Obama's Unconvincing Attack On Iran

[William769]

SEN. BARACK Obama argues that he has a significant difference with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Iran, an issue that may be more important for the next president than Iraq. In an op-ed, Mr. Obama condemned as "dangerous" and "reckless" a Senate resolution Ms. Clinton supported that urged the Bush administration to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization. He said the resolution "opened the door to an extension and escalation of the ongoing war in Iraq to include military action against Iran." He also said the "first and most important avenue to contain Iranian aggression" should be "direct diplomacy" -- which he said Ms. Clinton had called "naive and irresponsible."

There are two important issues here: whether it is right for the United States to designate part or all of the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization, as the Bush administration is likely to do in the near future; and whether direct talks between Iran and the United States are worth pursuing. Ms. Clinton has been criticized by some on the left who contend that the terrorism designation would unncessarily raise tensions with Iran and increase the chances of war. But it turns out that Mr. Obama doesn't share this view: He, too, favors the "terrorist" designation. In fact the main point of such a step is to allow the United States to tighten economic sanctions against Iran -- a strategy that both candidates rightly favor.

Nor do Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton disagree very much about talks with Iran. Both say their administrations would open unconditional negotiations with Tehran about its nuclear program -- unlike the Bush administration, which has offered such talks but conditioned them on Iran's suspending its uranium enrichment. If there is a difference, it is that Mr. Obama once said -- unadvisedly -- that as president he would meet unconditionally with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is a Holocaust denier and advocate of Israel's destruction but not Iran's most important leader. Rather than admit his mistake -- Ms. Clinton was right to call the remark "naive" if not "irresponsible" -- Mr. Obama has tried to make it appear that the criticism amounted to a dismissal of "direct diplomacy."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/20/AR2007102000984.html

[msongs]

1. declare economic war on the iranian people, that will win obama some iranian friends nt