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1. WAR WITH IRAN IS INEVITABLE NOW – BUSH IS PLANNING COVERTLY, MCCAIN ATTACK
WON’T MATTER
HERSH, 7/7
[Seymour. “Preparing the Battlefield” The New Yorker.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh]
Late l ast year, Congress agreed to a request from P resident Bush to fund a major escalation of covert
operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources.
These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential
Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities
involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also
include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclearweapons program.Clandestine operations
against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting crossborder
operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing
members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for
interrogation, and the pursuit of “highvalue targets” in the President’s war on terror, who may be captured or killed.
But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the
Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many
of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature. Under federal law, a Presidential Finding, which is highly
classified, must be issued when a covert intelligence operation gets under way and, at a minimum, must be made known to Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and the Senate and to
the ranking members of their respective intelligence committees—the socalled Gang of Eight. Money for the operation can then be reprogrammed from previous appropriations, as needed, by
. “The Finding was focussed on undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions
the relevant congressional committees, which also can be briefed
and trying to undermine the government through regime change,” a person familiar with its contents said, and
involved “working with opposition groups and passing money.” The Finding provided for a whole new range of
activities in southern Iran and in the areas, in the east, where Baluchi political opposition is strong, he said.Although
some legislators were troubled by aspects of the Finding, and “there was a significant amount of highlevel
discussion” about it, according to the source familiar with it, the funding for the escalation was approved. In
other words, some members of the Democratic leadership—Congress has been under Democratic control since
the 2006 elections—were willing, in secret, to go along with the Administration in expanding covert activities
directed at Iran, while the Party’s presumptive candidate for President, Barack Obama, has said that he favors
direct talks and diplomacy.The request for funding came in the same period in which the Administration was coming
to terms with a National Intelligence Estimate, released in December, that concluded that Iran had halted its work on
nuclear weapons in 2003. The Administration downplayed the significance of the N.I.E., and, while saying that
it was committed to diplomacy, continued to emphasize that urgent action was essential to counter the Iranian
nuclear threat. President Bush questioned the N.I.E.’s conclusions, and senior nationalsecurity officials,
including Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, made similar statements.
AT: OBAMA GOOD – IRAN MPX
2. NO RISK OF AN IMPACT AND TURN
1. NO DEFENITIVE EVIDENCE THAT MCCAIN WILL STRIKE
2. OBAMA IS KEEPING THE MILITARY THREAT ON THE TABLE TOO – THIS IS A SCENARIO FOR
US
HERSH, 7/7
[Seymour. “Preparing the Battlefield” The New Yorker.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh]
Scheunemann, who is known as a neoconservative, is also the McCain campaign’s most important channel of
communication with the White House. He is a friend of David Addington, Dick Cheney’s chief of staff. I have
heard differing accounts of Scheunemann’s influence with McCain; though some close to the McCain campaign
talk about him as a possible nationalsecurity adviser, others say he is someone who isn’t taken seriously while
“telling Cheney and others what they want to hear,” as a senior McCain adviser put it. It is not known whether
McCain, who is the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, has been formally briefed on
the operations in Iran. At the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, in June, Obama
repeated his plea for “tough and principled diplomacy.” But he also said, along with McCain, that he would
keep the threat of military action against Iran on the table.
3. DOUBLE BIND – EITHER THEIR SYRIAN STRIKES SCENARIO IS NON
UNIQUE BECAUSE SYRIAISRAEL PEACE TALKS ARE PROGRESSING NOW
OR THE IMPACT IS INEVITABLE BECAUSE SYRIA IS PISSED ABOUT THE
GOLAN
OWELS,8/6 [Khaled Y“Talks with Israel Making Progress; Syrian Official” http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL636378520080806]
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Indirect peace talks between Syria and Israel have made progress but
DAMASCUS (Reuters)
not enough to move to facetoface talks as favored by the Jewish state, a senior Syrian official said on
Wednesday "If the talks had not progressed then they would have been stopped," said Buthaina Shaaban,
who was recently promoted from expatriates minister to adviser to President Bashar alAssad.Shaaban would not be drawn on what was discussed in four rounds of talks held in Turkey since May.
She said the talks will continue despite the impending resignation of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ."We are not concerned with whether
Olmert resigns or not. We are not a party to internal Israeli issues," Shaaban told reporters.Diplomats in the Syrian capital said the Turkishmediated talks have
mostly covered old ground tackled in previous negotiations between Syria and Israel in the 1990s.Olmert, who has recently intensified his calls on Syria to resume direct talks, announced last
.Shaaban said there would be no
week that he was resigning over a corruption scandal once his Kadima party elects a new leader next month
direct talks until the Damascus government was certain Israel would return all of
the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war.
AT: OBAMA GOOD BUSH DOCTRINE
1. This is an impact for us – Obama supports the Bush Doctrine
HUFFINGTON POST, 8/4 [“The Molten Core of Barack: Why Obama Can’t Win” Castenellos, Alex.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alexcastellanos/themoltencoreofbarack_b_116904.html]
Generalelection Obama now billboards his doubts about affirmative action. He has embraced the Bush Doctrine of pre
emption saying, "I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a
nuclear weapon...everything." He tells his party "Democrats are not for a bigger government." Oil drilling is a consideration. His FISA vote and
abandonment of public campaign finance introduce us to an Obama of recent invention. And as he abandons his old identity for the
new, breeding disenchantment among his formerly passionate leftofcenter supporters and, equally, doubts among the center he courts, he risks becoming nothing at all, a candidate who is
everything and nothing in the same moment. In one of the most powerful marketing books of the past few years, Authenticity, an exploration of our demand for what's real in an increasingly
contrived world, authors Gilmore and Pine quote philosophy professor Crispin Sartwell about Al Gore. "Every attempt to regain authenticity," Crispin says, "only casts a new, infinitely repeated
image through the hall of mirrors that is his political life and our media experience of that life." Those reflections set the authenticity of John McCain in highrelief. McCain has revealed himself
to his core.
More evidence
NEW YORK SUN, ‘7 [“The ClintonObama Bush Doctrine” http://www.nysun.com/editorials/clinton
obamabushdoctrine/66665/]
he big news out of the most recent Democratic presidential debate was that two of the leading
Democratic candidates, Senator Clinton and Senator Obama, endorsed the Bush Doctrine that is at
the core of our current president's foreign policy. We haven't seen it reported anywhere else, but it's a
big story. Here's what Mrs. Clinton said: "There's absolutely a connection between a democratic regime
and heightened security for the United States." Here's what Mr. Obama said: "The more we see
repression, the more there are no outlets for how people can express themselves and their
aspirations, the worse off we're going to be, and the more antiAmerican sentiment there's going to be
in the Middle East." Or, as President Bush has put it in enunciating what has come to be known as the
Bush Doctrine: "For decades, free nations tolerated oppression in the Middle East for the sake of
stability. In practice, this approach brought little stability and much oppression, so I have changed
this policy." Or, as he put it again, "Some who call themselves realists question whether the spread of
democracy in the Middle East should be any concern of ours. But the realists in this case have lost contact
with a fundamental reality: America has always been less secure when freedom is in retreat; America is
always more secure when freedom is on the march."Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama spoke their share of
silliness during the debate, and they lost no opportunity to criticize the president. But the comments they
made about the connection between freedom, democracy, and American national security are a
reminder though it may be fashionable to talk about how divided America is, there is a broad
consensus on certain key principles, a consensus that extends from Mr. Bush on the right to Mr.
Obama and Mrs. Clinton on the left.
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2. Their Falk evidence doesn’t say why a policy of preemption causes other nations to attack each
other – their evidence only talks about preemption in the Middle Eastproves they can’t access their
impacts
AT: OBAMA GOOD BUSH DOCTRINE
3. Indo/Pak Conflict is inevitable – recent troop skirmishes created tension – historical and cultural
fueds over KASHMIR is the ROOT of conflict US preemption is irrelevant
CNN, 7/28 [2008. “India/Pakistan in Kashmir ‘major skirmish’
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/07/28/india.pakistan/]
border clash between Indian and Pakistani troops sparked heavy fighting Monday in the disputed
Himalayan territory of Kashmir, an Indian military spokeswoman reported. The fighting, which killed
one Indian soldier, marks the first major skirmish between South Asia's nuclear rivals since a 2003
ceasefire.It began Monday afternoon, when an Indian patrol encountered about 10 to 12 Pakistani
soldiers across the Line of Control separating the territory, Capt. Neha Goyal told CNN.The Pakistani
troops "started firing on our patrol," she said. "There was one fatal casualty. Our troops also retaliated,
and the Pakistan army troopers ran back."Efforts to reach Pakistani officials for comment were
unsuccessful late Monday. Goyal said Indian officials were not aware of any Pakistani casualties, but said
heavy fighting was still going on late Monday.Indian and Pakistani forces have exchanged periodic
gunfire since May, but Monday's clashes appear to be a serious setback to the ongoing peace
process between the two nations.India and Pakistan had announced a bilateral ceasefire all along
their borders in November 2003 and the ceasefire had been holding on the borders until
recently.Kashmir has been at the root of two wars between India and Pakistan, both of which tested
nuclear weapons in 1998.
AT:OBAMA GOOD UN CREDIBILITY
1. UN CREDIBILITY TERMINALLY NONUNIQUE – UNILATERAL WAR WITH
IRAQ UNDERMINED THE UN AS AN EFFECTIVE BODY OF DIPLOMACY
2. Their impact evidence is powertagged it doesn’t say the world nuclear war
3. Non unique and no impact – UN failure to solve the genocide in Darfur PROVES
credibility is shot now AND proves the UN can’t solve war
ANNAN, 05
[Kofi. “Without Reform on Human Rights Bod,y UN Credbility is at Stake, Annan Says” UN News Center.
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http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=13895&Cr=commission&Cr1=rights]
Speaking on the eleventh anniversary of the start of the Rwanda genocide and addressing the very human rights
body he wants to replace, Secretary-General Kofi Annan today warned Member States that without reform of
the United Nations human rights machinery, the credibility of the world body
itself is at stake.“Unless we re-make our human rights machinery, we may be
unable to renew public confidence in the United Nations itself,” he told the 53-member UN Human
Rights Commission in Geneva, urging support for his proposal to replace it with a leaner, more authoritative and
more empowered body elected by a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly.The era of declaration is now giving
way, as it should, to an era of implementation,” he added, of what he called the past 60 years of articulating,
codifying and enshrining rights.“Today we have reached another moment when we must prove our commitment,”
he said, recalling “our collective failure to protect hundreds of thousands of
defenceless people” in the Rwanda massacres and the resolve “to act more
decisively to ensure that such a denial of our common humanity is never allowed
to happen again.”And yet, in the Darfur region of western Sudan, where
Government, militia and rebel forces are mired in a conflict that has killed tens of
thousands and uprooted more than 2 million, there is “appalling suffering,” with an African Union
force on the ground that is too small to provide security, and with virtually no progress towards a political
settlement, he said.“For all of us, as individuals and as an institution, this situation is a test. For thousands of men,
women and children, our response is already too late,” Mr. Annan said.“We have reached a point at
which the Commission’s declining credibility has cast a shadow on the reputation
of the United Nations system as a whole, and where piecemeal reforms will not be
enough,” he added of his proposal to establish a Human Rights Council on a par with the
Security Council and the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).