Stop the Insanity: No War With Iran
It is a tragedy that in the midst of one failed war in Iraq, George Bush and Dick Cheney are pushing a second front of failure and gearing up to attack Iran. The "unilateral sanctions" recently imposed will hurt diplomatic progress in the region, and I find it disconcerting that so many Democrats supported President Bush in his saber-rattling.
Senator Clinton voted to enable George Bush when she voted for the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment. Senator Obama, skipped the Iran vote entirely.
Saber-rattling is not a good way to get the Iranians to cooperate and work with us for peace. But it is a tried and true method of laying the groundwork for another war -- a war that would be a disaster for the Middle East, for the United States and for the world. Saying that we're on a "path to diplomacy" while imposing these sanctions and increasing the war rhetoric only strengthens hard-line elements in the Iranian leadership and increases the risk of violence breaking out.
Further, a policy of "unilateral sanctions will actually diminish our diplomatic options. "Unilateral sanctions" are both ineffective and porous, and they will undermine the effort to get meaningful multilateral sanctions that the Iranians would possibly pay attention to.
Diplomacy continues to be the path not taken by the Bush administration.
Again and again, President Bush has shown a disdain for diplomacy and our own governmental institutions. The Democratic Congress needs to stand up to this president and prevent him from starting another needless war, which will further isolate us in the world and strengthen our enemies.
Bush's goal seems clear -- to keep ramping up the rhetoric and threats until he's managed to back us into another unwanted war. But what isn't clear to me is what Congress is going to do about it. Haven't we yet learned the lesson that if you give this president an inch on this aggression, he will take a mile?
I know this region. I spent 80 percent of my time as ambassador to the United Nations on Iraq and the Middle East issues. If we want to succeed in the region, we have to get all of our troops out of Iraq. We have to talk to the Iranians and back that up with global diplomacy to build strong support for tough sanctions. That is how we will be successful, not with the president's saber-rattling. Congress needs to stop him before he goes too far.
Of course, Congress just had a chance to stand up to Bush with an unequivocal "no war with Iran" vote. But they squandered the opportunity -- just as they, time and time again, have missed chances to stand up to Bush on Iraq.
Now is not the time for a "wait and see" attitude -- not on ending the war in Iraq and not on starting a war in Iran.
When it comes to Iraq, I want all the troops out, now. If the president won't do it, we need to convince Congress to stand up -- go to www.getourtroopsout.com to join us.
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The war in Iraq is immoral. Period.
I am completely sick and tired of the Bush Administration and those in Congress who've supported it. We need to understand the real reasons for the war and be upset. The only reason we are there is to protect the oil. Remember who we have at the top: Bush, a failed oil explorer who couldn't discover oil if it was gushing out of his crankcase; and Cheney, who was the head of Halliburton, an oil industry contractor.
If we sit idly by (including our stagnant Congress) and let Bush rally us around the flag in an effort to attack Iran, we will see the end of our democracy. We cannot continue to not protest, not be upset and not write to our representatives, the papers and to online ventures such as this fine outlet. It is our right to stand up and say "NO!!!" We cannot continue to see our rights and liberties being pushed aside by the Bush people and those behind him, the power brokers.
Our country was founded on the principal of "We, the people..."
I am not convinced that the front-runner in the Democratic ranks is as sincere in turning it all around as her people would like you to believe. To turn it all around, we need to not only begin to pull out our troops and do it quickly, not over years, as well as hold those leaders responsible for the attrocities we've all read about that occurred in Iraq and elsewhere. Holding them accountable for their actions should be a primary goal of any candidate.
It is time for some serious change in leadership.
It is time to make your voice heard.
It is time to stand up as a liberal, moderate or conservative and demand that our leaders listen to us when we demand morality, honor, respect, concern for all people, everywhere, and peace.
"Saber-rattling is not a good way to get the Iranians to cooperate and work with us for peace."
Yeah, a better way might have been to accept the "silver platter" deal that the "reformers" in Iran offered to us in the run-up to the Iraq war. They actually offered to end their nuke program, and to send troops into Iraq (you'd have thought they would be natural allies against Hussein, seeing as he killed millions of them).
The dealbreaker for the busheviks was that Iran actually wanted to participate in the creation of the new government in Iraq. Good thing for them that we declined, because now they get to participate anyway, and they get to keep their nuke program.
Is this all just a bad dream? Has everyone in Congress lost his/her mind?
We can't win/afford the Iraq fiasco and they are dreaming of going after Iran!
Wake up!
Hear, Hear. I'm so glad that when the front runners degenerate into "one-upping" each other on the the experience question; when the debate degenerates into "how many foriegn-policy hypotheticals can dance on the head of a pin"; and when the others lose sight of the ultimate goal and devolve into name-calling and personalit
Thank God we have Rudy.
Gee, Mr. Richardson, wouldn't an attack on Iran be an act of war?
And doesn't the U.S. Constitution specifically state that only Congress may declare war?
Wouldn't it be refreshing if those of you who are running as Democrats could agree on this fact and repeat it in every debate from now on?
And it would also be helpful to remind voters that absent a Declaration of War, any such attack would be a blatant violation of the Constitution and therefor an impeachable offense.
I admire your candor sir, but I cannot support your contention that Congress "missed chances to stand up to Bush on Iraq". Congress has consistently CHOSEN to abrogate it's constitutional responsibilities to the American people and in the process empowered a fascist process to move forward unchecked.
Sen. Hagel has allegedly warned the President that failure to explore diplomacy with Iran in the coming months will result in dire circumstances. I have to view this mea culpa piece and the subtext of Sen. Hagel's letter as sufficient cause to believe the die has already been cast. "Whoopeeee we're all gonna die!!!""
Bill, one word-IMPEACH!
Joe Biden highlights this point:
The connection between oil prices being inflated due to the instable risk being assessed to the Iran vote and designating their guard as a terrorist organization struck a real chord with me. If the price for oil should be really between $60-$70 and we're paying between $90 and $100 a barrel, then every American should have a huge problem with this risk, especially going into the winter season. I wonder if this is a bigger story than what it really is. Especially in light of how much our economy is hurting right now and especially since Bush and Clinton could accomplish the same tasks of sanctions (or other diplomatic efforts) without this terrorist designation and subsequent fear of an Iranian invasion.
Don't worry Bill, that's why we have guys like Biden in the Senate to give a real voice to this issue. More importantly, Biden highlights the real issues:
I thought Bill's performance during the debate Tuesday night was great. He was the clear winner at that debate. I wish I knew how to counteract the media's focus on UFO's (Bill's post-debate interview with Chris Matthews was rediculous, yet Bill handled it admirably) and Hillary (hasn't it been well-established at this point that she is a panderer with no clear policy, other than to maintain the Iraq War?). Bill, you're heads and shoulders above the rest of the pack in this race. Your experience and clarity of proposed policies trumps all these mealy mouthed soundbites by the rest of the candidates. Best of luck.
Thank you for the note of sanity, Governor. "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." Orwell. I wonder if the other candidates, at least in talking among themselves, recognize that a war with Iran now will probably lead to disintegration of the United States. It's impossible to predict how it will play out, in detail, but I think a preemptive bombing campaign will lead to a general conflagration that will destroy our democracy here and wreck the international economy. Bush is either insane or is some sort of Millenialist (not mutually exclusive categories). War with Iran, while the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are faltering, will be Bush's Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's fateful decision to invade the Soviets while occupying all of Western Europe and North Africa. It became Germany's undoing. History could repeat itself.
Right again, Bill. All of the other candidates are pretending to understand foreign policy while you've been successfully engaged in it for most of your political life.
I'm hoping that you will run for the Senate and believe that you would run away with the race in NM. And, many of us are supporting your position in Iraq and hope the others will change their hawkish ways.
Anyone who starts a war should resign as they have failed to negotiate peaceful solutions to the problems that face our global community.
Keep up the good work that you do.
I agree with your position on Iraq. We should withdraw our forces soon after the next President takes office, by early 2009.
With regard to Iran, time is not on our side. All the international diplomacy, UN deliberations and compliance deadlines have merely provided Iran with more time to perfect its uranium enrichment process. While Iranian President Ahmadinejad claims that Iran's nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, Iran is in reality inching toward nuclear weapons capability. By some estimates, it may be able manufacture such weapons by 2009.
What further sanctions are available against Iran to force it to abandon its nuclear ambitions? While we cannot take the military option off the table, our immediate focus should be to obtain a worldwide embargo on Iranian oil exports. This would be the first sanction regime to hit Iran hard, as it derives eighty to ninety percent of its export earnings from oil.
If countries such as China and Russia are not willing to cooperate in an embargo, then we must consider legislation to impose some economic sanctions against those countries as well. Nuclear proliferation is an important enough issue to warrant such tactics.
Sanctioning China and Russia to obtain their cooperation is surely a less draconian step than launching a military strike against Iran. The military option should be considered a last resort, partly because Iranian missiles are poised to make a retaliatory strike on our bases and allies in the region.
Reports on Iran's nuclear program are expected in November from Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Javier Solana of the European Union. In these reports, we should look for a realistic plan to verify that Iran's program has an exclusively peaceful intent going forward. Failing that, the United States should seek a UN Security Council resolution establishing the oil embargo. At the same time, we should open direct talks with Iran about its nuclear program.
I'd like to see the evidence that the Iranians, including Ahmadinejad, are up to no good. I don't mean those (intentionally?) mistranslated remarks about Israel and questions about the Holocaust.
How many Iranians is the administration holding in Iraq or anywhere else on charges of supplying anybody with IEDs? Last I checked not even one.
If we're so worried about a Muslim country possessing nukes, we should be bombing Pakistan. The American-funded dictator there, Musharraf, could be toppled at any moment by populace that is deeply resentful of American meddling.
Bill: Right now, I trust you to do diplomacy over both Hillary Clinton and john Edwards. And I say that as someone who born in Iran and lived there for seventeen years. Although I do wish you could address some of the double standards America applies to international politics that is the cause of so much terrorism, such as allowing Israel to have 300 nuclear weapons without even joining the NPT while trying to stop Iran's nuclear program, which as far as anyone knows, is for peaceful purposes. Not enough people are asking: what evidence do you have that Iran wants a nuclear weapons?
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