be right…

Some light in regional negotiations
Rami G. Khouri, Lebanon Daily Star, June 21, 2008

The balance of talk and action in the Middle East has not swung from war-making to peace-making, but it is inching in the direction of testing the negotiating waters. I am less skeptical than most observers about the meaning of the simultaneous Israeli negotiations with Syria, Hamas, Hizbullah, and the Palestinian Authority, and Israel’s offer to negotiate directly with Lebanon. Beware of simplistic, extreme interpretations: This is neither a meaningless, coincidental convergence of happy negotiators, nor a dramatic, purposeful shift from wasteful war to a more humane approach to nonviolent conflict resolution. A few things stand out in the current situation.

First, this is the third time in three years that Hamas has forced Israel into accepting a cease-fire, after Israel tried every aggressive, punitive, and occasionally barbaric method to compel Hamas to surrender and change its ways – including starvation, strangulation, mass imprisonment, hundreds of assassinations, and severe political sanctions and ostracism. Three times in three years David has forced Goliath to sit down and talk things over. This is the stuff of biblical epics. Second, Hamas’ performance and posture are indicative of wider trends that have probably pushed Israel into exploring diplomatic possibilities instead of relying mainly on its ability to kill and colonize Arabs, and on Washington’s blind support that verges on criminal complicity in Israel’s disregard for international law and United Nations resolutions. Technical and political dimensions of this seem obvious. At the technical level, Hamas has clearly imported important prowess in protecting and hiding its rocket launchers, giving it the ability to keep firing rockets at Israel despite repeated Israeli attacks. At the political level, Hamas has absorbed important lessons from Hizbullah, Syria and Iran in terms of standing up to and absorbing Israeli-American attacks, threats, pressure and ultimatums, without collapsing or begging for mercy. Third, Israel seems to have grasped the fact that Washington’s advice is lethal, and best ignored when real Israeli national interests are at stake. The US has persistently pushed Israel to either boycott or attack Hizbullah, Hamas and Syria, and instead Israel is now negotiating with all three of them at once. The assertion of Israeli perspectives over American ones in this realm is healthy – because Israeli policy will always be shaped by realistic and existential dictates, while American policy towards the Arab-Israeli conflict is largely dictated by a stunning combination of spinelessness, shamelessness and senselessness.

These are historic new developments in Arab-Israeli relations. We will find out in the coming months if the current penchant for negotiating expands into a serious regional peace process. Many domestic and external factors will determine the outcome of the current negotiations. One thing is certain, though: The Palestinian-Israeli conflict will reassert itself as the core issue that must be resolved if we hope to transform a troubled, violent region into a place where people can live more normal, peaceful lives. All the peace talks taking place these days will eventually stall and collapse if the Palestinians remain split and Israeli-Palestinian negotiations come to an end. The urgent need to re-establish order, efficacy and legitimacy in domestic Palestinian governance is now the single most important issue facing the Arab world, because it could impact positively on so many other regional issues. With the Hamas Israel cease-fire in effect in Gaza, now is the time for Palestinians to move quickly to resolve their internal disputes, reconfigure a single, credible Palestinian government, and revive a serious peace negotiation with Israel. Palestinians should take advantage of the current cease-fire, and act on the lessons learned from the last 10 years of Israeli-Palestinians dynamics, and explore again the possibility of negotiating an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

This requires two critical elements that are now missing: a unified, credible, legitimate and efficacious Palestinian government with a clear strategy for negotiating with Israel; and renewed integrity in the political unity of the entire Palestinian people. The first requires a Hamas-Fatah unity government that also draws in other key domestic players. This is widely demanded by Palestinians and should not be hard to achieve, if the political leaders act like adults. Various Arab parties would welcome the opportunity to host talks to achieve a unified Palestinian government. The second requires reviving the institutions of the Palestine Liberation Organization and consulting with Palestinians in the diaspora, including those living in refugee camps. Only a unified Palestinian government that legitimately speaks for all the Palestinian people has a chance of achieving meaningful progress towards a negotiated and fair peace with Israel. The Arab peace plan is there as an agreed, reasonable negotiating context, and Hamas has already made it clear that it will abide by the democratic decision of the Palestinian people on the issue of coexistence with Israel.

winep: bomb iran’s oil fields

The Last Resort: Consequences of
Preventive Military Action against Iran
Patrick Clawson and Michael Eisenstadt, WINEP, June 2008

PDF, 45 Pages, 552 KB

Accepted wisdom suggests that preventive military action against Iran’s nuclear program would entail significant risks and uncertain prospects of success. Much of the public debate surrounding these risks and uncertainties has focused on strictly military-technical considerations. Although important, these issues do not address the key political and contextual questions underlying any discussion of prevention and deterrence. For example, how would Iran — and the international community — respond to military strikes? Would such action convince the regime to permanently abandon its nuclear activities, or would Tehran simply rebuild? And what effect would such action have on subsequent diplomatic or military efforts? In this paper — the fifth entry in The Washington Institute’s “Agenda: Iran” series — Patrick Clawson and Michael Eisenstadt scrutinize these and other questions in an effort to understand exactly what preventive action would entail if the diplomatic road reaches a dead end. In doing so, they touch on the various scenarios under which such action might unfold, emphasizing the crucial role that context — including the international political climate, Tehran’s stance toward its nonproliferation commitments, public opinion in the United States and Iran, and similar factors — would play in the success of any preventive strategy. Whether military force is viewed as a threat to gain diplomatic leverage or an actual “last resort,” policymakers must come to a realistic understanding of its consequences if they hope to end the Iranian nuclear threat for the long term.

prather on the latest nuclear hoax

Another Tenet Sting Failure?
Gordon Prather, AntiWar.com, June 21, 2008

According to the Washington Post, David Albright – a man their sycophantic reporter inexplicably considers to be “a prominent nuclear weapons expert” – has charged that an “international smuggling ring,” having already “sold bomb-related parts to Libya, Iran and North Korea,” has somehow acquired “blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon,” which Albright contends were intended to be – or already had been – “sold” to any number of countries, including Iran. According to Albright, in 2004, Swiss investigators seized computer files – containing more than 1,000 megabits of information, which were encrypted and difficult to decipher – belonging to Swiss nationals, Friedrich, Marco and Urs Tinner. Albright alleges the files, when finally deciphered in 2006, “included essential details for building a compact nuclear device that could be fitted on a type of ballistic missile used by Iran and more than a dozen developing countries.”

How could Albright possibly know that? Well, according to Albright, the Swiss government – which lacked nuclear weapons expertise – asked the International Atomic Energy Agency for assistance. Of course, the IAEA also lacks nuclear weapons expertise. But, according to Albright, a “senior IAEA official” – almost certainly lacking nuclear weapons expertise – told Pakistani government officials about the “designs” found on the Tinners’ computers. According to Albright, the Pakistanis were “upset,” since “they realized that the designs had to be from their nuclear weapons arsenal.” “Had to be!” According to Albright, the Pakistanis were “genuinely shocked.” Why? Well, according to Albright, the Pakistanis realized that their national hero, metallurgist A.Q. Khan, “may have transferred his own country’s most secret and dangerous information to foreign smugglers so that they could sell it for a profit. And these advanced nuclear weapons designs may have long ago been sold off to some of the most treacherous regimes in the world.” Now, wait a minute. Albright is most assuredly not a “nuclear weapons expert.” In fact, going back to his alleged position of “Senior Scientist” at the Friends of the Earth in the early 1990s, Albright has opposed all nuclear programs, because of the unacceptable health and safety risks he and his eco-wacko friends maintain even peaceful IAEA Safeguarded programs pose, and because of the ease with which he and his neo-crazy friends claim even IAEA Safeguarded programs can be turned into nuclear weapons programs.

But, ever since Secretary Hazel O’Leary established her program of “Openness” at the Department of Energy – which resulted in practically all the health and safety “dirty linen” in the closets of the predecessor Atomic Energy Commission being aired (Albright was a charter member of Hazel’s Openness Advisory Panel) – practically the whole world has known that bombs like the Fat Man, with removable fissile “capsules,” are large, heavy and essentially undeliverable by ballistic missile. However, in Chapter II of the Cox Committee report, the whole world learned – courtesy Chairman Chris Cox and Counsel Scooter Libby – that the secret to making a compact missile-deliverable nuke was to make a non-removable pit out of Plutonium-239 and to boost it with Tritium. Now, the Pakistanis are believed to have both Plutonium-239 and Tritium production facilities. But they have insisted, officially, over and over that the world need not worry about terrorists somehow acquiring the nukes in their stockpile, because the fissile material in the nukes in their stockpile is removable and is in fact stored separately in a well-guarded facility. So, either the Pakistanis are lying or Albright’s story is about as wrong as it could be.

But it gets worse. In May 2005, Der Spiegel reported that Urs Tinner, who had been arrested by German authorities in October 2004, and accused of supervising the manufacture of centrifuge components in Malaysia, was, in fact, a CIA agent! And, according to Albright, the recipient of “a large sum of money and a CIA commitment” to keep him out of jail. Now, the Swiss had already “cleared” Friedrich Tinner of charges that he had shipped uranium-enrichment centrifuges to Iraq. So, according to Der Spiegel, as a result of a deal with the United States, the Germans were persuaded to extradite Urs Tinner to Switzerland. According to Albright, the CIA apparently expected the Swiss would “clear” all the Tinners of all charges. When that didn’t happen, and the Swiss eventually obtained what appeared to be “blueprints” for a Cox-Committee-type tritium-boosted Pu-239 missile-deliverable warhead, Albright claims the CIA intervened again to “destroy” all that smoking deciphered data.

But wait a minute. If the nukes in Pakistan’s arsenal are not Cox-Committee-type tritium-boosted Pu-239 missile-deliverable warheads, and Urs Tinner is or was a CIA agent, and had “blueprints” for a Cox-Committee-type tritium-boosted Pu-239 missile-deliverable warhead, where did he get them? Well, in January a federal grand jury issued a subpoena to James Risen, New York Times reporter for national security and intelligence affairs, and author of State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration, which was published in 2006. The grand jury wants to know Risen’s sources for his revelations about a CIA covert program called Operation Merlin, among other things. According to Risen, back in February 2000, the CIA (reportedly in collusion with Israeli intelligence and with the approval of President Clinton) sent a “Russian defector” to IAEA headquarters in Vienna with what Risen characterized as “blueprints for a nuclear bomb” with instructions to give them to the Iranian delegate to the IAEA. “Nuclear bomb”? Well, no. Apparently Risen is no more a nuclear weapon expert than Albright. The Russian was actually “carrying technical designs for a TBA 480 high-voltage block” – otherwise known as a “fire set” – for a Russian-designed nuclear weapon. Risen says the design – which he was told was “authentic” – had been slightly altered, so that if “built to print” it wouldn’t work. Risen says the CIA was providing the presumably stupid Iranians misinformation. But what if CIA-Mossad hoped that the Iranians would at least put the Operation Merlin stuff into their files, perhaps even correcting the errors and building working prototypes, to be found by the IAEA at a later date, providing “evidence” that the Russians were helping the Iranians develop nuclear weapons? And what if the CIA-Whoever had supplied Urs Tinner a “slightly modified” Chinese or Russian Cox-Committee-type tritium-boosted Pu-239 missile-deliverable warhead, hoping he could somehow get it into Iran’s files, for the IAEA to find? Well, Albright to the contrary, Iran would certainly not have bought such a design. What good would it be to them? Iran has neither a tritium or a Pu-239 production capability.

iraqis fed up with m.e.k.

BAGHDAD, June 21 (UPI) — A Shiite lawmaker with the United Iraqi Alliance said Friday Baghdad is in negotiations with U.S. officials over the fate of an Iranian opposition group. Jalal al-Saghier said the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki began talks with American counterparts to determine the fate of the People’s Mujahadin of Iran, known as the PMOI or MEK, headquartered in the eastern city of Ashraf. Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Tuesday the Maliki administration voted to classify the PMOI as a terrorist organization. The United States has been accused of using the group as a proxy for counter-terrorist operations in Iraq. On Thursday, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council said the U.S. backing of the group ran counter to government decisions to expel the PMOI from Iraq. Saghier said the United States can play an influential role in the PMOI issue and reminded Washington of its pledges to honor issues concerning Iraq’s sovereignty, Voices of Iraq reported Friday. The PMOI opposes Iranian influence in Iraq. It also seeks the overthrow of the Iranian government.

baradei : don’t even think about it

JPost, Jun 21, 2008

IAEA Director General Mohamad ElBaradei will quit his position in the event of a military strike on Iran, according to a Reuters report Friday. The report quoted him as warning that any military offensive in Iran would turn the Middle East region “into a fireball,” and concluding,

I don’t believe that what I see in Iran today is a current, grave and urgent danger. If a military strike is carried out against Iran at this time … it would make me unable to continue my work.

ElBaradei repeatedly stressed that a military strike would be the worst result for the region, added that an attack would give Iran more motivation to obtain nuclear power, and predicted:

If you do a military strike, it will mean that Iran, if it is not already making nuclear weapons, will launch a crash course to build nuclear weapons with the blessing of all Iranians, even those in the West.

ElBaradei’s comments came on the same day as the NYT reported that the IAF carried out a major military drill during the first week of June that US sources say was apparently a rehearsal for a potential attack on Iran’s nuclear sites.