mtnbiker

Begin dialogue with regimes, apologize for mistakes by Bush


The Democratic Party's presidential front-runner, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., has pledged that if elected he will abandon the president's war on terror, begin a dialogue with terrorist regimes and apologize for three-and-one-half years of mistakes by the Bush administration.

In a sweeping foreign-policy address to the Council on Foreign Relations in December, Kerry called the U.S. war on terror as conceived and led by President Bush "the most arrogant, inept, reckless and ideological foreign policy in modern history."

Kerry's remarks were widely praised by journalists. The Associated Press headlined its report on his speech, "Kerry Vows to Repair Foreign Relations." The Knight Ridder news service noted that the new focus on foreign policy "plays to Kerry's strength." None of the major U.S. dailies found Kerry's unusually strident language at all inappropriate. "Kerry Vows to Change U.S. Foreign Policy; Senator Describes Steps He Would Take as President," the Washington Post headlined ponderously.

Presidential contenders have criticized sitting presidents in times of war before, but what's unique today is that "it has become the rule, not the exception," says Michael Franc, vice president for government relations at the Heritage Foundation. "With a few notable exceptions, you have almost the entire Democratic Party hierarchy that opposes what Bush is doing in the most vitriolic and emotional terms."

Heritage presidential historian Lee Edwards called it "not a foreign-policy analysis but a polemical speech, filled with inflammatory rhetoric that is disturbing and beyond the pale. What this suggests is that Mr. Kerry wants to take us back to President [Bill] Clinton and his U.N.-led multilateral policies."

Kerry promised to spend the first 100 days of his administration traveling the world to denounce his predecessor, apologize for his "radically wrong" policy, and seek "cooperation and compromise" with friend and foe alike. Borrowing language normally reserved to characterize "rogue" states, Kerry said he would "go to the United Nations and travel to our traditional allies to affirm that the United States has rejoined the community of nations."

Perhaps frustrated that his radical departure from the war on terror was not getting much attention in the trenches of Democratic Party politics, Kerry ordered his campaign to mobilize grass-roots supporters to spread the word.

In one e-mail message, obtained by Insight and confirmed as authentic by the Kerry camp, the senator's advisers enlisted overseas Democrats to launch a letter-writing and op-ed campaign denouncing the Bush foreign-policy record.

"'It is in the urgent interests of the people of the United States to restore our country's credibility in the eyes of the world," the message states. "America needs the kind of leadership that will repair alliances with countries on every continent that have been so damaged in the past few years, as well as build new friendships and overcome tensions with others."

The e-mail succeeded beyond the wildest dream of Kerry's handlers -- at least, so they tell Insight. It was immediately picked up by the Mehr news agency in Tehran, and appeared the next day on the front page of a leading hard-line daily there.

"I have no idea how they got hold of that letter, which was prepared for Democrats Abroad," Kerry's top foreign-policy aide, Rand Beers, tells Insight. "I scratched my head when I saw that. The only way they could have gotten it was if someone in Iran was with Democrats Abroad."

The hard-line, anti-American Tehran Times published the entire text of the seven-paragraph e-mail under a triumphant headline announcing that Kerry pledged to "repair damage if he wins election." By claiming that the Kerry campaign had sent the message directly to an Iranian news agency in Tehran, the paper indicated that the e-mail was a demonstration of Kerry's support for a murderous regime that even today tops the State Department's list of supporters of international terrorism.

According to dissident Ayatollah Mehdi Haeri, who fled Iran for Germany after being held for four years in a regime prison, Iran's hard-line clerics "fear President Bush." In an interview with Insight, Haeri says that President Bush's messages of support to pro-democracy forces inside Iran and his insistence that the Iranian regime abandon its nuclear-weapons program "have given these people the shivers. They think that if Bush is re-elected, they'll be gone. That's why they want to see Kerry elected."

The latest Bush message, released on Feb. 24, commented on the widely boycotted Iranian parliamentary elections that took place the week before.

"I am very disappointed in the recently disputed parliamentary elections in Iran," President Bush said. "The disqualification of some 2,400 candidates by the unelected Guardian Council deprived many Iranians of the opportunity to freely choose their representatives. I join many in Iran and around the world in condemning the Iranian regime's efforts to stifle freedom of speech, including the closing of two leading reformist newspapers in the run-up to the election. Such measures undermine the rule of law and are clear attempts to deny the Iranian people's desire to freely choose their leaders. The United States supports the Iranian people's aspiration to live in freedom, enjoy their God-given rights and determine their own destiny."

The Kerry campaign released no statement on the widely discredited Iranian elections, reinforcing allegations from pro-democracy Iranian exiles in America that the junior senator from Massachusetts is working hand-in-glove with pro-regime advocates in the United States.

Kerry foreign-policy aide Beers tried to nuance the impression that Kerry was willing to seek new ties with the Tehran regime and forgive the Islamic republic for 25 years of terror that began by taking U.S. diplomats hostage in Tehran in 1979 and continues to this day with Iran's overt support and harboring of top al-Qaida operatives. Just the day before the e-mail message was sent to the Mehr news agency, Beers told a foreign-policy forum in Washington that Kerry "is not saying that he is looking for better relations with Iran. He is looking for a dialogue with Iran. There are some issues on which we really need to sit down with the Iranians."

The word "dialogue" immediately gives comfort to hard-liners, says Ayatollah Haeri. While Beer's comments went unnoticed by the U.S. press, they were prominently featured by the official Islamic Republic News Agency in a Feb. 7 dispatch from Washington.

In an interview with Insight, Beers went even further. "We are prepared to talk to the Iranian government" of hard-line, anti-American clerics, he insisted. "While we realize we have major differences, there are areas that could form the basis for cooperation, such as working together to stop drug production in Afghanistan."

Beers has a special history in Washington. A longtime National Security Council aide who served President Clinton and was carried over by the Bush White House, he resigned as the war in Iraq began in March 2003. Just weeks later, he volunteered for the Kerry campaign. The Washington Post heralded him in a profile as "a lifelong bureaucrat" who was an "unlikely insurgent." Yet the Post acknowledged that he was a "registered Democrat" who by resigning at such a critical moment was "not just declaring that he's a Democrat. He's declaring that he's a Kerry Democrat, and the way he wants to make a difference in the world is to get his former boss [Bush] out of office."

Talking to Insight, Beers compares Kerry's proposal to begin talks with Iran to the senator's earlier advocacy of renewing relations with Vietnam after the Vietnam War: "No expectations, eyes wide open."

With Iran, which is known to be harboring top al-Qaida operatives, Beers says "there is no way to have a deal without having the hard-liners as part of the dialogue. We are prepared to talk to the hard-line element" as part of an overall political dialogue with the Iranian regime.

The Kerry policy of seeking an accommodation with the regime is not new, says Patrick Clawson, the deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who has been tracking Iran policy for two decades.

"Kerry's approach is that of many in Europe who think you must entice rogue regimes. Enticement only works if it is followed up with the notion that there would be a penalty if they didn't behave. I see nothing of that in Sen. Kerry's statements."

For Aryo Pirouznia, who chairs the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran, Kerry's offer to negotiate with hard-liners in the regime smacks of lunacy.

"America is incredibly popular with the Iranian masses, so this is a grave mistake for a short-term benefit," Pirouznia says. "To the regime, this sends a message that America is willing to make a deal despite the blood of Americans who were murdered in Dhahran [Saudi Arabia] and are being killed today in Iraq by so-called foreign elements. And to Iranians, it shows that the old establishment may be back in power, a return to the Carter era."

Pirouznia's Texas-based support group, which worked closely with protesting students during the July 1999 uprising in Tehran, sent an open letter to Kerry on Feb. 19 noting that "millions of dollars" had been raised for the Democratic Party by Iranian-American political-action committees and fund-raisers with ties to the Tehran regime.

"By sending such a message directly to the organs and the megaphones of the dictatorial Islamic regime, you have given them credibility, comfort and embraced this odious theocracy," Pirouznia says. "You have encouraged and emboldened a tyrannical regime to use this as propaganda and declare 'open season' on the freedom fighters in Iran."

Confed999

Don't get me wrong here, I would rather have a goat for Prez than Kerry, but I feel about the same way for this administration's trade with Cuba.

__________________
No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

Lunatock

Wouldn't his contacting Iran's Regime for any possible support for his campaign be a violation of the Federal Law enacted after Sept. 11th?

Sanction his campaign and freeze a few assets. :evil:

Trooth

I am surprised at the stridentness of the statements however i too beleive that it will be dialogue not guns that end the war on terror.

However i do not believe stating that the military option will end is the right way forward. It will give succor to those who would fear the military option.

I do have one question. Is there a position in the US Senate that gains you the title of junior senator? Or is the author of the article just showing his true colours?

mtnbiker

Junior Senator is a term given to the second senator from a state(each state gets two senators) that has not been in office as long as the other senator. Kerry is the junior senator from Massachusetts because Sen Kennedy has been there longer.

ChrisF202

John Kerry's ideas are very disturbing, at times I think he wants a socialist republic

Major_Armstrong

Iran is about ready to be liberated. All the Iranian civilians hate the mullahs and clerics running the country. The rulers are corrupt. A lot of people were protesting against the regime and got arrested. Western countries could help out by sending in military forces to help liberate the people from the evil regime that controls the country.


See
http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum2/v...highlight=iran


http://www.pcpages.com/ani/polgr/ani...e/pgm-sc14.htm


http://www.pcpages.com/ani/polgr/ina...t/islamist.htm

Ray

If Kerry should become the President and there is much time left for the egg to hatch, it would be rather unwise of him to totally abandon the War on Terror.

He could of course approach the issue in a different way but to abrogate the the policy totally would be living in a Fool's Paradise.

Major,

Iran is already succumbing to the international pressure. They decided to not allow the International Agency from checking their nuclear plants but they wilted and has now again agreed to allow full inspection.

One just can't go regime changing all at one time. The US is already over stretched with Afghanistan and Iraq. Once these two hot spots stabilises, then other things could be thought of. If Spain indeed pulls out of Iraq, then the cup of woe will brim over.

__________________


"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

HAKUNA MATATA

Blademaster

Major Armstrong, if that is you are really a major.

what you suggest is unwise. We should let the Iranians take care of the problem.

Remember Vietnam and the Iran Hostage crisis.

Confed999

Aparently Kerry doesn't think it's a war, he sees it as a police action. The CIA and FBI have allready shown they aren't up to the task alone, I believe we need the military too.
If even one stabilises I would support the training and safe haven for Iranian rebels, and when they're ready all the air and material support the US can provide.

Ray

Confed,

Honestly, it was war and now it is police action. Note, there is no recognised organised military enemy.

Do forgive me I seen both types of armed scenarios and action thereof and I reckon I should know a wee bit more.

War has to be addressed differently and police action or counter insurgency/ counter terrorist by the Army in a different way.

War is 'kick the **** out of any oppositon' and police acton is to 'win the hearts and mind'. I didn't say that. It was the said in western training pamphlets that is our 'guide'.

The only successful control of insurgency was by the Birtish General in Malaya. I think his name was Templer.

Everywhere else military action has failed. It has only been able to subdue - nothing more, nothing less.

Confed999

It's a military police action, sure, today, tomorrow it will be more. Kerry want's to go back to the old days with a few thousand CIA and FBI looking to arrest terrorists. I want the terrorists AND the countries that support them threatened with extinction, neither the CIA nor the FBI can do that without involving the military. To me this war will really be over the day Americans start going to college in the mid-east and not the other way around.

Trooth

I maintain that i do not believe this "war" can be solved militarily. Certainly lots of people can be killed, and lots more subdued. but hatered etc will persist and will only flare up again once the iron grip is relased.

Officer of Engineers

The Mongols, Turkic peoples, and even the Romans have proven that military force alone can win this kind of "war" provided you carry it to its logical conclusion - genocide.

I'm not stating that this is an option but one should remember this simple fact - ie Don't force me to kill you all.

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Chimo

Praxus

The only way we will win short of genocide is to take out the ideological and funding centers of Militant Islam. These are Iran and Saudia Arabia.

We must force Republicanism on them, we must force free markets on, and we have to give them their rights wether they want them or not. If they want to fight us, I say bring it on.