Governor Mitt Romney

 

 "A Genocidal, Suicidal Nation"
 Mitt Romney Joins Iran's Hysterical Accusers

February 19, 2007

By GARY LEUPP

Bizarre though it sounds, more and more public figures in the U.S., echoing Israeli officials, are accusing Iran of genocide. More accurately, of planning genocide, although past and future get all confused in the increasingly reckless rhetoric. Former Massachusetts governor and presidential aspirant Mitt Romney is the latest important politician to level the accusation. In an interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos February 17, he characterized Iran as "a genocidal nation, a suicidal nation, in some respects."

Bill Clinton's former communications director didn't follow up on the "genocide" reference, maybe thinking that recent hysterical statements by Benjamin Netanyahu and John Bolton have sufficiently dignified and mainstreamed what commonsense should tell you is a preposterously, stupidly overblown allegation. (Both want the UN's International Court of Criminal Justice to charge Iranian President Ahmadinejad with "inciting genocide.") But Stephanopoulos simply asked: "Suicidal? What do you mean by that?"

"Well," replied Romney, "it's a nation where people participate in suicide bombing and that kind of a suggestion, I think it was former President Rafsanjani who talked about Israel being a one-bomb nation, meaning they could not survive one bomb, but they, Iran, could survive one bomb. It's like, 'Are you kidding? Are you suggesting that you'd be willing to take a bomb in order to eliminate another people?' This is a nation where the genocidal inclination is really frightening and having a nation of this nature develop nuclear weaponry is unacceptable to this country and to the Middle East."

This is gibberish, and just goes to show how you can misquote an Iranian leader with impunity in this country, secure in the knowledge that no mainstream broadcaster will bother to call you on it. And you can egregiously insult an entire nation, so long as it's Muslim. So, in Iran "people participate in suicide bombing"? Most people, or just a few? How often? And against whom? Romney gives the impression that suicide bombing is part of Iran's national culture or school curriculum. He might validly say that the Iranian government and mass media justify Palestinian suicide bombings as part of resistance to illegal occupation, which is something rather different and hardly justifies labeling Iran (or even Palestine) "a suicidal nation." But Romney weaves the suicide theme in by suggesting that Iran (as a "genocidal nation") wants to nuke Israel, even though it anticipates such a strike would mean the deaths of countless Iranians. (For what it's worth, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa or binding religious edict forbidding the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons in 2005. Meanwhile President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said on August 26, 2006 and since that Iran "is no threat to any nation, even the Zionist regime.")

To support his nonsensical thesis of a "genocidal, suicidal nation," the ex-governor adduces a statement made by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, president of Iran from 1989 to 1997. Rafsanjani has said many things and one can tendentiously use his quotations to make any number of allegations. Romney might for example have cited his statement in a Friday sermon on October 28, 2005: "We have no problem with Jews and respect Judaism as a holy religion." Or his comments in a Reuters interview in May 2005: "I believe the main solution [to the nuclear issue] is to gain the trust of Europe and America and to remove their concerns over the peaceful nature of our nuclear industry and to assure them that there will never be a diversion to military use." But Romney alludes instead to Rafsanjani's Jerusalem Day speech on December 14, 2001.

Here's what Rafsanjani actually said, as translated by BBC: "If one day, the Islamic world is also equipped with weapons like those that Israel possesses now, then the imperialists' strategy will reach a standstill because the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything. However, it will only harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality."

In other words, if the Islamic world acquires strategic parity with Israel, the imperialists' strategy (of intimidating Arab states and Iran through the threat of Israeli action) will no longer be effective. Israel fearing self-destruction will be unable to deploy its nukes, or if it does, will "only harm the Islamic world"---too huge to annihilate---while suffering extinction itself. That is indeed a scenario much on the minds of "not irrational" American and Israeli strategists. This is why some are so desperate to insure that Muslim countries never so much as acquire the technology that could permit the production of nuclear weapons. (Pakistan is a special case.) Israel, which unlike Iran has never signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and which has produced nuclear weapons (in theory over U.S. objections), wants to maintain its nuclear monopoly in the Middle East and hence insists that Iran must not even be allowed to enrich uranium. (The latter is however its inalienable right under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.)

That is why Israeli demands that the U.S. strike Iran become more shrill with each passing day. Genocide! Genocide! the attack-advocates shreik, echoed by the necons in Washington. (See the cover story of the Weekly Standard, February 19 edition: "Iran's Obsession with the Jews. Denying the Holocaust, Desiring Another One," which cites the Rafsanjani quote and is likely Romney's source.) That is why the Lobby is intensifying pressure on the U.S. Congress to attack Iran. Thus Uri Lubrani, a senior advisor to Defense Minister Amir Peretz, tells the Jewish Agency's Board of Governors that the US "does not understand the threat and has not done enough," and therefore "must be shaken awake." "An American strike on Iran is essential," declares Gen. Oded Tira, chief artillery officer of the Israeli Defense Forces, "for our existence," so "we must help [Bush] pave the way by lobbying the Democratic Party (which is conducting itself foolishly) and US newspaper editors. We need to do this in order to turn the Iranian issue into a bipartisan one and unrelated to the Iraq failure." Tira urges the Lobby to turn to "potential presidential candidates. . . so that they support immediate action by Bush against Iran."

All the frontrunner candidates of both parties are lending their ears to such counsels, and echoing the "no options off the table" mantra. Romney is merely the most slavish in echoing the paranoid and vilifying rhetoric of those tirelessly lobbying for a broader, bloodier Terror War in the Middle East.

Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University, and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Religion. He is the author of Servants, Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan; Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan; and Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's merciless chronicle of the wars on Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, Imperial Crusades.

He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu

Reproduced from: http://counterpunch.org./leupp02192007.html

 

 

US Presidential Candidates Romney, Edwards, and McCain
Compete in Herzliya on Who is the Best Servant
of the Israeli Occupation Government

Arab News Headline:
American Presidential Candidates Court Israel

Barbara Ferguson, Arab News

WASHINGTON, 6 February 2007 —

It was a headline that didn’t make a blip on the radar screen: US Presidential “Candidates Court Israel,” noted the Washington Times last week.

“Presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney, John Edwards and John McCain all detoured through Israel on the way to New Hampshire...seemingly competing to see who could be strongest in defense of the Jewish states,” wrote Joshua Mitnick.

Speaking in person or by video link at a security conference held in Herzliya, just north of Tel Aviv, the politicians called for ways to prevent Iran’s government from acquiring nuclear weapons. While “stressing the strong US-Israel ties, the presidential hopefuls all agreed that the US has to step up sanctions on Iran and leave the possibility of a military attack ‘on the table,’” noted the Washington Times.

For presidential hopefuls, the conference gives them an opportunity to float policy positions and reach out to Jewish voters.

Sen. McCain, R-Arizona, said he supported exploring a strengthening of ties between Israel and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, as a means of easing Israel’s insecurity.

While Romney, who served one term as governor of Massachusetts, urged countries — including Arab states — to divest their assets in Iran, to seek the indictment of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on genocide charges, and to make it clear that pursuing nuclear weapons “can also be a source of peril” for Iran.

He added: “Arab states must join this effort to prevent a nuclear Iran. These states can do much more than wring their hands and urge America to act.” Romney compared the challenge posed by Iran and militant Islam to the clash of the West with 20th century conflicts with fascism and totalitarian communism.

“The military option remains on the table,” Romney said at the seventh annual Herzliya Conference in Herzliya, Israel.

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, also addressed the conference by a satellite video link, said that the existential danger to Israel has never been higher since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, adding that many in Israel as well as the US don’t fully appreciate the nature, size or scope of the threat posed by Iran.

“A friendly democracy under siege should be closer partners to the world’s most successful security alliance,” he said, speaking via a satellite link. “American support for Israel should intensify. The enemies are too numerous, margin of error too small, and shared values too great.”

Sen. John Edwards, D-North Carolina, was the only Democratic presidential hopeful to address the conference, but sounded similar notes of toughening sanctions and the threat of military force. However, he was the one speaker to suggest that the US needs to open a dialogue with Iran.

“I support being tough, but I think it’s a mistake strategically and ideologically not to engage them on this issue,” he said. “America should engage directly on this issue.”

Once back home, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Friday accused Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of “timidity” regarding the security threat posed by Iran.

In a speech to a retreat of Conservative Congressional Republicans, Romney lashed out at Clinton for recently telling a pro-Israel dinner that a dialogue with countries hostile to Israel — including Iran and Syria — is needed to promote peace in the Middle East.

Reproduced from:http://www.aljazeerah.info/News%20archives/2007%20News%20Archives/February/6%20n/US%20Presidential%20Candidates%20Romney,%20Edwards,%20and%20McCain%20Compete%20in%20Herzliya%20on%20Who%20is%20the%20Best%20Servant%20of%20the%20Israeli%20Occupation%20Government.htm

 

 

Governor Mitt Romney on Senator Hillary Clinton and Iran 
Saturday, Feb 03, 2007 

Louisville, KY - Tonight, Governor Mitt Romney will keynote the Kentucky GOP Lincoln Day Dinner. Governor Romney will make remarks on the right strategy to deal with the threat posed by Iran.

Excerpt Of Governor Romney's Remarks As Prepared For Delivery:

"Recently, the question of how we deal with Iran has been the subject of debate between myself and another potential White House candidate.

"In a speech two days ago in New York City, Senator Hillary Clinton said that she needs to quote 'understand' unquote Iran better - and we need to quote 'engage Iran' unquote. She argued that our strategy of engagement with the Soviet Union during the Cold War was a model for how we could deal with Iran.

"I believe this strategy to be a mistake, and yesterday, to a group of fellow conservatives, I said as much. Advocating engagement displays a troubling timidity toward a terrible threat. The right strategy is not engagement, but economic and diplomatic isolation.

"Instead of responding to my policy criticisms, Senator Clinton has chosen to attack me personally. Let's take a step back and consider the broader and more pressing issue at hand - Iran, Syria, Hizbullah, and Hamas and the threat they pose to us, Israel, and the civilized world.

"Ten days ago, I was in Israel and heard firsthand from those who have been on the front lines of the war against the Jihadist radicals. Indeed, just a few months ago, the Israelis were confronted with a war by Hizbullah, a terrorist organization sponsored by Iran and Syria.

"Against the backdrop of last summer's war, I was especially stunned to learn that Senator Clinton is now advocating for better 'understanding' of Iran, Syria, Hizbullah, and Hamas. Rather than attacking me, why doesn't she join me in calling for a policy that puts even more pressure - not less - against these adversaries?"

Reproduced from: http://www.mittromney.com/News/Press-Releases/KY_Speech

 

 

 

 

February 26, 2007

Romney, Cheney in Deep with Iran Investments
 

In a high profile effort to bolster his credibility on national security, 2008 Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney last week called on New York to divest its pension fund of any holdings in firms doing with business with Iran. But as it turns out, it is Mitt Romney's former employer with the ties to Tehran. And as you'd expect, Dick Cheney's Halliburton is in deep as well.

Following the lead of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Romney began his grandstanding on Iranian disinvestment by targeting the Democratic-controlled states of New York and Massachusetts. On February 22, Romney sent letters to New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, Senators Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton as well as state comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli urging a policy of "strategic disinvestment from companies linked to the Iranian regime." Romney's theatrics continued:

"With your new responsibilities overseeing one of America's largest pension funds, you have a unique opportunity to lead an effort to isolate Iran as it pursues nuclear armament. I request that you immediately launch a policy of strategic disinvestment from companies linked to the Iranian regime. Screening pension investments and divesting from companies providing financial support to the Iranian regime or linked to Iran's weapons programs and terrorist activities could have a powerful impact. New investments should be scrutinized as long as Iran's regime continues its current, dangerous course."

As it turns out, scrutiny begins at home. As the AP detailed, Romney's former employer and the company he founded have recent links to recent Iranian business deals:

Romney joined Boston-based Bain & Co., a management consulting firm, in 1978 and worked there until 1984. He was CEO of Bain Capital, a venture capital firm, from 1984 to 1999, despite a two-year return as Bain & Co.'s chief executive officer from 1991 to 1992.

Bain & Co. Italy, described in company literature as "the Italian branch of Bain & Co.," received a $2.3 million contract from the National Iranian Oil Co., in September 2004. Its task was to develop a master plan so NIOC -- the state oil company of Iran -- could become one of the world's top oil companies, according to Iranian and U.S. news accounts of the deal.

Bain Capital, the venture capital firm that Romney started and made him a multimillionaire, teamed up with the Haier Group, a Chinese appliance maker that has a factory in Iran, in an unsuccessful 2005 buyout effort.

 

This is not the first time his former corporate home has proven to be the bane (pun intended) of Mitt Romney's political existence. During his failed 1994 Senate race and successful 2002 gubernatorial run, Romney was labeled a corporate raider after revelations that a company Bain purchased in Indiana moved quickly to shed hundreds of workers and drop health care for many more.

But this time, Romney is playing dumb -- and blind. The former Massachusetts governor claims his investments are in Boston-managed blind trust beyond his control. And more importantly, Romney's declared that his new-found distrust of the Ahmadinejad regime in Tehran only applies going forward:

"This is something for now-forward. I wouldn't begin to say that people who, in the past, have been doing business with Iran, are subject to the same scrutiny as that which is going on from a prospective basis."

Whether the Bill Frist defense of the "blind trust that can see" will work for Mitt Romney on Iran remains to be seen. Vice President Dick Cheney for one seems to have mastered it.

In 2004, the CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes detailed the Iranian business dealings of Cheney's former company, Halliburton. Despite the prohibitions signed into law by President Clinton with his 1995 executive order and the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act of 1996, Halliburton continued to reap the profits of business with Iran through its non-U.S. subsidiaries. While U.S. law bans virtually all commerce with the rogue nations, Halliburton was able to jump through its major loophole: the rules do not apply to any foreign or offshore subsidiary so long as it is run by non-Americans. As CBS documented:

That subsidiary, Halliburton Products and Services, Ltd., is wholly owned by the U.S.-based Halliburton and is registered in a building in the capital of the Cayman Islands -- a building owned by the local Calidonian Bank. Halliburton and other companies set up in this Caribbean Island, because of tax and secrecy laws that are corporate friendly.

Halliburton is the company that Vice President Dick Cheney used to run. He was CEO from 1995 to 2000, during which time Halliburton Products and Services set up shop in Iran. Today, it sells about $40 million a year worth of oil field services to the Iranian government.

 

In the wake of the January 2004 60 Minutes piece, the company moved quickly to declare that "Halliburton's business in Iran is clearly permissible under applicable laws and regulations" and cited its October 2003 disclosures to the New York City police and fire pension funds. Despite those assurances, Dick Cheney's old firm was subpoenaed by a U.S grand jury in June 2004. In early 2005, Halliburton announced that it would end its business activities there when it fulfills its ongoing contracts, including a $35 million gas drilling project it had just won the previous month.

Though he does not benefit directly from the Iran contracts of Halliburton's foreign-based subsidiaries, Cheney continues to have financial ties to his former firm. Despite Cheney's assurances that "I've severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interest," a 2003 report by the Congressional Research Service found that the Vice President retained 433,000 shares of Halliburton. In addition, Cheney received $162,392 and $205,298 in deferred payments in 2001 and 2002, respectively.

Given the stakes, it's no wonder Dick Cheney had a born-again experience on Iranian sanctions when he entered the Bush administration. While Vice President, Cheney in 2002 denounced Iran as "the world's leading exporter of terror." But during his tenure as Halliburton CEO in the 1990's, Cheney strenuously argued against Clinton's sanctions regime and expanded Halliburton's business with Tehran. But in 1998, he complained that U.S. firms were "cut out of the action." And back in 1996, Cheney railed against the Clinton prohibitions on Iranian trade and financial activity for American firms:

"We seem to be sanction-happy as a government. The problem is that the good Lord didn't see fit to always put oil and gas resources where there are democratic governments."

When it comes to disinvestment in Iran, Republicans like Mitt Romney and Dick Cheney shouldn't, to paraphrase then-candidate George W Bush, "take the high horse and then claim the low road." The task of decrying those who unwittingly provide aid and comfort to the Iranian regime is best left to those who are sincere about it, such as Oregon Senator Ron Wyden. In 2005, Wyden in reaction to the Halliburton's cozy relationship proposed a bill to require the Treasury Department to publicly list both foreign firms doing business with Iran's energy interests as well as any U.S entities holding more than a $100,000 stake in them. And just last month, Wyden introduced the "Stop Arming Iran Act" to ensure that surplus parts and components from retired American F14 fighter jets are not auctioned off to arms dealers serving the government in Tehran.

But with campaign 2008 already underway, it is pretenders like Mitt Romney who have the microphone. His message: do as I say, not as I do.

Reproduced from: http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/000552.htm

 

Mitt Romney appeared yesterday on Pat Robertson's 700 Club.

Mitt Romney appeared yesterday on Pat Robertson's 700 Club. In the story covering the appearance, the Christian Broadcasting Network host, David Brody (guess they didn't trust Pat with this one), says, “[Romney is] right out of central casting for the presidency. It seems like he may have the whole package that folks potentially could be looking for.”

By the way, while on the show Romney told a story that I've never heard before about his missionary days in Paris, France. While in France, Romney apparently was involved in a horrific car accident. He says another car hit his car head-on and killed one of his fellow missionaries. Romney says he himself was pronounced dead at the scene, but he made a miraculous recovery.

Romney's stock may be rising in the ranks of conservative Christians, in part because other top Republican presidential hopefuls carry some baggage that these Christians are going to be hard pressed to ignore in the wake of their reaction to Bill Clinton's dalliance with Monica Lewinsky. As Steve Benen has written, "three Republicans who have topped several national, independent polls for the GOP's favorite 2008 nominee" have marriage issues. . . Sen. John McCain (affair, divorce), former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (affair, divorce, affair, divorce), and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (divorce, affair, nasty divorce)." Benen concludes: "Together, they form the most maritally challenged crop of presidential hopefuls in American political history."

Romney and his wife have reportedly been married for 37 years, and it looks like they have the kind of family that political operatives salivate over (scroll down the page to see a lovely picture of the Romney family).

As I've written before, Romney is going to face some real roadblocks with certain conservative evangelicals, but those roadblocks shouldn't be considered in a vacuum.

June 27, 2006

Reproduced from: http://melissarogers.typepad.com/melissa_rogers/2006/06/romney_watch.html

 

 

Romney cultivating Jewish ties

He meets leaders at local fund-raiser

By Raphael Lewis and Scott Helman, Globe Staff  |  November 8, 2005

Governor Mitt Romney, continuing to cultivate his relationship with the Jewish community, had a private meeting Sunday with former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and later hobknobbed at a major fund-raiser for the United States Holocaust Museum.

The event, which raised $1 million, was the latest in a string of engagements that the Republican governor has attended with prominent Jewish leaders as he considers a 2008 run for the White House.

The guest of honor at the fund-raiser was Nevada casino and hotel magnate Sheldon Adelson, a staunch Republican ranked by Forbes Magazine as the 19th richest person in the world, with a personal fortune of $15.6 billion. Adelson gave the Massachusetts Republican State Congressional Committee $10,000 last year, federal campaign reports show.

Also in attendance were developer Arthur Winn, who gave $10,000 last year to the Massachusetts Republican State Congressional Committee, and Theodore Cutler, a leading Jewish philanthropist who has given tens of thousands of dollars to Massachusetts Republicans over the years and $25,000 to Romney's inaugural bash.

Meir Shlomo, Israel's consul general to New England, said Romney has cemented a reputation as a solid friend to his country since taking office in 2003. ''The governor has been very understanding and friendly to Israel, and we appreciate it," Shlomo said.

In May, Romney attended Israel Independence Day reception at the Israeli consulate in Boston, and the governor has also scheduled a trip to Israel sponsored by a powerful pro-Israel lobbying organization, the education arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Romney put off the visit, originally set for this year, in order to concentrate his efforts on hammering out a sweeping healthcare bill with Democrats in the Legislature.

On Sunday, Romney made time for Netanyahu, whom the governor called an old friend. Romney and Netanyahu worked together at Boston Consulting Group in the late 1970s for about a year following their graduate studies, Romney at Harvard Business and Law schools, Netanyahu at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

''Had a very good meeting with 'Bibi' Netanyahu," Romney said yesterday. ''We both worked at the same firm for a year or so and shared stories of our earliest memories with the founder of that company, Bruce Henderson. And then we talked about how he and his team have rebuilt the economy in Israel, and then we talked about threats from terror and how to face those possible terrorist threats."

Steve Grossman, former AIPAC president and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said Romney is doing a good job of establishing deep connections to Jewish power brokers, who could come in handy to a presidential campaign.

''If I'm Mitt Romney, I want to be at as many events as I can with Jewish leaders," Grossman said. ''This is all about relationships, and Romney is carefully cultivating them. When you look at the people there last night, this is a group he will rely on undoubtedly to speak on his behalf."