Remember how Barack Obama criticized Hillary Clinton for voting for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment? How he argued that Hillary Clinton was guilty of enabling Bush to use force against Iran if he wished to do so? Well, what’s funny about his attacks is that Obama himself missed the vote. He voted in favor nor against it. That’s, of course, done on purpose; that way, it can never be used against him. In a follow-up to that Kyl-Lieberman vote, Democratic Senators decided to send a letter to Bush urging him not to attack Iran without the consent of Congress. This letter was signed by Senators Hillary Clinton and Chris Dodd. Who, however, didn’t sign it? That’s right, Barack Obama.
His excuse?
Senator Obama admires Senator Webb and his sincere and tireless efforts on this issue. But it will take more than a letter to prevent this administration from using the language contained within the Kyl-Lieberman resolution to justify military action in Iran. This requires a legislative answer and Senator Obama intends to propose one.
That’s of course a very lame excuse. It’s not even almost convincing. If you want to prevent Bush from using force against Iran, you’ll do everything in your power to stop it. Sending such a letter is one of the ways of making your opinion be heard and to influence the decision making process. It seems to me that Obama wants to have the cake and eat it too. He’s trying to leave as little of a record behind as possible since records can be held against one. Problem is, you’ve got to stand for something and… if you try to please both sides of a debate, you’ve got to be smart about it. Obama isn’t, it’s glaringly obvious what he’s trying to do.
Meanwhile, Obama offered some ideas of his own: “aggressive diplomacy.” This ‘aggressive diplomacy’ would mean that he would promise not to seek regime change in Iran and that he would offer the Mullahs economic inducements if they promise to play nice. O, he would only use force if it wouldn’t have any negative consequences, which basically means that he would let Iran develop WMDs. And he wonders why he’s seen as an amateur.
More at Taylor Marsh.
Actually what I read when there was the vote was that it was unclear when it was going to be scheduled and he was out of town. There was like half a day of notice and he couldn’t get back even if he wanted to.
This seems credible, but it’s why I would personally resign my office if I were going to campaign.
Mikkel; and the others could have been there? Obama was the one greatly surprised?
More importantly though: it’s clear what he’s trying to do, isn’t it?
mikkel, to my knowledge, he was in NH fundraising.
This would be fine, but he is using Kyl-Lieberman as his rally cry.
[...] post by Michael van der Galiën This was written by . Posted on Friday, November 2, 2007, at 7:00 am. Filed under Politics. [...]
It’s clear that there is something going on to try and use this as a gotcha moment. Biden voted against Kyl-Lieberman and Feingold did as well and they didn’t sign the letter. It looks like they are banding together for a “I told you so” moment. It’s stupid, but I’ll forgive them if they actually bring up binding legislation to do something about it.
To elaborate on mikkel’s comment above, not only was the date of the vote unclear but Harry Reed had specifically said there would be no vote before Obama left town, and then he changed his mind. Obama did announce his position prior to the vote, so it was clearly not a case of trying to avoid the vote in order to avoid the political liability.
That answers nothing about why he didn’t sign the letter, but the criticism for him missing the vote when he was given incorrect information about the date of the vote is unfair.
Maybe he didn’t sign the meaningless letter because he was busy actually introducing legislation that denies Bush the authority to attach Iran, rather than “urge” him not to.
Introducing the legislation doesn’t totally answer why he didn’t sign the letter (and avoid this criticism) but it does make it a non issue.
In choosing a president I’m concerned with what they would do in office. It is his position on Iran that matters. Whether he introduces legislation and speaks out on the issue, as opposed to signing a letter, is meaningless.
please, note.
The letter was signed by those who voted “yea” on the Kyl-Lieberman c*p.
The guys who voted “no” don’t have to sign on some meaningless letter, redundant.
No?
Sashal: no it doesn’t actually. The amendment was approved by a majority. This means that this letter isn’t ‘useless’ and that those who voted against Kyl-Lieberman could / should have signed it. Furthermore, Obama didn’t vote “no.” He didn’t vote.
Ron; I respectfully disagree. If he’s as dedicated as he says he is to finding a diplomatical solution, etc., he should sign this letter since it’s one of the initiatives that’s aimed at doing just that.
About his plan for engagement; it’s incredibly weak. No wonder he tried not to leave a papertrail. As a fellow-Westerner I hope that he will not be the one who’ll shape America’s foreign policy in the coming years.
Here is from one of my favorite conservative blogger:
Obama’s Foreign Policy, Best in Class (So Far)
Barack Obama makes some very good points in this NYT interview. A couple quick highlights, one on Iraq, the other Iran. First, Iraq:
Q. If you saw that the Iraqi government, under the duress of American withdrawals, was not making progress or if sectarian violence was beginning to increase in Iraq, would you call a halt to withdrawals or proceed anyway?
A. I think that it is important to understand that there are no good options in Iraq. There haven’t been for a very long time. I’ve said previously that I would not be surprised to see some spikes in violence as we begin the withdrawal. It is not going to be a perfectly smooth transition. But I think there is a way of managing this that keeps this violence contained. Now, at some point the Iraqis are going to have to respond to a change in the security situation inside Iraq, one way or another, and those in the region are going to have to respond as well.
During that 16 months, I’m engaging in very systematic, tough diplomacy, not just with the various factions in the region, but also with Iran, with Syria, the Saudis, Jordan, with the United Nationals Security Council program members. Once it’s clear that we are not intending to stay there for 10 years or 20 years, all these parties have an interest in figuring out how do we adjust in a way that stabilizes the situation. They’re all going to have a series of complex differences and we’re going to, obviously, have to monitor it carefully about what those interests are to make sure our interests are protected. But what I don’t want to do is to make our withdrawal contingent on the Iraqi government doing the right thing because that empowers them to make strategic decisions that should be made by the president of the United States.”
Exactly.
And on Iran:
Q. The Bush administration has little influence on Iranian behavior in Iraq. How would you elicit cooperation from Iran and Syria that the Bush administration has failed to obtain? Would we offer assurances that we would not be engaged in a policy of regime change. What would you do?
A. I think you foreshadowed my answer. You’ve got the Bush administration expecting Crocker to make progress on the very narrow issue of helping Shia militias at the same time as you’ve got Dick Cheney giving a speech saying it is very likely that we may engage in military action in Iran and the United States Senate passing a resolution, suggesting that our force structure inside Iraq is dependent in someway on blunting Iranian influence. You can’t engage in diplomacy in isolation. There’s got to be a broader strategic context to it.
The Iranians and the Syrians are acting irresponsibly inside Iraq. They perceive that it is a way to leverage or impact or weaken us at a time when they’re worried about United States action in a broader context. I’ve already said, I would meet directly with Iranian leaders. I would meet directly with Syrian leaders. We would engage in a level of aggressive personal diplomacy in which a whole host of issues are on the table. We’re not looking at Iraq, just in isolation. Iran and Syria would start changing their behavior if they started seeing that they had some incentives to do so, but right now the only incentive that exists is our president suggesting that if you do what we tell you, we may not blow you up.
My belief about the regional powers in the Middle East is that they don’t respond well to that kind of bluster. They haven’t in the past, there’s no reason to think they will in the future. On the other hand, what we know, is that, for example, in the early days of our Afghanistan offensive, the Iranians we’re willing to cooperate when we had more open lines of dialogue and we were able to identify interests that were compatible with theirs.”
Q. So what assurances would you offer them to get them to be more cooperative – try to convince them that the U.S. would not pursue regime change?
A. There are a series of serious problems that we have. Iraq is one. Their development of nuclear weapons is another. Their support of terrorist activities – Hezbollah and Hamas are a third. On all these fronts, we’ve got severe issues with their actions. We expect them to desist from those actions, but what we are also willing to say is as a consequence of their changes in behavior, we are willing to examine their membership in the W.T.O., we are willing to look at how can we assure that they’ve got the kinds of economic relationships that can help grow their economy.
We are willing to talk about certain assurances in the context of them showing some good faith. I think it is important for us to send a signal that we are not hell bent on regime change, just for the sake of regime change, but expect changes in behavior and there are both carrots and there are sticks available to them for those changes in behavior. Where those conversations go is not yet clear, but what is absolutely clear is that the path that we are on now is not going to make our troops in Iraq safer. Iran has shown no inclination to back off of their support of Shia militias as a consequence of the threats that they’ve been receiving from the Bush and Cheney administration. If anything, it probably accelerates their interest in trying to make a situation in Iraq as uncomfortable as possible for us.”
Q. Would you be seeking a comprehensive rapprochement or if Iran insisted on pursuing their weapons programs, which is entirely possible, would you still try to carve out some sort of side arrangement that would pertain to stability? And what would you be prepared to offer?
A. I can’t anticipate what their response would be. What I can anticipate is that the act of us reaching out to them in a series [sic] way, empowered by the Oval Office, not that we’ll have Crocker over here doing something, while we do something else, but a serious, coordinated diplomatic effort will, if nothing else, change world opinion about our approach to Iran and will strengthen our ability should they choose not to stand down on the nuclear issue, for example, or to continue to engage in hostile activity even if directly inside Iraq, that it greatly strengthens our position with our allies – both in the region and around the world and strengthens our capacity to impose tougher economic sanctions and take other steps, not in isolation, but as part of a broader international effort.
I suppose it’s no secret I’m something of a one-issue voter when it comes to Presidential elections. That is, I vote for the candidate I think will pursue the best foreign policy.( Me too-sashal) Taxes go up and down, domestic policy reforms move in various directions with varied policy trends, but my heart and intellect focus on the foreign policy of this country (this of course includes fundamental ‘human rights’ issues such as detainee rights and torture policy). And so far, especially with Chuck Hagel not running, I think we are seeing the strongest foreign policy enunciated by the Obama campaign. Roue cynics might protest I’m damning with faint praise given the competition (almost the entire Republican field has become something of a primal goose-stepping brigade chanting on about ‘Islamofascism’, and I’ve not been particularly blown away by HRC, Edwards etc on the other side of the aisle), but be that as it may, I think he’s the best we’ve got running so far.
Belgravia Dispatch
The letter is a stupid political gesture, engineered by the Clinton team to provide cover for Kyl-Lieberman (which I find annoying, she should stick by that vote).
Ron, Obama does a whole lot of opinionating when he isn’t around to vote on stuff. That’s a political problem for him, one I would exploit were I Clinton.
Quite right Kevin and, I would exploit it too if I were her.
Sashal: it’s no secret that conservatives disagree with each other sometimes on certain issues, particularly on foreign policy. I’m a Dutch conservative, and Dutch conservatives are normally quite hawkish, and I’m quite hawkish even to Dutch conservative standards. There are conservatives, however, who have a completely different view on foreign policy.
As to Barack Obama’s foreign policy plans: I consider them to be both weak and dangerous.
I understand, Michael.
That is very good when all the people ( cons or libs) don’t think in unison.
Would have been quite boring communist Utopia then.
Quite right.
Are you aware that he introduced a new Joint Resolution essentially nullifying KLA and unequivocally stating that no existing law or legislative act gives Bush authority to take offensive military action against Iran yesterday evening shortly after the letter was announced/delivered?
And as for missing the original vote on KLA, I would highly recommend you review the Congressional Record. On September 25th, Reid adjourned the Senate stating (on the record) that KLA would not be voted on for the near future. The next day, it is not discussed during the morning session (which ended at 11:30). At the start of the afternoon session, it is announced that a UC Agreement has been reached to bring the Biden Partition Amendment and KLA to the floor for a vote. The announcement was at approximately 12:14. The Biden Partion Amendment was voted on at 12:16 (check Roll Call). KLA was voted on at 12:44. All can be confirmed between Congressional Record and Roll Call.
Obama had a campaign event in NH that started at 11:30.
These senators who voted for the bill, did they just get a revelation that what they did was wrong, and they want to reverse it? Well, you can’t blame Obama for not voting. First of all Hillary was looking for support from the Jewish community for the election. So her 1 vote for the Iran bill will translate to thousands of jewish votes during the general election. Now she always wants it both ways. So writing a letter to Bush saying she didn’t really mean what she said when she voted is the way to get it both ways.
Hillary’s talk about ‘cowboy diplomacy’ has become so old and lame. If she thinks Bush has cowboy diplomacy, why is she voting yes to his needs. She voted yes on Iraq war, she voted yes on Iran Bill.
Do you remember the time Hillary told Barbara Bush that she did not stay in the kitchen making cookies. Now she says she is quite comfortable to be in the kitchen. She wants thevotes from women who stay home and take care of the kids.
It is hard to tell whether she is fliping, or flapping. Because it happens so often so fast.