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Home Front: Politix
These refugees were elected to Congress before Ilhan Omar
2019-01-05
[IsraelTimes] Holocaust survivor Tom Lantos, Rudy Boschwitz who fled the Nazis as a toddler and Ileana Ros-Lehtine, who escaped Cuba as a child, were all refugees.

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., on her first day on the job as a congresswoman, posted a list of firsts that her class represents.

"The #116thCongress has SO much to be proud of," Omar said Thursday on Twitter.

Among them, naturally enough, is what she and her colleague, Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., represent ‐ the first Moslem women elected to Congress.

But there’s a glaring error: Omar, who was born in Somalia, lists herself as the first refugee elected to the body.

Seffi Kogen, the Global Director of Young Leadership for the American Jewish Committee, counts at least four other politicians who in their lifetimes had refugee status, and two of them are Jewish:

    * The late Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., a Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor who made human rights
    When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much...
     a hallmark of his leadership on the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee.

    * Former Sen. Rudy Boschwitz, R-Minn., who as a toddler fled Nazi Germany with his family for the United States and who also has played a prominent role in human rights advocacy.

    * Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., just retired, who is of Jewish descent, arrived in Florida as a child of a family fleeing Cuba.

    * Rep. Joseph Cao, R-La., the first Vietnamese American elected to Congress, served one term (2009-2011).

I’d add former Republican Florida Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart, also born in Cuba to a family who fled after Fidel Castro seized power.

Two more errors on Omar’s list: Tlaib, whom she lists as the first Paleostinian American; is preceded by Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., and former Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is the youngest woman ever elected, at 29, but there have been plenty of younger men, starting with Richard Bland Lee, who was 28 when he joined the First Congress in 1789.
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-Lurid Crime Tales-
HRC - Phosphate money from Morocco?
2016-10-21
[Al Monitor 10 April 2015] WASHINGTON -- Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton is endorsing the illegal exploitation of disputed lands and risks undermining four decades of UN diplomacy by taking money from Morocco, critics say.

Clinton, who's expected to announce her candidacy for the Democratic nomination April 12, has come under fire for accepting foreign contributions to the Clinton Foundation, most recently a $1 million donation from OCP, a fertilizer giant owned by the Moroccan government. Left unsaid in the initial reports: OCP -- the Office Chérifien des Phosphates -- is a major player in the exploitation of mineral resources from the Western Sahara, a disputed territory known as the "last colony in Africa" that Morocco took over after colonial power Spain abandoned it in the 1970s.

"You’ve heard of blood diamonds, but in many ways you could say that OCP is shipping blood phosphate," Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., told Al-Monitor. "Western Sahara was taken over by Morocco to exploit its resources and this is one of the principal companies involved in that effort."

A co-chairman of the Western Sahara Caucus and the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, Pitts is one of a small handful of lawmakers willing to buck Morocco, a longtime US ally that runs a massive lobbying and PR operation in Washington. On April 10, he sent a letter to the Clinton Foundation, first obtained by Al-Monitor, along with House Foreign Affairs human rights panel Chairman Chris Smith, R-N.J., asking the foundation to refund the money and "discontinue its coordination with OCP."
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Europe
Schröder's Teheran visit kicks up storm
2009-02-22
Former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder - an opponent of sanctions against Iran - met with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Teheran on Saturday.

The visit of Schröder, who led a Social Democratic government between 1998 and 2005, was sharply criticized by the Central Council of Jews in German and members of the German parliament. "Mr. Schröder inflicts great damage on the reputation of the German government and the Federal Republic of Germany, Stephan Kramer, the council's general secretary, told the Neuen Presse newspaper. The visit showed support for the Iranian regime and a dictator, Kramer said. "In the interests of human rights," Schröder should cancel the meeting, he said.

Schröder arrived on Thursday and coordinated his four-day visit with the German Foreign Ministry. According to Schröder's office, he is conducting a "private visit." German media have reported that Schröder opposes sanctions to force a suspension of the Iranian regime's nuclear uranium enrichment program.

Schröder spoke at the Iranian Chamber of Industry and Commerce on Saturday. When asked if his talk at the business group contradicted the Merkel administration's sanctions policy, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman told The Jerusalem Post she did "not want to judge" Schröder's anti-sanctions strategy. It was a "private trip" and the former chancellor's "decision" to travel to the Islamic republic, the spokeswoman said.

Schröder told the Iranian Industry and Commerce group that "the Holocaust is an historic fact and there is no sense in denying this unparalleled crime." But the new Iranian ambassador in Berlin, Aliresa Sheikh-Attar, said, "The relations between Teheran and Berlin are too important to be overshadowed by a subject such as the Holocaust."

Annual trade between Germany and Iran totals roughly €4 billion, making the federal republic Teheran's most important European trade partner. In January to November 2008, German exports to Iran grew by 10.5 percent over the same period a year earlier. Last year's commerce included 39 "dual-use" contracts, according to Germany's export control office. Dual-use equipment and technology can be used for both military and civilian purposes. The Merkel administration and the Bundestag have steadfastly rejected legislation to curtail the mushrooming trade relationship.

Muhammad Nahawandian, the president of the Iranian Chamber of Industry and Commerce, said, "To find common solutions, we shouldn't forget the recent massacre of people in Gaza and should internationally condemn Israel for it," according to Reuters.

Michail Kortschemkin, director of the East European Gas Analysis agency, told the Süddeutsche Zeitung daily that Schröder is "presenting himself like a sort of Gazprom influence agent" in Iran. Soon after stepping down as chancellor, Schröder accepted Russian oil and gas giant Gazprom's nomination for the post of the head of the shareholders' committee of Nord Stream AG, raising questions about a conflict of interest. The late US congressman Tom Lantos, then-chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, likened Schröder to a "political prostitute" for his behavior. Commentators suggest that he is engaging in lobbying activity in Iran to increase business between Iran and Gazprom.

Eckart von Klaeden, Christian Democratic Union foreign policy spokesman, urged Schröder on Friday to cancel his visit with Ahmadinejad to avoid "flattering" the Iranian president. Green Party MP Omid Nouripour, who was born in Teheran, said Schröder "should be campaigning actively for the SPD [Social Democratic Party], which is in such bad shape, rather than passively for Ahmadinejad."

Schröder's itinerary has meetings with a who's who of Holocaust deniers and opponents of Israel's right to exist, including with Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki, who opened the "World Without Zionism" conference in Teheran in 2006 and cast doubt on the "official version of the Holocaust."

Another meeting is set with Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, who said early this month at the annual Munich Security Conference, "In Iran, we don't have the same sensitivities" regarding whether the Holocaust occurred. Asked if the German Foreign Ministry condemned Larijani's comments, a spokeswoman told the Post that she was not present at the conference and therefore "could not say" if Social Democratic Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeir rebuked Larijani for denying the Holocaust, which is illegal in Germany.

Schröder also intends to meet with former Iranian president Ali Akhbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who asserted in an anti-Israeli speech in 2001 that the Islamic world could sustain a nuclear strike, but one atomic bomb would obliterate Israel. In his speech, Rafsanjani said if the world of Islam obtained nuclear weapons technology it could destroy Israel.
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India-Pakistan
State Department Asks Congress To Keep Quiet About Details of US-India Nuclear Deal
2008-05-10
Washington's civil nuclear deal with India is in such desperate straits that the State Department has imposed unusually strict conditions on the answers it provided to questions posed by members of Congress: Keep them secret.

The State Department made the request, even though the answers are not classified, because officials fear that public disclosure would torpedo the deal, sources said. The agreement would give New Delhi access to U.S. nuclear technology for the first time since it conducted a nuclear test in 1974, but leftist parties in the coalition government remain skeptical and view it as a possible infringement on India's sovereignty.

Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), the late chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, agreed to the request in February, and the current chairman, Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.), has abided by that commitment, though Berman is not considered a strong supporter of the deal. A group of prominent nonproliferation experts has decried the "virtual 'gag' order," but thus far, the answers have not leaked, in part because only a handful of congressional officials have been able to read them.

"The administration's unwillingness to make their answers more widely available suggests they have something to hide from either U.S. or Indian legislators," said Daryl Kimball, director of the Arms Control Association.

President Bush's agreement with India, considered a key part of the administration's foreign policy legacy, is designed to solidify Washington's relationship with a fast-emerging economic power. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed to the pact in July 2005, but it has faced many hurdles. If Congress gives the deal final approval, India will be able to engage in civil nuclear trade with the United States, even though it has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The nearly 50 questions posed by Congress are highly technical, but they were carefully crafted to get to the heart of the balancing act the administration has performed between adhering to the letter of U.S. nonproliferation law and assuaging Indian concerns that it was not being treated like a true nuclear power.

Congress passed a law, known as the Hyde Act, to provisionally accept the agreement, but some lawmakers have raised concerns about whether the implementing agreement negotiated by the administration fudges critical details.

For instance, one of the questions pertains to whether the United States would terminate nuclear trade if India resumes nuclear testing. This is a sensitive point in India and is required under U.S. law, but the answer is not entirely clear from the text of the U.S.-India agreement.

Another series of questions addresses the commitment by the United States to supply India with a "reliable supply of fuel" for its reactors, including a pledge to take steps to "guard against the disruption of fuel supplies." A series of questions asks whether these commitments are legally binding, whether the two governments agree on the definition of a fuel supply disruption and whether the commitments would be affected by a nuclear test.

At one point, the lawmakers question whether these commitments in the implementing agreement are consistent with the Hyde Act.

Given the pointed nature of the questions, sources said the State Department had little choice but to be candid with lawmakers about the answers, in ways that senior State Department officials had not been in public.

Lynne Weil, a spokeswoman for the committee, said the State Department provided a lot of information, but the committee has agreed not to disclose the answers because "some data might be considered diplomatically sensitive." She said the nuclear deal still must come back to Congress for final approval, and, at that point, public hearings will be held and "the questions will come up again."

State said it had no plans to make the answers public. "We've handled answers to sensitive questions in an appropriate way that responded to congressional concerns," said State Department spokesman Tom Casey. "We're going to continue with that approach."
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Home Front: Politix
Interesting patterns in Obama's book
2008-03-21
Reading Dreams from My Father, Part Five
Jim Geraghty, National Review

I’m up to Obama’s boyhood years in Indonesia now. . . . Obama goes on to describe life in a country ruled by fear in pretty gripping terms: “the way the rich and loamy earth could soak up the rivers of blood that had once coursed through the streets, the way people could continue about their business beneath giant posters of the new president as if nothing had happened, a nation busy developing itself. As [his mother’s] circle of Indonesian friends widened, a few of them would be willing to tell her other stories —- about the corruption that pervaded government agencies, the shakedowns by police and the military, entire industries carved out for the president’s family and entourage.”

But from that vivid experience with a brutal regime as a boy, one would think that Obama would be a relentless fighter on the issue of human rights. And it’s not like his record in this area isn’t without its highlights – work with Senator Sam Brownback to pass the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act here, a visit to refugee camps on the Chad-Sudan border there, a resolution denouncing Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's government here, an amendment to bring former Liberian president Charles Taylor to justice there…

But does a visceral disdain for thugs in power flow through Obama’s bloodstream, the way it did through the late Tom Lantos, or Democratic Congressman Donald Payne, or Brownback or Republican Congressman Chris Smith? Do we detect the white-hot anger of President Reagan’s vigorous denunciations of human rights abuses by Cuba and the Soviet Empire? Would he be willing to do what Jimmy Carter did, and pull the U.S. out of the Olympics if they’re hosted by a brutal regime? (As we hear of new abuses in Tibet, is Beijing any more of an outrageous host than Moscow in 1980?)

Does a man who bristles with loathing for the cruel and inhumane rulers in this world tout face-to-face diplomacy with any and all dictators as his primary foreign policy change?

I wrote elsewhere yesterday about a similar pattern on other issues:

A man who claims to have dedicated his career to good, clean government chooses to buy his house with Tony Rezko, and a man who claims to have dedicated his life to racial reconciliation chooses to attend a church that teaches that the government created AIDS to commit genocide against minorities. Obama has this strange habit of choosing a path that takes him in the opposite direction of his stated goal.
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Europe
“Europe was not as outraged by Auschwitz as by Guantanamo Bay.”
2007-10-28
Don Surber

He’ll probably apologize for the remark later but Democratic Congressman Tom Lantos of California, the only Holocaust survivor in Congress, told it like it is to some Dutch politicians: “Europe was not as outraged by Auschwitz as by Guantanamo Bay.”

The liberal Lantos is far from a friend of Gitmo. The Dutch sent these politicians here to bitch about Gitmo. No reporter attended a meeting between the Dutch and the congressman, but AP wrote a story based on Green Party legislator Mariko Peters.

The Dutch are threatening to remove their 1,600 troops from Afghanistan to protest Gitmo. Dutch politicians face growing problems with Islamic youths and likely fear a L’Intifada like France suffered in 2005.

Peters said: “We have to close Guantanamo because it symbolizes for me everything that is wrong with this war on terror.”

To which Lantos apparently replied: “Europe was not as outraged by Auschwitz as by Guantanamo Bay”

He also said: “You have to help us, because if it was not for us you would now be a province of Nazi Germany.”

Good for him.
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Home Front: Politix
House Panel Approves Frigate, Minehunter Transfers to Turkey
2007-10-27
Business as usual, as we nudge the Euros out of the way. But now is not the best time to extend these deals to Turkey. Hat tip to the Former Spook.
The Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives has approved a bill to grant to Turkey three decommissioned U.S. military ships and to sell a fourth to the allied nation at a large discount. The panel passed the bill on a voice vote.

Under the arrangement, the U.S. should transfer to Turkey two Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided-missile frigates and an Osprey-class coastal minehunter. Another coastal minehunter was offered to Turkey at the sale price of nearly $28 million. The two frigates, recently decommissioned by the U.S. Navy, are valued at about $125 million each, and the Osprey-class minehunters are worth about $130 million each, U.S. and Turkish military officials said.

The bill now must be approved in a House floor vote and by the Senate before being signed by President George W. Bush. Under the same bill, the U.S. also is planning to grant two other Osprey-class minehunters to Lithuania and to sell another two to Taiwan.

The Foreign Affairs Committee’s chairman, Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), sponsored the bill. On the Senate side, the bill’s sponsor is Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.
Lantos was also a sponsor on the Armenia genocide bill. Nice to see he can play both sides of the street.
Turkey’s navy already has eight Perry-class frigates granted earlier by the U.S. These frigates specialize in surface combat, and to bolster the vessels’ anti-submarine capabilities, Turkey deploys S-70 B Seahawk naval warfare helicopters, purchased from Sikorsky Aircraft, Stratford, Conn. The Osprey-class coastal minehunters would be the first in the Turkish navy’s fleet.

Most of Turkey’s ships are German-built. The U.S., in an effort to boost its influence, over the past decade has been granting frigates to the Turkish navy, a move that also encourages Turkey’s purchase of Seahawks.

Under the latest deal, Turkey stands to gain four ships, but it would have to pay for repair and refurbishment of the vessels before their formal deliveries. Such work would be performed at U.S. shipyards.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Sarkozy implies letting Iran go nuclear could lead to war
2007-09-26
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Tuesday the international standoff over Iran's nuclear program will only be resolved with a combination of "firmness and dialogue," and that appeasement may only lead to "war."

Sarkozy, addressing the UN General Assembly for the first time since becoming president in May, said allowing Iran to arm itself with nuclear weapons would be an "unacceptable risk to stability in the region and in the world."

Iran was entitled to nuclear power for civilian purposes, he said, "but if we allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, we would incur an unacceptable risk to stability in the region and in the world. Weakness and renunciation do not lead to peace. They lead to war."

"There will not be peace in the world if the international community falters in the face of the proliferation of nuclear arms," Sarkozy said. The Iranian crisis "will only be resolved if firmness and dialogue go hand-in-hand."

In related news, the US Congress moved quickly to signal its disapproval of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calling for tighter sanctions against his government and designation of his military as a terrorist group.

The swift rebuke was a rare display of bipartisan cooperation in a Congress bitterly divided on the Iraq war. It reflected lawmakers' long-held nervousness surrounding Tehran's aggression in the region, particularly toward Israel - a sentiment fueled by the pro-Israeli lobby in Congress whose influence reaches across party lines. "Iran faces a choice between a very big carrot and a very sharp stick," said Rep. Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "It is my hope that they will take the carrot. But today, we are putting the stick in place."
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Congress Denounces Iran's Ahmadinejad
2007-09-25
For some reason, this really surprises me... particularly as it comes from Lantos
It's either disapprove of Short Round or have the entire Dhimmicratic agenda cast into a light that the general public would grasp and understand at once, with deleterious consequences in November, 2008. It's one thing to advance the pomo-Dhimmi-socialist agenda by stealth, it's another thing to have someone shine a light on it ...
Congress signaled its disapproval of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with a vote Tuesday to tighten sanctions against his government and a call to designate his army a terrorist group.

The swift rebuke was a rare display of bipartisan cooperation in a Congress bitterly divided on the Iraq war. It reflected lawmakers' long-standing nervousness about Tehran's intentions in the region, particularly toward Israel—a sentiment fueled by the pro-Israeli lobby whose influence reaches across party lines in Congress. "Iran faces a choice between a very big carrot and a very sharp stick," said Rep. Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "It is my hope that they will take the carrot. But today, we are putting the stick in place."
Unfortunately you don't think 'stick' when someone mentions Tom Lantos. Or Nancy Pelosi. Or Harry Reid (D-Saster).
The House passed, by a 397-16 vote, a proposal by Lantos, D-Calif., aimed at blocking foreign investment in Iran, in particular its lucrative energy sector. The bill would specifically bar the president from waiving U.S. sanctions.
Somehow I don't think George will mind.
Current law imposes sanctions against any foreign company that invests $20 million or more in Iran's energy industry, although the U.S. has waived or ignored sanction laws in exchange for European support on nonproliferation issues.

In the Senate, Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., proposed a nonbinding resolution urging the State Department to label Iran's military—the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—a terrorist organization. The Bush administration had already been planning to blacklist a unit within the Revolutionary Guard, subjecting part of the vast military operation to financial sanctions.

The legislative push came a day after Ahmadinejad defended Holocaust revisionists, questioned who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks and declared homosexuals didn't exist in Iran in a tense question-and- answer session at Columbia University.

The Iranian president planned to speak Tuesday at the U.N. General Assembly.

Lantos' bill was expected to draw criticism from U.S. allies in Europe. During a visit to Washington last week, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told lawmakers that France opposes any U.S. legislation that would target European countries operating in Iran. He argued that such sanctions could undermine cooperation on dealing with Iran.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Europe warns US on Iran sanctions
2007-08-03
European governments are warning Congress that US legislation aimed at Iran could hit European energy groups, undermine transatlantic unity on Tehran’s nuclear programme and provoke a dispute at the World Trade Organisation.
"Youse guys are going to cut into our boodle!"
Diplomats from France, Germany and the UK, among other countries, have stepped up a lobbying campaign on Capitol Hill against moves that would mandate sanctions on energy companies that invested more than $20m (€14.6m, £9.9m) in Iran.

Among such companies – already marked out by a US campaign to disinvest in energy companies that trade with Iran – are Royal Dutch Shell, Total of France and Repsol of Spain. Royal Dutch Shell and Repsol are involved in a project worth up to $10bn to produce Iran’s first liquefied natural gas. The companies are due to take a final decision about their investment in 2008.

“It’s paradoxical that the targets of this effort are companies from countries that are making an effort to strengthen sanctions against Iran,” said one European diplomat, referring to the European Union’s support for a new wave of United Nations sanctions on Iran. “The House of Representatives will decide on this bill some time this autumn so you have to try to talk to everybody [in Congress],” said another EU diplomat. “We are telling them that if it became a law as it stands now, it would be a breach in WTO rules and we would not accept that.”
Everything's a breach of the WTO rules if you ask the Euros.
President George W Bush has the power to waive sanctions on third parties doing business with Iran, but a bill introduced by Tom Lantos, chairman of the House foreign affairs committee, would remove his ability to do so. The bill has 322 co-sponsors, enough to overcome a presidential veto.
Bush should sigh, shrug his shoulders at the Euros and give in on this one. Make the Dhimmis happy (for a moment) and continue to stick it to Iran. Whacking delicate Euro interests as a side-effect is an extra, happy added bonus.
Diplomats stress that a parallel bill being considered by the Senate would leave Mr Bush’s waiver intact while seeking to introduce other measures against Iran. But European officials say they are unsure what would emerge from efforts to hammer out a deal between the House of Representatives and the Senate and are worried that it could make some sanctions mandatory.

“Which do we fear more?” asked Jon Kyl, Republican senator from Arizona, last week. “A trade dispute with Europe or China or what Tehran will do with the revenues of a fully reconstituted energy sector?”
Good point.
In principle the Iran Sanctions Act, a successor to a 1990s measure, requires the president to impose at least two out of six possible sanctions on foreign companies investing more than $20m in Iran, although in practice both Mr Bush and former President Bill Clinton have always exercised the waiver. These sanctions include denial of Export Import Bank loans, denial of US bank loans exceeding $10m, prohibition of US government procurement and restrictions on imports from the company concerned.

This week, the House of Representatives backed a separate piece of legislation, that would oblige the federal government to keep a record of energy companies violating the $20m threshold and make it easier for state pension funds to disinvest in them. Some states have passed or are considering legislation to move towards disinvestment in such companies.

Public sector pension funds such as Calpers and Calstrs, the giant California pension plans, are opposed to any forced divestments of companies involved in Iran. They have argued the move would be counterproductive as it would hurt their returns and restrict their ability to provide for billions of dollars in pension liabilities.

Caution has been urged from unexpected quarters. “If we go forward and we begin to sanction foreign companies through more stringent sanctions in the Iran Sanctions Act, I think there will be serious repercussions for our multilateral effort,” said Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute, the conservative Washington think-tank.
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India-Pakistan
Lawmakers Decry Iran-India Alliance
2007-05-03
Key congressional supporters of closer ties with India have signed a toughly worded bipartisan letter to the Indian prime minister warning of "grave concern" that India's ties with Iran "have the potential to significantly harm prospects" for a nuclear cooperation deal that President Bush reached with India in 2005.

The letter is noteworthy for its tone and because it was signed by the Democratic as well as Republican leaders of the key congressional panels involved in the issue. It was sent yesterday, one day after Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon publicly dismissed reports of closer military cooperation with Iran.

Rep. Tom Lantos and other Foreign Affairs members said India's nuclear cooperation deal could be derailed.

The letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh lists a series of recent meetings between Indian and Iranian officials as indications of growing cooperation between the two countries on military and energy issues. "We must stress that the subject of India's strengthening relationship with Iran will inevitably be a factor" when Congress votes on the final language of the nuclear agreement, the letter said.

Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have pushed hard for the nuclear deal with India, saying that rewriting U.S. laws to allow peaceful nuclear cooperation with India will help usher in a new era in U.S.-India relations. But the nuclear accord has been opposed by nonproliferation experts, who fear it would weaken rules preventing the spread of nuclear weapons by allowing the sale of U.S. nuclear technology to a country that has refused to join the nuclear nonproliferation treaty.

When Congress debated a bill to give initial approval to the accord with India, lawmakers considered tying final passage to India's dealings with Iran but dropped that provision under pressure from the administration.

Congressional aides, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to not upstage the lawmakers, said anger has been building in Congress over the perception that India stepped up contacts with Iran this year, just weeks after the initial bill was approved by Congress. Lawmakers "are not just alarmed but actually outraged by India's outreach to Iran," one aide said.

The letter was signed by Reps. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee; Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Fla.), the panel's ranking Republican; Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.); Gary L. Ackerman (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Middle East and South Asia subcommittee; Mike Pence (Ind.), the subcommittee's ranking Republican; Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), chairman of the terrorism and nonproliferation subcommittee; and Ed Royce (Calif.), that subcommittee's ranking Republican.

"It is difficult for us to fathom why India, a democracy engaged in its own struggle against terrorism, would want to enhance security cooperation with a repressive government widely regarded as the world's most active state sponsor of terrorism," the letter said. It added that "India's pursuit of closer relations with Iran appears to be inconsistent with the letter and spirit" of Bush and Singh's announcement of a "global partnership" between the two countries.

Congressional aides said a subtext of the letter is growing concern in Congress that the administration is too eager to wrap up negotiations with India. Menon negotiated with U.S. officials in Washington this week, and both sides reported that they hope to strike a final deal later this month.

An Indian Embassy official said that he had not seen the letter but that Menon's comments on Tuesday had addressed the issue.
Opinion by Stanley Kurtz of The Corner
An India-Iran connection may seem odd, in light of India’s interest in facing down Islamist terror. But India’s real concern is Pakistan. In a world of nuclear proliferation, Iran’s Shiite bomb will be countered by Sunni bombs in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and perhaps other Gulf states. These bombs would likely be created with Pakistani technological assistance. So in simultaneously dealing with America and Iran, India is simply trying to gather all available balancing forces against its rival Pakistan. From our point of view, this is a disastrous break in the firewall we’re trying to set up against Islamist terror. From India’s point of view, this is good positioning against Pakistan.

All this is a foreshadowing of a world in which Iran has the bomb. Once Iran has nuclear arms, and other Islamic states follow, we’ll see ever-shifting alliances, in which American will be only one player, not much more powerful than any other player. We will lose allies and/or see our technology going to our enemies through friends who are not entirely our friends. The total effect will be a drastic diminution of American power. In a sense, it’s already happening. India’s move toward Iran is already probably influenced by a judgement that Iran will soon be nuclear, and is unlikely to be stopped by the West. Are we really ready for this new world?
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Top Iran MP wants talks with US House speaker Pelosi
2007-04-14
A top MP said on Friday the Tehran parliament would favour talks with US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after her controversial visit to Iran's ally Syria, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.
"We are ready for talks with US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi," said Mohammad Nabi Rudaki, deputy head of the influential national security commission in Iran's conservative-dominated parliament.

"Parliamentary talks can discuss bilateral problems and bring US, European and Iranian nations closer. They could also consider Iran's peaceful nuclear issues," he said.

But Rudaki added that "this willingness does not mean a resumption of political ties with the occupying and bullying US government."

Pelosi's office said on Wednesday she had no intention of visiting Iran after a top US lawmaker signalled she might be interested in doing so.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos said after accompanying Pelosi to Damascus to meet Syrian President Bashar al-Assad amid stiff White House opposition that he had tried for more than 10 years to get a visa for Iran.

Tehran and Washington have had no diplomatic ties since Islamist revolutionaries raided the US embassy in Iran in 1979 and held staff hostage for 444 days.

The US is spearheading an international campaign to thwart Iran enriching uranium, which it alleges to be a cover for weapons development. Tehran denies the charges, saying its nuclear programme is for purely peaceful purposes.
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