Richardson, not Kucinich/Paul
In an earlier post over at JTA's Telegraph blog, I argued that those claiming to stand with President Obama by opposing new anti-Iranian sanctions were actually advancing the "Deniis Kucinich/Ron Paul line."
Well maybe it's the Bill Richardson line. An official with one of the groups on the left sent me an e-mail flagging this article by the former New Mexico governor and another of the '08 candidates:
I have argued that saber-rattling is not a good way to get the Iranians to cooperate on ensuring that their nuclear program is limited to legitimate civilian spheres. It will not help in getting Iran's help in stabilizing Iraq as U.S. troops withdraw, and it will not help in ensuring Iranian and Arab cooperation in Afghanistan as the United States develops an exit strategy.
Ending the Israeli-Arab conflict, on the other hand, will provide the United States with a much better environment to advance its diplomatic efforts vis-à-vis Iran.
It's the difference between isolationism on the one hand and a faith in diplomacy on the other. Hope that gets me off the hook in time for Yom Kippur.
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David
09/24/09 04:14 PM
Eden, who defends APN and JStreet in a previous post, in this one seems to be lumping people like Kucinich and Paul who believe that it’s time for the US to get out of the “empire business” or have a more America-centric, even-handed approach to Israel-Palestine in with classical isolationists. Both of these guys are being quite consistent in calling for more talk, less saber-ratting, even with Iran. And now comes along Bill Richardson saying the same thing PLUS correctly pointing out that solving the Israel-Palestine issue will not help Iran solve the Afghanistan problem. Imagine the US and Iran reaching some kind of “I’d like to kill you but we have to agree on neutralizing the Taliban” agreement. This is NOT isolationism; it’s the kind of pragmatism that would have our Zionist friends reaching for their bottles of Pepcid and cursing America’s betrayal of a Middle East policy whose microscope is focused at 10,000X only on Israel.