Kumbaya, My Lord
Jules Crittenden
If another aircraft carrier group in the Gulf and a couple of detentions in Iraq made Ahmadinejad sound like a flower child, this news ought to make him start sounding like Gandhi:
Israel is negotiating with the United States for permission to fly over Iraq as part of a plan to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.
To conduct surgical air strikes against Iran’s nuclear programme, Israeli war planes would need to fly across Iraq. But to do so the Israeli military authorities in Tel Aviv need permission from the Pentagon. ...
Tough Talk!
Jules Crittenden
Bill Richardson appears to be saying this with a straight face:
The recent tentative agreement with North Korea over its nuclear program illustrates how diplomacy can work even with the most unsavory of regimes. Unfortunately, it took the Bush administration more than six years to commit to diplomacy. During that needless delay North Korea developed and tested nuclear weapons — weapons its leaders still have not agreed to dismantle. Had we engaged the North Koreans earlier, instead of calling them “evil” and talking about “regime change,” we might have prevented them from going nuclear. We could have, and should have, negotiated a better agreement, and sooner.
What could possibly be better than the agreement Bill Clinton negotiated with them?
As the International Atomic Energy Agency just confirmed, Iran has once again defied the international community and is moving forward with its nuclear program, yet the Bush administration seems committed to repeating the mistakes it made with North Korea.
Not true! Bush never started aiming carrier groups at Kim, clearing airspace for Israelis to Pyongyang, or detaining North Korean agents in Iraq. We tailor our mistakes to the situation, thank you very much.
Rather than directly engaging the Iranians about their nuclear program, President Bush refuses to talk, except to make threats.
Let’s see, flip through the old Merriam-Webster …. there it is. “Engage directly: to interact with in close proximity; in the case of lying, murdering, terrorist-supporting nations, to threaten to blow big holes in or to glass over.” ...
