Subject: [big campaign] Berman-Pence resolution on Iran--on House floor tomorrow
From: "Adam Blickstein" <[email-masked]>
To: "bigcampaign@googlegroups. com" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 04:13:56 +0000
List-Id: <bigcampaign.googlegroups.com>

And here's the National Iranian American Council <http://www.niacouncil.org/> on this:
 
http://niacblog.wordpress.com/ 

10:55 pm: Breaking: House to vote on Iran resolution tomorrow 
According to CQ, the House will vote tomorrow on a bipartisan resolution expressing support for Iranian dissidents who have been demonstrating since the presidential election last week. 

House Foreign Affairs Chairman Howard Berman (D-Calif.) joined with Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) on a resolution condemning the violence against the protesters, the suppression of communication technologies, and affirming “the universality of individual rights.” 
This measure is almost guaranteed to pass–probably with an overwhelming number of votes–which will unfortunately put the Congress directly at odds with the White House in responding to the crisis in Iran. Up to now, the President has been very cautious not to be seen as choosing one side over the other in the election dispute, saying he doesn’t want the US to become the story inside Iran. But the Congress seems poised to speak out more vocally on the subject, choosing to come down squarely on the side of the dissidents. 

Les Gelb, earlier in the day, had this to say: 

Republican leadership calls for Obama to condemn Iran’s election results and speak out for the demonstrators shows no knowledge of Iran whatsoever. If he did so, America would become the issue in Iran, not Ahmadinejad, and we would become the excuse and justification for spilling Iranian blood. 

These sniping remarks by Republican leaders also shows they put pandering to their right wing above American national security. Why can’t they listen to their own real foreign policy expert — Senator Richard Lugar — and see and say that the U.S. must exercise restraint in our public statements for Iran’s sake and our own. 

As we’ve been saying for some time now, the President has it right here. Though of course everyone supports free and fair democracies, Iran is a country in flux at the moment. If US political figures come out in strong support for Mousavi, then what? Won’t Ahmadinejad just use that to declare Mousavi is a puppet of the West? That certainly won’t do much to help the cause for reform in Iran.

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-----Original Message-----
From: Adam Blickstein <[email-masked]>

Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:50:02 
To: bigcampaign@googlegroups. com<[email-masked]>
Subject: [big campaign] Re: Berman-Pence resolution on Iran
 --onHousefloortomorrow

http://washingtonindependent.com/47903/berman-with-pence-introduces-a-changed-iran-resolution

Berman, With Pence, Introduces a Changed Iran Resolution   
By Spencer Ackerman 6/18/09 7:15 PM  
This dropped in the last hour and I’ve obtained the full text. Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has changed Rep. Mike Pence’s (R-Ind.) resolution on Iran significantly, chopping out the more provocative preambles that David Weigel reported on. It now reads: 

RESOLUTION Expressing support for all Iranian citizens who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties, and rule of law, and for other purposes. Resolved, That the House of Representativesâ€”(1) expresses its support for all Iranian citizens who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties, and rule of law;(2) condemns the ongoing violence against demonstrators by the Government of Iran and pro-government militias, as well as the ongoing government suppression of independent electronic communication through interference with the Internet and cellphones; and(3) affirms the universality of individual rights and the importance of democratic and fair elections. 

The first and third points are unchanged from Pence’s version. The second used to read that the House “condemns the ongoing violence against demonstrators by the Government of Iran, pro-government militias, and affiliated entities against the people of Iran, which has escalated since the June 12, 2009, process of selecting Iranâ€™s next political leader.” That would seem to simultaneously add an important human rights consideration (freedom of communication) while keeping support for Iranian human rights and not reducing the Iranian population, with its multiplicity of perspectives, to just the opposition. The preambly stuff, as you can read in Weigel’s post, put the United States out in front on the side of the demonstrators, who haven’t expressed any such desire for the U.S. Congress to be anywhere near them. I’m told this is now an agreed-upon text and is expected to go up for a vote tomorrow.  
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