Obama Details Iran Strategy
Democratic Hopeful Says He Would Personally Negotiate, Offer Incentives
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Presidential hopeful, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., speaks at North Carolina Central University in Durham, N.C., Thursday, Nov. 1, 2007. (AP)
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Timeline The U.S. And Iran Key events in once friendly, now contentious relationship between Washington and Tehran.
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In-Depth 2008 Presidential Hopefuls Profiles and the latest news on the Democrats and Republicans running for the White House.
Citing a long history of progress through diplomatic gestures toward China and the former Soviet Union, Obama laid out in stronger terms his call for diplomacy with Iran - a policy with greater emphasis on negotiation than the Bush administration policy and a stance that has been ridiculed by his fellow Democratic presidential candidates.
"There is the potential at least for us finding ways of peacefully resolving some of our conflicts, and that effort has not been attempted," Obama said. "And if we don't make that attempt, then we're going to find ourselves continuing on the path that Bush and Cheney have set, and we're seeing the rhetoric rise every day."
"It has consequences not only for our strategic interests, it has consequences for our troops in Iraq and it has consequences for our economy," Obama told NBC's "Today" show.
He reiterated statements in a New York Times interview, published Friday, in which he said Iran might be offered membership in the World Trade Organization and assurances that the United States would not seek "regime change" if Iranian leaders changed their ways on key issues.
"We would be very clear with Iran and say 'We don't accept your development of nuclear weapons'," Obama told NBC, saying he would also strongly reject Iran's financing of terrorist organizations and its anti-Israel rhetoric.
Obama also introduced a Senate resolution late Thursday that says President Bush does not have authority to use military force against Iran, the latest move in a debate with presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton about how to respond to that country's nuclear ambitions.
Clinton's campaign accused Obama of playing politics instead of taking a leadership role from the outset.
Obama spokesman Bill Burton said the Illinois senator drafted the measure in an effort to "nullify the vote the Senate took to give the president the benefit of the doubt on Iran."
Burton was referring to an amendment sponsored by Sens. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, that passed 76-22 on Sept. 26 and designates Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.
Clinton was the only Senate Democrat running for president to support the measure, and her rivals have argued that Mr. Bush could use it to justify war with Iran. Clinton insists her vote would not support military strikes and instead was a vote for stepped-up diplomacy.
Last week, the Bush administration declared the Revolutionary Guard a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction and announced new sanctions meant to isolate Iran. The Iranian government contends its nuclear program is aimed only toward providing nuclear power.
Clinton and 29 other senators wrote to Mr. Bush Thursday to tell him he has no congressional authority for war with Iran.
The four Democratic senators running for the White House split over whether to sign the letter. Chris Dodd of Connecticut added his support, while Obama and Joe Biden of Delaware declined.
The letter accuses Mr. Bush of "provocative statements and actions stemming from your administration with respect to possible U.S. military action in Iran."
"We wish to emphasize that no congressional authority exists for unilateral military action against Iran," it says. That includes the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, the letter says.
Obama missed the vote on the amendment because he was campaigning. Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said if Obama was so concerned about the amendment, he should have been there to vote against it. Singer said Obama also should have signed Webb's letter and co-sponsored two other pieces of legislation that reaffirm the president cannot use force against Iran without congressional approval.
"It's unfortunate that (Senator) Obama is abandoning the politics of hope in favor of the kind of political games he is so critical of in his book," Singer said. He pointed to a passage in "The Audacity of Hope" where Obama is critical of the tendency to "exaggerate or demonize, oversimplify or overstate our case."
Said Obama spokesman Bill Burton: "With her vote for the war in Iraq and her vote for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, Hillary Clinton has now given George Bush the benefit of the doubt not once, but twice. While she's trying her best to change her position on yet another critical issue facing our country, Senator Obama knows that it takes legislation, not letters, to undo the vote that she cast."
His resolution says any offensive military action against Iran must be explicitly authorized by Congress, and seeks to clarify that nothing approved so far provides that authority.
Biden spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander said Biden believes the amendment could be used to justify military action.
"He has also made clear many times his view that the president lacks the authority to use force against Iran absent authorization from Congress," she said. "He didn't need to clarify that position. He's been clear from the start."
Even though Dodd shares that view, he signed the letter because "we felt that it was necessary to make it clear that this administration cannot take military action against Iran without the express authorization of Congress," said Dodd spokesman Hari Sevugan.
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Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."





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See all 145 Comments"The government will make use of these powers only insofar as they are essential for carrying out vitally necessary measures...The number of cases in which an internal necessity exists for having recourse to such a Law is in itself a limited one."
- Adolf Hitler
Does that ring any bells? It should, folks. It''s nearly the same promise that George Bush made to us support of the John Warner Defense Authorization Act, one of the many Orwellian Laws which Senators Clinton, Obama and McCain all voted in favor of in the Senate.
"Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal."
- Martin Luther King Jr.
"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."
- James Madison
"We have nothing to fear but fear itself, and those who would exploit our fear for power and their own personal, selfish, cynical gain."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
- Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda minister
"That propaganda is good which leads to success, and that is bad which fails to achieve the desired result. It is not propaganda''s task to be intelligent, its task is to lead to success."
- Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister
"The government will make use of these powers only insofar as they are essential for carrying out vitally necessary measures...The number of cases in which an internal necessity exists for having recourse to such a Law is in itself a limited one."
- Adolf Hitler
Does that ring any bells? It should, folks. It''s nearly the same words George Bush used to support of the John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007, one of the many Orwellian Laws which Senators Clinton, Obama and McCain all supported.
"Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal."
-- Martin Luther King Jr.
"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."
- James Madison
"We have nothing to fear but fear itself, and those who would exploit our fear for power and their own personal, selfish, cynical gain."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
Had enough Pissant, or do you want more?
No need to exclude this clown''s freedom of expression, unless that''s the natural Hitlerian way of doing things. All you need is this:
RON PAUL IS A BOZO. RON PAUL IS A BOZO. RON PAUL IS A BOZO. RON PAUL IS A BOZO. RON PAUL IS A BOZO. RON PAUL IS A BOZO. RON PAUL IS A BOZO. RON PAUL IS A BOZO.
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