Washington Post on Iran vote: Obama unconvincing, irresponsible, & probably naive

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

A Difference on Iran?
Barack Obama's unconvincing attack on Hillary Clinton's 'saber-rattling.'
Sunday, October 21, 2007; Page B06

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."

So is there any real difference between Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton on Iran? Mr. Obama contends that one distinction lies in Ms. Clinton's acceptance of language in the Senate resolution that "it is a critical national interest of the United States" to stop Iran from creating a Hezbollah-like force in Iraq. Mr. Obama claims that such language is "saber-rattling" that could be used by the Bush administration to justify an attack on Iran. This is hard to fathom. Not only is there no mention of the use of U.S. force in the resolution, but last year Mr. Obama gave a speech in which he said it "is in our national interest to prevent" Iran or Syria from using Iraq as "a staging area from which to attack Israel or other countries."

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the washington post is run by criminals who deserve the DP....all of them. And we shouldn't pay att'n to their terrorist activities, their videos of usama bin missin praising michael moore etc, or their efforts to vandalise the 2008 election

nt

and it's too late for him to learn

If he was in the national spotlight than.

Perhaps if Obama hadn't fled DC before the vote he'd know more about what was in the resolution.

Obama is flailing, IMO.