MoveOn.org has sent a message to its members announcing the start of a coordinated campaign to prevent the U.S. from a military strike against Iran. From their E-mail:
A number of top retired generals and military experts are willing to say publicly that attacking Iran would be a strategic disaster. We’ll put them on tour to speak to political leaders, editorial boards and big audiences.
We’ll run ads challenging the Bush administration and key presidential candidates-and remind people that the last time we heard many of these phony arguments was in the lead-up to war with Iraq.
We’ll commission polling to show wavering politicians that if they stand up against war with Iran, the public will stand with them.
We’ll run a major grassroots campaign urging Congress to confront the administration on Iran.
None of us know how likely a strike against Iran really is. But I’m going to do more than just hope it doesn’t happen. The signs and signals have become too glaring. We have to act.
It’s ironic that MoveOn’s theme on Iran seems to be ‘hope is not a strategy.’ There’s not a mention in their missive about how to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. It appears that the only coordinated campaign they are interested in is a campaign against the White House. As far as Iran goes, hope is their strategy. MoveOn knows that the American people oppose military action against Iran; they even know what the polling will show before they take the polls. But if the American people truly oppose preserving a credible threat of military action, why are all the major presidential candidates of both parties staking out a contrary position? Obviously, this isn’t really about Iran; it’s just another political campaign. Their strategy is to use the nation’s number one security threat as a political football, and to try to score points against Republicans before the 2008 elections. But as with Iraq, the likely outcome is to elevate an issue that divides Democrats, and separate them from their political base. You can bet that if MoveOn raises the money they’re seeking, in a few months there will be stories about angry liberal Democrats targeting Blue Dogs and other moderates who refuse to take an oath to oppose military action against Iran. There will be new fodder for primaries against the Democratic representatives and senators whose victories helped end the Republican majorities. Has MoveOn really thought this through?
