The hearings have begun. See below.

This is a live blog of the Chicago City Council hearings on the proposed resolution against a US attack on Iran, and calling for real diplomacy.

The proceedings begin with a press conference. At 11:30 central the actual hearings are supposed to begin.

10:41 Alderman Joe Moore, sponsor of the resolution opposed to a US military attack on Iran and urging the US to engage in real diplomacy.

5 years ago the council made history passing a resolution against war in Iraq.

Sadly our leaders did not take heed. Now most observers agree the war was a horrible mistake.

Now more than 4000 dead, tens of thousands wounded, more than a million Iraqis killed or wounded.

History is repeating itself. The Administration is beating the drum of war, despite the Iran NIE.

As in the runup to war in Iraq, basing the threat on unsubstantiated information.

Some would argue that this is not Chicago's business. But it is definitely Chicago's business. It's Chicago's neighborhoods who will suffer.

Chicago will once again lead the nation as a city for peace.

With Senator Obama the presumptive Democratic nominee, the question facing America, increasingly, boils down to this: intensify the "clash of civilizations," at the continued expense of domestic needs, or turn to diplomacy to resolve international conflict, so we can re-orient our national priorities to health care, education, economic recovery, and protecting the environment.

With President Bush's approval ratings in the cellar, Senator McCain has to convince America that his candidacy does not represent a continuation of the status quo. He's gotten a lot of help in this task from big media, which continues to promote the idea that he is an independent Republican, a "maverick." [Move-On makes fun of this notion with its "Bush-McCain Challenge" - a "blind taste test" to see if voters can tell the difference between the policies of Bush and the policies of McCain.]

Much attention has been given in the press to issues where McCain has managed to establish a little bit of daylight between himself and other Republicans.

He doesn't want the US military to engage in torture (but believes the CIA should be allowed to do so.)

UPDATE: the news was carried by the Jerusalem Post.

The right-wing spin machine would have you believe that former President Carter only represented himself when he went to the Middle East, and met with Hamas leaders in efforts to challenge the destructive Bush Administration policy of trying to exclude Hamas from efforts at Israeli-Palestinian peace by imposing a blockade on Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

But it just ain't so.

This week Jewish Voice for Peace and Just Foreign Policy delivered 5,000 signatures on petitions in support of former President Carter's initiative.

Below the fold is the press release Just Foreign Policy sent to news media.

Many Jews around the world are celebrating Israel's 60th birthday this week. Mazl tov!

Let us recall this week a wonderful Jewish tradition, shared by other faiths and nations around the world throughout history. Those who have been blessed share their blessings with the less fortunate.

Fans of Yiddish literature will remember the wonderful story "Strike of the Schnorrers," where a Jewish wedding celebration is put in peril because the poor people are on strike - and how could the celebration proceed without a meal for the poor?

So long as Palestinians cannot exercise their right of national self-determination, any celebration of Israel's independence will always be marred.

We know what we have to do. Consistent pressure from the United States can help bring about a two-state solution on the 1967 borders, a solution that has near-universal international support.

Many U.S. policies should change to help bring about peace in the Middle East.

But in some cases, existing U.S. policy just needs to be implemented.

Such is the case with respect to U.S. policy towards the expansion of Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has stated:

"Settlement activity should stop - expansion should stop."

Unfortunately, the Israeli government does not appear to believe that Secretary of State Rice is serious. The Israeli government is moving forward with plans to build hundreds of new homes for Israeli settlers in the West Bank, in violation of international law and in violation of pledges that the Israeli government made at the peace conference in Annapolis.

Many Americans would like to change the perception that the U.S. is not serious about opposing Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank. Thousands of Americans have written to Congress urging action.

The New York Times reported Sunday that over 75 retired US military officers who have been frequent media commentators are being used to disseminate Administration talking points on the war in Iraq in an effort to manipulate US public opinion.

Many of these "analysts" have serious conflicts of interest, since they work on behalf of defense companies seeking contracts from the Pentagon. But TV networks have portrayed them as independent commentators and failed to reveal these conflicts of interest.

While the Times report focused on TV, newspapers including the New York Times have also cited or published op-eds from these retired officers. Just Foreign Policy is asking the New York Times, as a follow-up to their excellent report, to do a public review of their past use of these retired officers and to fully disclose conflicts of interest when citing or publishing retired officers as military analysts in the future.

Former President Jimmy Carter, speaking in Cairo, stated the obvious: the blockade of Gaza is a "crime" and an "atrocity," Reuters reports.

"It's an atrocity what is being perpetrated as punishment on the people in Gaza. it's a crime... I think it is an abomination that this continues to go on," Carter said.

Since the blockade is aimed at punishing civilians, the Carter's statement that the blockade is a crime is simply a statement of fact. It's a clear violation of international law.

But when someone with access to the microphone states an important fact which is not being acknowledged, they deserve attention.

At last, at long last. There will be a hard money lobby in Washington that represents progressives on Israel/Palestine issues, that lobbies for Israeli/Palestinian peace, that acts as a counterweight to AIPAC.

It's called "J Street." (As in, K street with a J.) The full name is: "Americans for Middle East Peace and Security." Here is their launch video:

I don't feel the least bit sorry for Jimmy Carter, who, predictably, is being pilloried for his plans to meet the exiled leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshal, in Syria on Friday.

As Pete Seeger once said of the victims of McCarthyism: don't mourn those who fought. Don't mourn the people who saw clearly what the right thing to do was, and did it, fully aware of the hammer that might come down on them for doing so.

Jimmy Carter surely knew that he would be called every bad name. Perhaps he even calculated that, by calling him every bad name, his critics would do him a favor. They would call attention to his meeting, and that would call attention to some basic facts that Jimmy Carter knows, but the world doesn't know, because they have been under-reported in the Western press.

To no-one's surprise, in their Congressional testimony Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus blamed Iran for violence in Iraq, and cited Iran as the latest reason why we can't withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq until some indefinite time in the future, based on some unspecified criteria of undefined success. Of course, it was Iran, not the Bush Administration, that brokered the recent cease-fire in Basra, but that doesn't fit the Administration's script.

But while the Bush Administration continues to beat the drums of conflict with Iran, a bipartisan group of House Members has a different idea: implement the unanimous, bipartisan recommendations of the Congressionally-appointed Iraq Study Group, and engage in serious regional diplomacy - including Iran and Syria - to help achieve political resolution to Iraq's conflicts, and to help the US get out.

Republican Wayne Gilchrest, co-chair of the Congressional Dialogue Caucus, is the sponsor of H. Con. Res. 321, which calls for serious regional diplomacy.

This week, despite the Israeli prime minister's pledge at the Annapolis peace conference of a "settlement freeze," the Israeli government announced plans to build hundreds of new homes in the occupied West Bank. Israel's announcement of new settlements came after Secretary of State Rice said "Settlement activity should stop - expansion should stop."

According to the Israeli organization Peace Now, plans for new settlements have accelerated since the Annapolis conference.

As U.S. policy has long recognized, settlements undermine prospects for a two-state solution to the conflict. They make it more difficult for future Israeli governments to compromise. They also reduce Palestinian support for negotiations, since they appear to confirm the view that negotiations will not end the conflict.

Soon Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker are expected to testify before Congress about Iraq. This is the prelude to what may be the last major battle over funding of and conditions on the Iraq War in the current Administration. When Petraeus and Crocker testify, Members of Congress should press them on why the United States isn't seriously engaging diplomatically with Iran to facilitate the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.

This past weekend we had a powerful demonstration of what dialogue with Iran could accomplish in Iraq. A major escalation of conflict between Iraqi government forces and Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia was halted when Iraqi parliamentarians from the government coalition negotiated an agreement with Sadr. This agreement was negotiated not in Annapolis, but in the Iranian city of Qom. The head of Iran's Quds force - which the Bush Administration, at the urging of Senator Clinton, has designated as a terrorist organization - helped broker the agreement, McClatchy News reports.

The consequences of the agreement were swift. Following Sadr's statement, fighting fell dramatically.

Critics of the Bush Administration's policies in Iraq have charged that the Bush Administration's "surge" policy has failed, since its stated intention was to improve security to create the political space for "national reconciliation" in Iraq. Since national reconciliation has not taken place in Iraq, the surge has failed.

Indeed, it was only on Monday that I wrote: "[The conventional wisdom that the 'surge' has succeeded] misses the fact that the 'surge' has failed to produce national political reconciliation in Iraq, its stated goal."

But after this week's US-assisted Iraqi government assault on neighborhoods in Basra controlled by Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, I regret writing that sentence. I fear that it praises with faint damnation. I fear that it could be construed to accept the premise that the Bush Administration is trying to produce national political reconciliation in Iraq, while arguing that it has failed to achieve its goal.

After this week, I regard this premise to be a clear fraud.

As such things are counted, this past weekend we crossed the threshold of four thousand U.S. deaths in Iraq. This fact, in itself, should spark Congressional debate on what the U.S. is doing in Iraq, and how and when we are going to get out.

The Washington/pundit conventional wisdom since late last year has been that Iraq has receded as an issue, as a result of the "success" of the surge in reducing violence, or because the majority in Congress has given up on the idea of trying to force a change in course under the present Administration, because there doesn't yet exist an effective Senate majority for any action which would force a change in course.

This misses a lot.

Today thousands of Americans will gather in hundreds of vigils across the country sponsored by MoveOn and United for Peace and Justice, among others, to mark the fifth anniversary of the illegal and unjust war in Iraq. These vigils will note the 3990 U.S. deaths and 29,314 wounded, and will note the terrible toll the war has taken on Iraq.

But what is a cautious, conservative, responsible thing to say about the Iraqi death toll? No accurate count can be given, and the question has been further clouded by poor reporting in the U.S. media, and misleading commentary by the Bush Administration and its supporters.

There are two scientific studies that have used standard techniques for estimating the death toll.

The Clinton and Obama forces have asked us to consider who we want answering the phone at the White House at 3 AM. There is little need to speculate. We have a lot of evidence about how they will respond.

On Saturday, Colombia launched an attack on a FARC camp in Ecuador, with, Ecuador plausibly alleges, U.S. support. Colombia's President Uribe - a close Bush ally - lied to Ecuador's President Correa about the attack, claiming it was in "hot pursuit." Ecuador's soldiers, when they reached the scene and recovered the bodies of FARC members who had been killed, reported to Correa that they had been asleep when attacked. They were in their underwear. Correa called it a "massacre." Both Ecuador and Venezuela have moved troops to their borders with Colombia, warned Colombia about violating their sovereignty, and cut diplomatic relations with Colombia.

Mark Penn might try out this new soundbite for Hillary Clinton: "Ready to lie from Day 1."

Exhibit A, as noted in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal: this week she claimed that Venezuela is a dictatorship.

The Journal reports:

In a major speech yesterday at George Washington University, Sen. Clinton drove the wedge [with Sen. Obama] deeper: "If I am entrusted with the presidency, America will have the courage, once again, to meet with our adversaries. But I will not be penciling in the leaders of Iran or North Korea or Venezuela or Cuba on the presidential calendar without preconditions; until we have assessed, through lower-level diplomacy, the motivations and intentions of these dictators."

So, according to Senator Hillary Clinton, the leader of Venezuela is a dictator.

Who needs reality TV? My favorite show is called, "Third World Nationalist Leader Makes Outrageous Charges Against the U.S." Like all such shows, there is a formula. A typical episode goes something like this:

Scene 1: Third World Nationalist Leader makes outrageous charges against the U.S.

Scene 2: Charges reported by U.S. news media, in suitably condescending tones, along with U.S. denials. Possible truth of charges not explored.

Scene 3: Bigfoot pundit news analysis explores Third World Nationalist Leader motivations. In a fair and balanced way, two competing theories are advanced. One, Third World Nationalist Leader is paranoid and mentally unbalanced. Two, Third World Nationalist Leader is a demagogue, cynically manipulating public hatred of the United States to distract from domestic policy failures. (Why this sentiment exists to be manipulated is rarely explored.)

Scene 4: News report surfaces lending substantial credence to original charges. But no mainstream media reflect back on their original reporting.

The most recent episode of the series concerns Bolivia.