Just naive, or incredibly stupid?

In the first presidential debate, John Kerry made a little noticed statement affirming his intention to provide Iran with nuclear fuel. "I think the United States should have offered the opportunity to provide the nuclear fuel, test them, see whether or not they were actually looking for it for peaceful purposes."

For those with a short memory, this was essentially the same policy the Clinton administration adopted toward North Korea – provide them nuclear fuel under the ridiculous assumption that Kim Jong II would only use the nuclear fuel for electricity. Hence, the growing nuclear arsenal being amassed in North Korea, a threat John Kerry inappropriately sources to President Bush's watch.

Two analogies immediately jump to mind. Let's let the children play with dynamite to see if they've grown mature enough not to blow themselves up with it. Or, why not sell scrap metal to the Japanese? Surely Tojo won't use it to make battleships and aircraft carriers, and besides, the fleet's safe at Pearl Harbor.

The idea that a Kerry administration would willingly arm a rogue regime that supports terrorists with nuclear fuel is either so naive or breathtakingly stupid that we are driven to find a more reasonable explanation for the bizarre policy.

Look no farther than Hassan Nemazee, one of John Kerry's top fund-raisers. Mr. Nemazee – since the early days of the Clinton administration – has been a staunch proponent of the radical Islamic mullahs now ruling Iran. The list of prominent Democratic politicians who have received generous campaign contributions from Nemazee include Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Edwards, Ted Kennedy, Robert Torricelli, Jon Corzine, Joseph Biden, Charles Schumer and Richard Gepardt, to name a few. The records of the Federal Election Commission show that Nemazee makes no attempt to be "fair and balanced" in that Republican politicians, with a few notable exceptions such as Jessie Helms, rarely show up as recipients of Nemazee's largess.

to provide Iran with access to nuclear fuel under the pretense that Iran would only use that fuel for domestic power.

What about all the oil Iran is sitting on? Doesn't the oil work in Iran to fuel power plants, just like it does here?

Kerry's campaign is on record supporting all these goals, even though John Edwards took the contrary position in the vice presidential debate when he maintained that a Kerry administration would want to increase sanctions on Iran. Doesn't sound like Edwards conferred with Kerry, who told the Council on Foreign Relations in December 2003 that "As president, I will be prepared early on to explore areas of mutual interest with Iran, just as I was prepared to normalize relations with Vietnam a decade ago."

This was the same John Kerry that told Sen. Fulbright's committee in April 1971 that only a few thousand Vietnamese would be inconvenienced if the Untied States withdrew from Vietnam and abandoned our allies there. Even today, John Kerry refuses to accept responsibility for the half million or more South Vietnamese put in prison camps when the communists took over, for the countless hundreds of thousands who perished in the Cambodian killing fields after the Khmer Rouge communists took over, or to the over 2 million boat people who fled Vietnam in search of freedom, with thousands of women and children perishing in their frail boats sent out on perilous waters.

Now John Kerry wants to give nuclear fuel to the mullahs – this, despite the evidence these same Iranian mullahs are funding insurgents coming into Iraq seeking to fight and kill our American troops. Iran is a sworn enemy of Israel. How can Sen. Kerry court the votes of Jewish Americans while he is openly advocating providing nuclear fuel to Iran? Oh, right, that nuclear fuel is only going to be used by the Iranians to produce electricity.

No problem then in asking American voters to back Sen. Kerry. Should the Iranians follow the lead of the North Koreans and actually make nuclear weapons, then, according to Sen. Kerry's famous nuanced logic, we will only then really know their intentions were always bad and they were merely lying.

What would a nuclear Iran mean? Clearly the mullahs wouldn't like to see oil soar to $100 a barrel or higher. Raking in those billions of windfall profits is clearly something the religious clerics of Iran would not seek, given their distain for worldly gain. Nor would the Palestinians gain any negotiating leverage by pointing to a nuclear Iran as their regional power broker. As Nazi Germany gobbled up Europe and the Japanese rampaged across Asia, we in the United States did our best to put our collective head in the ground. Is this a mistake we want to repeat?

Maybe we should invite Sen. Kerry to tell us once again why nuclear proliferation is our No. 1 international concern, not terrorism, and how his Iran policy makes nuclear proliferation less likely. Or, in Sen. Kerry's world, maybe Iran also is not linked to terrorists, the same way that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with al-Qaida.

"The list of prominent Democratic politicians who have received generous campaign contributions from Nemazee include Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Edwards, Ted Kennedy, Robert Torricelli, Jon Corzine, Joseph Biden, Charles Schumer and Richard Gepardt, to name a few."

Like flies drawn to dog feces, these and other politicians are drawn into treasonous acts by the almighty dollar.

Then, of course, we have those that abandon Washington, DC because they are afraid of terrorism that they themselves have aided and abetted.

Shall we start the "American experiment" over again, and do it right this time?

3 posted on 10/15/2004 7:38:50 AM PDT by G.Mason (A war mongering, UN hating, military industrial complex loving, Al Qaeda incinerating American.)

Hey - let's give 'em a NUKE, and see if they USE it - THAT would be a good test, too!

Naive...and dangerous. Just like the President said.

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