January 27, 2005

"Iran, Do as you will"

President Clinton, speaking in Davos.

    Former U.S. President Bill Clinton urged the Bush administration Thursday to stick to diplomacy to get Iran to abandon its nuclear program, which the United States and other countries fear is part of a plan to make nuclear weapons.

    Clinton also said that even if Iran developed such weapons, it would find it tough to use them.

    "If they ever use them, they'll be toast," the former U.S. president said in a freewheeling, 90-minute appearance at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.


Mr President, tell that to the people who will be toast first. He might as well have said that any hijackers who fly into buildings with American aircraft will be toast.
    He said that when the Israeli air force took out an Iraq nuclear plant in 1981, it successfully denied the former Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, the ability to manufacture nuclear arms.

    "I don't know if that option is now available" in Iran, said Clinton.

    "That was then. It is much more difficult now," he said, adding that today there are several nuclear powers in the region.


Israel did the world a favor 23 years ago. But if you keep saying "use diplomacy, to the exclusion of force" against Iran, it's not going to work.

Clintonesque third-way "diplomacy" did us a world of good in Iraq. It wasn't until we got boots on the ground nearby that we got a peek.
Even then, the Iraqis were still hoping diplomacy would stop the coalition of the willing.

Posted by AlexC at January 27, 2005 11:01 PM

Sorry I won't shut up about the Sharansky book. But his chapter on "moral clarity" and his indictment of appeasers were both the perfect descriptions or the opposition to the Iraq war

Posted by: jk at January 28, 2005 10:25 AM

And looking more closely at the 42nd president's stategy, he's advocating a policy that if (no, make that, when) it fails, will call for the wholesale slaughter of the entire Iranian population. Or does he mean something else when he says "If they [Iran] ever use them, they'll [Iran] be toast?"

What is Bill afraid of here? Not that his successor might actually succeed in protecting America, even for the duration of the short four years of his final term, but that 43's use of a more forceful strategy will reveal 42's approach for the empty, impotent, self-defeating farce that it was.

Posted by: johngalt at January 28, 2005 2:49 PM

JK, my wife's been wondering about you and the inauguration! :)

johngalt, he's worried about his legacy. He wants be remembered as a "statesman." Instead, he's stuck with the stain of his presidency. Pardon the pun.

Posted by: AlexC at January 28, 2005 3:12 PM

That's okay. My OWN wife has wondered about me since President Reagan was inaugurated...

Posted by: jk at January 28, 2005 5:08 PM | What do you think? [4]