Iran policy takes center stage for Clinton, Obama

It’s sad, but at this point Senator Clinton is running a campaign P.T. Barnum would be proud of! -Kevo

Here is more information on Clinton’s foreign policy agenda.
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4811

An excerpt:

Nuclear Weapons

Particularly disturbing has been Senator Clinton’s attitudes regarding nuclear issues. For example, when Senator Obama noted in August that the use of nuclear weapons – traditionally seen as a deterrent against other nuclear states – was not appropriate for use against terrorists, Clinton rebuked his logic by claiming that “I don’t believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or nonuse of nuclear weapons.”

Senator Clinton has also shown little regard for the danger from the proliferation of nuclear weapons to other countries, opposing the enforcement of UN Security Council resolutions challenging the nuclear weapons programs of such U.S allies as Israel, Pakistan and India. Not only does she support unconditional military aid – including nuclear-capable missiles and jet fighters – to these countries, she even voted to end restrictions on U.S. nuclear cooperation with countries that violate the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

She has a very different attitude, however, regarding even the possibility of a country the United States does not support obtaining nuclear weapons some time in the future. For example, Senator Clinton insists that the prospect of Iran joining its three Southwest Asian neighbors in developing nuclear weapons “must be unacceptable to the entire world” since challenging the nuclear monopoly of the United States and its allies would somehow “shake the foundation of global security to its very core.” She refuses to support the proposed nuclear weapons-free zone for the Middle East, as called for in UN Security Council resolution 687, nor does she support a no-first use nuclear policy, both of which could help resolve the nuclear standoff. Indeed, she has refused to rule out the use of nuclear weapons against such non-nuclear countries as Iran, even though such unilateral use of nuclear weapons directly contradicts the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the same treaty she claims the United States must unilaterally and rigorously enforce when it involves Iran and other countries our government doesn’t like.

Senator Clinton also criticized the Bush administration’s decision to include China, Japan and South Korea in talks regarding North Korea’s nuclear program and to allow France, Britain and Germany to play a major role in negotiations with Iran, claiming that instead of taking “leadership to keep deadly weapons out of the hands of rogue states and terrorists … we have outsourced over the last five years our policies.” In essence, as president, Hillary Clinton would be more unilateralist and less prone to work with other nations than the Bush administration on such critical issues as non-proliferation.

And here’s her agenda regarding International law

It’s closely tied to Bush’s. She would be an American president dangerous to the rest of the world. She’s more like GW Bush than many people know.

It is fashionable today to argue that Israel is just another country and that it has earned the hostility of its neighbors.

Classic “straw man argument” – another Bush tactic. Prop up an unsubstantiated statement, claim that you oppose it, implying that the other guy doesn’t.

Obama is right – Clinton was smart early on when she was the front-runner NOT to engage in wild hypotheticals. How obvious this switch is purely political.

To add to what Mary said, Obama loses this argument because it continues to drive a wedge between himself and the “Reagan Democrats” and cross-over republicans, just like his stance on the gas tax holiday, which might not seem like a lot of $$ for average folks, but for independant truck drivers who are paying over $4.00 a gallon for diesel fuel and cannot afford to work, this helps quite a bit.

It certainly doesn’t help that Governor Richardson met with Hugo Chavez against the advice of the Columbian government trying to get him to pull some strings with his terrorist buddies to gain political points, nor does it help that President Carter met with Hamas, which by the way gained absolutely nothing. These are 2 of his highest profile surrogates, they had to know that their actions would reverberate in the presidential nomination, especially given Obama’s stance on negotiating with these dictators on their terms.

The moral of the story is that you cannot appear weak when trying to negotiate peace, especially when dealing with a madman like Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, you must express emphatically that you would retaliate and there would be severe consequences for nuking Israel, which was the question she was responding to.

The so-called “Reagan Democrats” are going to do one of two things in this election.

1. Elect Hillary Clinton
2. Elect John McCain

And every credible poll showing that 25% of Democrats say they would defect to McCain if Obama is nominated, this is no empty threat.

…but for independant truck drivers who are paying over $4.00 a gallon for diesel fuel and cannot afford to work, this helps quite a bit. -Greg

Persisting in this argument despite all of the historical evidence showing any tax reduction will only lead to a nearly equal increase in price, and any new tax levied against the oil companies will only be passed along is naive. A short-term tax break on gas at the pump (which Hillary isn’t even trying to pass in the Senate) would not benefit anyone; rather, it would increase the rate of inflation, which history shows anyone who has their eyes open.

…especially given Obama’s stance on negotiating with these dictators on their terms. -Greg

You’re making stuff up. Obama’s willingness to have conversations with people who have traditionally been our enemies is not the same as negotiating with them on their terms.

Ahmadinejad is hardly a madman, as you say. He is quite deft at political chess, and as long as Bush and Clinton keep maneuvering pieces into his path unguarded, he will keep taking them with his pawns. Bush and Clinton have done nothing expcept turn a disliked leader on his way out into what Ahmadinejad is today.

Greg,

Even thouugh he is a nut case to deny that the Holocaust ever happened he is still a leader of a sovereign nation. I don’t think the long suffering people of Iran should be punished for the sins their government. Moreover, obliterating Iran would not deter further violence. Reagan had nothing to do with the fall of the USSR.

Greg (12):Thank God Reagan had the guts to stand up to the Russians and not let them bully us or anybody else around, otherwise we’d be speaking Russian and Democracy would be dead.

The CIA was shocked by the fall of the USSR. And Reagan said, “Tear down this wall”, not “or else we’re gonna nuke ya’.”

Ahmadinejad denies the holocaust happened and wants to wipe Israel off the face of the planet, do you honestly think you can reason with somebody like that? -Greg

Those are both widely held beliefs in that part of the world. It’s quite possible he believes them, but, I believe equally possible he espouses those beliefs for political gain. Pandering is something I expect Clinton supporters to know about.

The only thing he understands is force, and if properly used as a deterrent, it can be very effective.. just look how the cold war ended. -Greg

I do not understand how you cope with the dissonance of calling someone a madman while simultaneously holding the belief that they are reasonable enough to show restraint because of the threat of violence.

Additionally, I think it very naive to assume that, by acting in accordance with the image of the United States that he has sought to create, we would lessen his power or stay his hand. Nay, by acting the fool we prove it to all of his people who in turn will only support him more. This is not the way to emasculate a dictator, just like fanning is not the way to fight a fire.

Greg said “Ahmadinejad denies the holocaust happened and wants to wipe Israel off the face of the planet, do you honestly think you can reason with somebody like that?”

So given that, we may safely assume that G W Bush does believe the holocaust happened and also that we should protect Israel from obliteration, I guess by this logic that you could say that G W Bush is a man that can be reasoned with? Or has experience/history shown to be otherwise in this case?

Greg there is a difference between talking to and talking at when it comes to diplomacy; you and Mary do the latter quite well BTW, but diplomacy is not only conducted for your own self interests, it is also simultaneously done as a display of one’s self interests. We currently talk at our opponents only with our own self interests in mind. We need to talk to our opponents with a our global perspective and self interest in mind and on display because it communicates that we as country are willing to attempt to listen to our opponents.

This is exactly what Reagan did with the USSR while keeping a finger on “Button” just in case. He was perceived as a tough negotiator and actually got things accomplished in the eyes of the world because he was perceived as the guy who can to listen and talk to the USSR, not at.

This is what Obama is saying. Of course he knows that Ahmadinejad is a kook, but for Global Geopolitical sake he puts up an appearance of “negotiation”. this 1) reduces Iran’s power to rattle their sabres at the US and Israel. 2) play the victim 3) opens Iran’s “Allies” up to our influence 4)co-opt Iran’s influence in Iraq 5) contains Iranian expansionist tendencies and 6) undercuts Ahmadinejad’s “Brand” of being the only one who can stand up against “the evil West”

HRC’s idea of this saber rattling @ Iran is like showing a full house on the first ante in high stakes poker. You’re dumb if you show your hand to early because since you have the higher hand why not string your opponents along on to maximize your return and soundly defeat them with subtlety.

But of course you don’/can’t/won’t understand because your idea of subtlety is using a nuke to do the job of a scalpel.

#9 – Greg:

The so-called “Reagan Democrats” are going to do one of two things in this election. 1. Elect Hillary Clinton 2. Elect John McCain. And every credible poll showing that 25% of Democrats say they would defect to McCain if Obama is nominated, this is no empty threat.

Very interesting statement. Mostly agree with that, but requires deep exploration. Reagan Democrats are basically uneducated rural whites. There are different techniques in trying to win over those constituencies – one is pandering to them using triggerpoint issues (Republicans will use race overtly, Hillary much more subtly for example), or by using better framing of issues (voting for McCain = voting against your own economic interests).

I believe McCain and Clinton are trying method one, and Obama method two. Obama may not be successful, but the question is is the end worth compromising on the means?

Once again, real foreign policy experts disagree with Obama

SADDAM WAS A SERIAL VIOLATOR OF HUMAN RIGHTS, had started two wars in the region in the previous decade, continued to threaten his neighbors, including Israel, which he once said he would destroy with weapons of mass destruction. We may not have fully understood how little remained of his WMD arsenal, but were we really willing in the aftermath of 9/11 to give him a free pass, as Obama’s rewriting of history suggests he might have done?

The approach of tough diplomacy backed by the threat of military action was the correct one and it yielded exactly the desired results, a unanimously passed U.N. resolution and the capitulation of Saddam when he readmitted the inspectors.

The betrayal occurred not when the president was given the tools he needed to secure international support for inspections, but rather when Bush refused to allow the inspectors to complete their work and decided preemptively to invade, conquer and occupy Iraq.

That decision and power was his alone — not the Congress’ and certainly not Hillary Clinton’s. Obama is wrong to turn Bush’s war into Clinton’s responsibility. And Obama is dangerously na•ve in failing to understand the need in international crises to blend tough diplomacy with the other foreign policy tools at our disposal to achieve a strong national security posture.

My compadre Mary raises a good point. As Bill Clinton goes, so goes Hillary. A vote for Hillary is a vote for Bill, whom everyone loves. Does Senator Upstart have a popular ex-presidential spouse whose record he can run on? No, he does not. Advantage Clinton.

Hillary’s response does carry with it negative foreign policy repercussions

Says you, the foreign policy “experts” and the world outside the U.S., all of which are irrelevant. Senator Clinton is speaking to ordinary Americans, people whom you obviously do not understand, but whom Senor Patroniza obviously thinks don’t matter. With her decision to stand with normal people instead of policy-obsessed wonks, she has chosen wisely.

Mrs. Billy-J: a failure when it came to reforming health care (having made things harder for those who follow), a failure as a feminist (since she is making things harder for those who follow), and now a failure at foreign policy, twice – the unthinking Iraq vote and now the unthinking Iran bullshit.

The lady is a first-class Bullshitter:

Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk
without knowing what he is talking about. Thus the production of
bullshit is stimulated whenever a person’s obligations or
opportunities to speak about some topic are more excessive than his
knowledge of the facts that are relevant to that topic. This
discrepancy is common in public life, where people are frequently
impelled — whether by their own propensities or by the demands of
others — to speak extensively about matters of which they are to some
degree ignorant. Closely related instances arise from the widespread
conviction that it is the responsibility of a citizen in a democracy
to have opinions about everything, or at least everything that
pertains to the conduct of his country’s affairs. The lack of any
significant connection between a person’s opinions and his
apprehension of reality will be even more severe, needless to say, for
someone who believes it his responsibility, as a conscientious moral
agent, to evaluate events and conditions in all parts of the world.

the reality is that republicans have been beating democrats for decades because of stupid things like fear or the economy.

Embracing a ReThug tactic that is both incoherent and unethical does not make it the better thing to do, Greg; you come across like a child who whines, “WHAAA! THEY DID IT FIRST!! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!” Besides, in order to compete with that gaggle of ego-maniacal fools, you don’t use “their” mouse-trap. You build “a better mouse-trap.”

And please—you’re going to try and play the “recently declassified documents” card here? Reagan beat down the USSR by moving toward building up conventional forces on a massive scale. The Big Red Bear withered on the vine because it couldn’t keep up with Ronnie’s plans. They went broke just thinking about it. They knew what any type of a pre-emptive nuclear strike on their part would bring; no one had to tell them about that consequence, and they saw themselves on the verge of being pushed off the map if it came down to an all-out conventional war.

THAT was common knowledge more than 20 years ago.

Oh, and Mary—the United States does not currently possess the ordnance necessary to “obliterate” Iraq. It did not possess the ordnance necessary to do this at any time during the current expedition; it did not possess the ordnance necessary to do so during the first military action against Iraq in 1991; it has not possessed enough to do as you suggest since Viet Nam—that is, if you’re “disenfranchising” the nuclear threat that was apparently obvious to every nation on the planet, with the exception of the Fiefdom of Lower-Order Clintonia.

Blowing up a few buildings and vehicles does not equal “obliterate.”

I’m, for a change, not ducking into the political argument here, except to say that Mark Kleiman nailed it. What is, to me, a lot more important is the slow changing of attitudes towards nuclear weapons. As I’ve said many times, I grew up in the Fifties — and while they didn’t take pictures of my school, I was one of the kids that practiced hiding under my desk in case of a nuclear attack.

What was wrong about that — other than simple absurdity — was that it helped foster the attitude that a nuclear weapon was ‘just a bigger stick of dynamite,’ that a war using them was ‘really no different’ than a conventional war. (That’s what made ‘better dead than red’ such a horrible idea.)

We had ‘grown out’ of such ideas in the Sixties and Seventies. We learned what things like ‘fallout’ and ‘half-life’ meant, and eventually understood the idea of ‘nuclear winter.’ We kept the weapons as a defense against another country’s nuclear blackmail, but in fact we never seriously considered using them except in retaliation in a truly extreme situation — and many of us thought even considering this was a dangerous mistake.

(In fact, there was some speculation whether we’d actually use them — even in retaliation — or whether our generals might refuse to ‘push the button’ even then, much as the German general refused to ‘burn Paris’ as the Nazis were driven out.)

But it’s been — thankfully — 62 1/2 years since nuclear weapons were used against people. It’s been decades since they were tested above ground — again a good thing given the danger to the environment, but also with the negative consequences that we no longer witness what these horrors actually do.

And the old way of thinking, the ‘bigger stick of dynamite’ madness is coming back — and it had never completely gone away. And while, in reality, no American President or Soviet leader ever seems to have considered using them first — American Presidents before Bush were more realistic than that, and post-Stalin Soviet leaders were basically non-ideological bureaucrats who quoted Marx the way Bush praises ‘democracy’ — because they were ‘supposed to’ rather than because they even understood what they were talking about — I wish I was sure that other leaders had the same reluctance.

But other leaders, particularly in the Middle East and in South Asia, didn’t grow up with the memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the way we did — they may not even realize that this devastation was the result of the use of ONE bomb on each city — and one very crude early bomb. And, to be honest, many of them are so deluded by religious ideas — like a few people here including our President and Pastor Hagee — that they hardly qualify for membership in the ‘reality-based community.’

Nukes don’t just ‘make big bangs and kill lots of people’ like, oh, say, an oil field explosion. They have long-term consequences. Think what would happen if Iran did nuke Israel — or if we nuked Iran. Forget, for the moment, the question of retaliation, or long term political consequences. Just the immediate consequences. The loss of life — Mark K. is right that we (or Ahmadinejad) would be in the Stalin-Hitler category of mass murderer — but also the fact that whatever either was trying to accomplish would be lost in the explosion.

Supposedly, the idea of attacking Israel would be to ‘return the land to the Palestinians’ and to ‘get the 3rd Holiest place in Islam in Islamic hands.’ But, even assume the nuke was somehow targeted so it stayed within the irregular borders of Israel, there wouldn’t be any unpoisoned land to ‘return to,’ and the Dome of the Rock would be the shards of the rubble. And if we nuked Iran we’d kill a lot of people, but we’d also destroy history, threaten every other contry (including Israel) with fallout, and, btw, certainly help the case of those who favored ‘energy independence,’ because a pretty heavy proportion of the oil under Iran wouldn’t be there — or would be perhaps a little too radioactive to use.

THIS is why this sort of saber-rattling talk is really dangerous, because it brings back the ‘bigger stick of dynamite’ idea. Hiroshima and Nagasaki served as ‘vaccines’ against that way of thinking for many years. But vaccines fade as memories fade.

Let’s hope we never need a ‘booster shot.’ Because whether that booster shot was named Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Tehran, Lahore, Mumbai, Washington, or Brooklyn, it would be the whole world that suffered the side effects.

Mary: “When Clinton said she would “obliterate” Iran, she was not referring to nuclear weapons”

Thanks for elucidating – non-nuclear obliteration is perfectly good to talk about… Engaging is horrible hypotheticals is suddenly OK after Pennsylvania didn’t change Obama’s rate of growth of superdelegates.

Greg: Joe Wilson is wrong – we could have forced inspections with the Levin amendment. Clinton recently said “The Levin amendment, in my view, gave the Security Council of the United Nations a veto over American presidential power”.

What a shameful, shameful lie. All it did was require the president to return to Congress if his United Nations efforts failed.

jacksmith: “Sen. Hillary Clinton: “You know, more people have now voted for me than have voted for my opponent. In fact, I now have more votes than anybody has ever had in a primary contest for a nomination. And it’s also clear that we’ve got nine more important contests to go.”

Misleading, caucus-state-insulting statement.

Ronnie alone beat the Commies?

So, things like the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, the formation of NATO, the Korean War, uprisings in East Germany and Hungary during the 1950s, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Helsinki Accords, detente, SALT I, economic stagnation under Brezhnev, the Solidarity Movement, the nuclear freeze movement, glasnost, perestroika, and a disastorous war in Afghanistan all had no role in bringing an end to the Soviet Union?

All it took was Reagan bumping up defense spending to 6.2% of GNP and calling the USSR the “Evil Empire”?

Huh….

As an aside to this discussion, many of the assumptions about the end of the Cold War here are grossly misleading…

The Cold War ended because of the long-term economic decline of the Soviet Empire which began in the 1960s and because the Reagan administration took the opportunity…

… to engage in far-reaching negotiations with Moscow.

In doing so, Reagan had to break with the extremely dangerous and moronic approach of his early administration which almost led to all-out nuclear war in 1983. We are all alive today because of this break with the hawks.

He had to reject the advice of neo-conservatives and foreign policy hawks who argued at the time that the Soviet Empire was going from strength to strength, and that negotiations would be a failure because of the irrational nature of the Soviet leadership and their ideological commitment to destroying capitalism and global conquest.

Greg has taken up the cartoonish neoconservative revision of this period of the USSR breaking up in the face of Reagan’s military build-up and resolve which is common in the US and Britain but widely disregarded as a self-serving narrative most elsewhere.

Obama has indeed shown that he has learned some of the actual lessons of this period rather than the self-serving claims made by hawks who were wrong about everything then, just as they are today about Iraq and Iran.

Greg’s description of Iran is also bogus.

Ahmadinejad, irrational or not, has no power to authorise aggression against Israel, that’s not how the Iranian political system operates.

Iran in some ways resembles the USSR in the 1980s – its form of government is deeply unpopular and discredited at home by its corruption, repression and by offering the population so little. It has failed to deliver economic gains to its population and the regime faces a great deal of unrest from the rural poor and urban liberals.

The attempt to develop nuclear energy represents a desperate effort to deliver energy to a restless population while enabling the regime to sell oil and gas abroad, sales of which make up most of the government’s income. US intelligence agencies have failed to find much evidence of plans to build nuclear weapons.

The rhetorical attacks on Israel and the US represent an effort to bolster the morale of the regime’s supporters and distract the population as a whole from domestic problems, but it is an approach Ahmadinejad is finding increasingly less successful.

It is actually quite a good time for an American president to enter into far-reaching negotiations with sections of the Iranian government (not necessarily Ahmadinejad) to reduce tensions, avert war and create the atmosphere for an Iranian glasnost.

Obama’s approach is better, and actually more realistic, than the hawkish approach which has achieved literally nothing since 1979.

It is extremely revealing how you people think of war, aggression and military matters every time Senator Clinton speaks. Because you are male and love to make war, as men so frequently do, you hear words like “obliterate” and think of violence, death and destruction.

Senator Clinton, who is a mother and a lifelong peacemaker, could just as easily have been talking about a metaphorical obliteration of Iran’s potential aggression toward Israel. She obviously meant that she would use her extensive diplomatic and foreign policy experience to erase Iran’s hostility and nuclear ambitions, replacing them with a strong respect for all other nations with whom we are allied and a viable relationship with the U.S. The way you all jump to more negative conclusions about her motivations really stinks.

Personally, I think she’s nostalgic for the good ol’ “Red Dawn” days. Wolverines!

Stop it! You’re giving her wild-n-woolly, flying-monkey-esque thought-spawn ideas!!!

Just checking, would this obliteration make any effort to avoid civilian deaths?
Did she mean to obliterate the leadership that called for an unwise strike on Israel or the entire population that had no say in the matter?

There used to be a term for the slaughter of civilians in order to coerce a government, but the definition has been broadened to the point of unfamiliarity for me….