05 March 2005

Once again leading the pack

[source, source]

In the end, the most promising (if gradual) course for promoting reform in Syria is to engage and empower [Syrian President Bashar] Assad, not to isolate and overthrow him.

[…]

The Bush administration can elicit more sustained improvements in Syrian behavior on Iraq and terrorism by using the threat of intensified criticism of Syrian hegemony in Lebanon - including Security Council action - as a badly needed stick in the repertoire of policy options toward Syria. Washington should also not be afraid to spell out for Mr. Assad the carrots it would offer in return for greater cooperation.

The embargo is broken and the New York Times comes out for appeasing the Ba’ath regime over its occupation of Lebanon.

Gene hits the right note of sarcasm when notes that this advice consists of appeasement while “holding in reserve the dreaded threat of intensified criticism”.

Posted by orbital at 11:34 PM | View 0 TrackBacks | Trackback URL

Former President Clinton endorses theocracy

[source]

Rose: (Referring to the Iraqi elections) Do you have confidence that this government, uh, will, as they write the constitution, will not be a mirror-image of the Iranian theocracy?

Clinton: Oh yeah. Yeah — the Shi’ites have been pretty smart about that. And if you look at the Iranian — Iran’s a whole different kettle of fish, but it’s a sad story that really began in the 1950s when the United States deposed Mr. Mossadegh, who was an elected parliamentary democrat, and brought the Shah back in [Rose says “CIA” in the background] and then he was overturned by the Ayatollah Khomeini, driving us into the arms of one Saddam Hussein. Most of the terrible things Saddam Hussein did in the 1980s he did with the full, knowing support of the United States government, because he was in Iran, and Iran was what it was because we got rid of the parliamentary democracy back in the ‘50s; at least, that is my belief.

I know it is not popular for an American ever to say anything like this, but I think it’s true [applause], and I apologized when President Khatami was elected. I publicly acknowledged that the United States had actively overthrown Mossadegh and I apologized for it, and I hope that we could have some rapprochement with Iran. I think basically the Europeans’ initiative to Iran to try to figure out a way to defuse the nuclear crisis is a good one.

I think President Bush has done, so far, the right thing by not taking the military option off the table, but not pushing it too much. I didn’t like the story that looked like the military option had been elevated above a diplomatic option. But Iran is the most perplexing problem … we face, for the following reasons: It is the only country in the world with two governments, and the only country in the world that has now had six elections since the first election of President Khatami. [It is] the only one with elections, including the United States, including Israel, including you name it, where the liberals, or the progressives, have won two-thirds to 70 percent of the vote in six elections: two for President; two for the parliament, the Majlis; two for the mayoralities.

In every single election, the guys I identify with got two-thirds to 70% of the vote. There is no other country in the world I can say that about, certainly not my own.

Just as I was beginning to think that Clinton understood WWIV. Did HRC read this and weep?

Posted by orbital at 11:19 PM | View 0 TrackBacks | Trackback URL

True to form

[source]

Sen. John Kerry is sponsoring a resolution honoring black activist W.E.B. Du Bois, who officially joined the Communist Party late in life after faithful support of the Soviet line in world affairs.

Du Bois praised Soviet dictator and mass murderer Joseph Stalin as “great” and “courageous” and defended Communist North Korea for its 1950 invasion of South Korea.

It’s like a drunk and the bottle, except most drunks have at least some idea that it’s a bad idea.

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