Senator Obama denounced President Bush’s speech to the Israeli Knesset, during which the President said:
”...some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along.”
"We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is—the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history..."
Senator Obama issued a statement saying:
"It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel. Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power—including tough, principled, and direct diplomacy—to pressure countries like Iran and Syria..."
One might ask, where has the Senator been for the last four or five years?
The Bush administration, solo and working with France, Germany, and England, has held almost continuous discussions with Iran seeking a mutually agreeable way to stop Iran’s production of weapons grade nuclear fuel. Moreover, the issue has, just as with Iraq, been frequently brought before the UN, which has passed resolutions, all of which Iran has ignored and denounced. Syria has been dealt with in a similar fashion.
The Senator says that he wants, not tough talk, but action. Does his meeting personally with Iran’s president, with no preconditions, constitute such action? Or does he propose to launch a military attack against the two countries?
Of course, if he really wants to get tough, he can send House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on a repeat of her earlier, illegal diplomatic foray into Syria.
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