Posted on 08/02/2004 5:37:19 AM PDT by OESY
The folks at the Council on Foreign Relations sure have an exquisite sense of timing. Within days of the release of a new CFR report urging the U.S. appeasement of Iran, the 9/11 Commission fingered the Islamic Republic as -- at a minimum -- an important enabler of al Qaeda terrorism. Another two weeks have now passed and the mullahs also appear to be tearing up a European-brokered deal on their nuclear program to resume uranium enrichment.
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Last December Mr. Kerry himself blasted the Bush Administration in a speech to the Council, saying it "stubbornly refuses to conduct a realistic, nonconfrontational policy with Iran." He promised he would "be prepared to explore areas of mutual interest with Iran, just as I was prepared to normalize relations with Vietnam a decade ago."
The new CFR report makes the case for such a dovish policy. The Task Force concludes that since Iran does not appear to be "on the verge of another revolution" we might as well try to make nice with the mullahs wherever possible. Pressure is to be reserved for democratic Israel, which can allegedly moderate the mullahs' behavior by "progress toward peace" with the Palestinians. The panel also wants the U.S. to warn Israel against a pre-emptive strike on the Iranian nuclear program, like the one that destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981.
The wishful thinking in all this is striking -- though perhaps not surprising given that the Task Force was co-chaired by Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former National Security Adviser who helped craft Jimmy Carter's Iran policy.
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But resurrecting the idea that an Israeli-Palestinian settlement would moderate Iranian behavior amounts to deliberate blindness in the wake of the 9/11 Commission report.
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The Commission cites evidence that al Qaeda delegations received explosives training in both Iran and in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley in the early 1990s. The Bekaa is the home of the Iranian-sponsored Hezbollah terror group, and the report says "Bin Laden reportedly showed particular interest in learning how to use truck bombs such as the one that killed 241 U.S. Marines in Lebanon in 1983."
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For the Bush Administration, this news about Iran is something of a political mixed bag. On the one hand, it vindicates President Bush's decision to name the mullahs as charter members of the "axis of evil." On the other, it leaves him vulnerable to charges of not doing enough about the problem since.
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In short, the President has provided Mr. Kerry a good opportunity to offer a commander-in-chief-like contrast. It's too bad the challenger and the Washington establishment -- as represented by the Council on Foreign Relations -- remain wedded to the failed policies of the past.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Zbigniew Brzezinski is a regular on the Charley Rose Show. That alone should convince you that Zbigniew is a left wing nut case.
Ziggy has never had much use for Israel. For him, it's let's make a deal time with the Muzzies
John Kerry regards an Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism armed with nuclear weapons as unacceptable. He has a multiple-part strategy that is much more realistic than the Bush administration's. One is to rejoin and work through the international legal framework on arms control. That will give greater force to the major powers if they have to deal with violators. Secondly, he has laid out, I think in the most comprehensive way in modern memory, a program to secure nuclear materials around the world—particularly in the former Soviet Union but also in the places where research reactors have existed that could be susceptible to proliferation. The point is to try to prevent Iran from ever getting this material surreptitiously. Thirdly, he has proposed that rather than letting the British, the French and the Germans do this themselves, that we together call the bluff of the Iranian government, which claims that its only need is energy. And we say to them: "Fine, we will provide you the fuel that you need if Russia fails to provide it." Participating in such a diplomatic initiative makes it more likely to succeed.
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