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Watch Bibi gee up the GOP

As if the Israelis aren't already cocking their collective noses at the world, Robert Dreyfus writing in The Nation says that with the GOP wins in the recent mid-term election, that Israeli PM Netanyahu will seek to gee up the Americans to attack, or provide "cover" for Israel attacking Iran. Listen out for the beat of drums of war coming out of Washington and Jerusalem!

"Those wondering if the November 2 elections, returning the House of Representatives to Republican control, will have any effect on US foreign policy might consider the discussion this morning at the Brookings Institution. Half a dozen Brookings experts, including one new scholar, neoconservative analyst Robert Kagan, pontificated on foreign policy during the second half of the Obama administration, taking into account the GOP gains in Congress and President Obama's weakened position.

Perhaps the most interesting insight came from Martin Indyk, Brookings vice president and director of its foreign policy program. Indyk, best known for being a decidedly pro-Israel official at the State Department, currently advises George Mitchell, the US special envoy for the Israel-Palestine tangle. Asked about Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Indyk said, "He is much more of a Republican than a Likudnik," meaning that Netanyahu closely identifies with the GOP and he has good relations with Republicans in Congress. Noting that Netanyahu recently stepped up his rhetoric calling for a military attack on Iran, Indyk suggested that Netanyahu was sending an unsubtle signal to Republicans to start talking up the issue.

What Netanyahu means, said Indyk, is to tell Republicans: "Come on, guys! It's time to get much tougher on Iran." He compared to Republican pressure on the Clinton administration over Iraq in the 1990s, when Newt Gingrich and others—alongside Ahmed Chalabi, the neoconservative darling who led the Iraqi National Congress—pushed Clinton to sign the Iraq Liberation Act. (There's a chance that the GOP, along with AIPAC, the Israel lobby, might push now for an Iran Liberation Act as a way of checkmating Obama's outreach to Iran.)".

See also this report "Eric Cantor Assures Netanyahu the GOP Majority Will Undermine Obama on Israel" on AlterNet.

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