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All: At the top of his speech in Chicago this morning, Sen. McCain made the following remarks on Sen. Obama’s comments yesterday downplaying the threat of Iran:
FACT CHECK: Yesterday Evening In Oregon, Sen. Obama Downplayed Threat Of Iran (Video Here... unlike Jamie Rubin, we won't mislead you...)“Before I begin my prepared remarks, I want to respond briefly to a comment Senator Obama made yesterday about the threat posed to the United States by the Government of Iran. Senator Obama claimed that the threat Iran poses to our security is “tiny” compared to the threat once posed by the former Soviet Union. Obviously, Iran isn’t a superpower and doesn’t possess the military power the Soviet Union had. But that does not mean that the threat posed by Iran is insignificant. On the contrary, right now Iran provides some of the deadliest explosive devices used in Iraq to kill our soldiers. They are the chief sponsor of Shia extremists in Iraq, and terrorist organizations in the Middle East. And their President, who has called Israel a “stinking corpse,” has repeatedly made clear his government’s commitment to Israel’s destruction. Most worrying, Iran is intent on acquiring nuclear weapons. The biggest national security challenge the United States currently faces is keeping nuclear material out of the hands of terrorists. Should Iran acquire nuclear weapons, that danger would become very dire, indeed. They might not be a superpower, but the threat the Government of Iran poses is anything but “tiny.”
“Senator Obama has declared, and repeatedly reaffirmed his intention to meet the President of Iran without any preconditions, likening it to meetings between former American Presidents and the leaders of the Soviet Union. Such a statement betrays the depth of Senator Obama’s inexperience and reckless judgment. Those are very serious deficiencies for an American president to possess. An ill conceived meeting between the President of the United States and the President of Iran, and the massive world media coverage it would attract, would increase the prestige of an implacable foe of the United States, and reinforce his confidence that Iran’s dedication to acquiring nuclear weapons, supporting terrorists and destroying the State of Israel had succeeded in winning concessions from the most powerful nation on earth. And he is unlikely to abandon the dangerous ambitions that will have given him a prominent role on the world stage.
“This is not to suggest that the United States should not communicate with Iran our concerns about their behavior. Those communications have already occurred at an appropriate level, which the Iranians recently suspended. But a summit meeting with the President of the United States, which is what Senator Obama proposes, is the most prestigious card we have to play in international diplomacy. It is not a card to be played lightly. Summit meetings must be much more than personal get-acquainted sessions. They must be designed to advance American interests. An unconditional summit meeting with the next American president would confer both international legitimacy on the Iranian president and could strengthen him domestically when he is unpopular among the Iranian people. It is likely such a meeting would not only fail to persuade him to abandon Iran’s nuclear ambitions; its support of terrorists and commitment to Israel’s extinction, it could very well convince him that those policies are succeeding in strengthening his hold on power, and embolden him to continue his very dangerous behavior. The next President ought to understand such basic realities of international relations.”
Senator Obama: "Strong countries and strong Presidents talk to their adversaries. That's what Kennedy did with Khrushchev. That's what Reagan did with Gorbachev. That's what Nixon did with Mao. I mean think about it. Iran, Cuba, Venezuela – these countries are tiny compared to the
Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying we're going to wipe you off the planet. And ultimately that direct engagement led to a series of measures that helped prevent nuclear war, and over time allowed the kind of opening that brought down the Berlin Wall. Now, that has to be the kind of approach that we take.
"You know, Iran, they spend one-one hundredth of what we spend on the military. If Iran ever tried to pose a serious threat to us, they wouldn't stand a chance. And we should use that position of strength that we have to be bold enough to go ahead and listen. That doesn't mean we agree with them on everything. We might not compromise on any issues, but at least we should find out other areas of potential common interest, and we can reduce some of the tensions that has caused us so many problems around the world." (Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks, Pendelton, OR, 5/19/08)
“Wow. Where to begin with this silliness?”
--Ed Morrissey, Hot Air
HUGH HEWITT: Obama expects people to take his support for Israel's security seriously, and then declares that Iran isn't a serious threat? … This is indeed full-throated appeasement, the refusal to face facts about malign forces in the world and the repeated attempt to negotiate with powers that do not want anything except additional domination and which cannot be satisfied with other than conflict. http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/blog/g/0e67f6fe-ea1a-4088-9bfd-4ad1d5863840
ERICK ERICKSON: Barack Obama is stupid or willfully ignorant. Iran will never attack us directly. They cannot. But they will attack us with a thousand cuts through many shadowy surrogates hoping we bleed to death. … And if Obama is our President, we probably will. http://www.redstate.com/stories/elections/2008/barack_obama_is_either_stupid_or_willfully_ignorant
ED MORRISSEY: Listen to Obama talk about the “common interests” supposedly shared between the US and the Iranian mullahcracy. What interests would those be? The destruction of Israel, the denial of the Holocaust, the financial and military support of Hamas and Hezbollah, or the killing of American soldiers in Iraq? http://hotair.com/archives/2008/05/19/iran-not-a-serious-threat/
DEAN BARNETT: Can it be that the presumptive Democratic nominee missed all that talk about asymmetrical forces and the threats they pose earlier in the decade? If so, perhaps he still noticed 9/11. Al Qaeda spent a lot less than “1/100th of what we spend” on what could be called military operations, and yet most people concluded after the World Trade Center Towers crumbled that even with a relatively lean budget, Al Qaeda did in fact pose a “serious threat” to us. http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2008/05/obama_ignorance_watch.asp
SOREN DAYTON: I guess that he doesn't get that whole nexus of nuclear weapons and terrorism thing. Even John Kerry thought that the greatest threat to the United States was nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists. And in Iran we have a country that is funding the collapse of Lebanon and putting troops on the Israeli border. We have a country that has called for the eradication of Israel. And we have a country that is engaged in nuclear activity and has the terrorist distribution networks to really do damage when they get them. http://www.redstate.com/blogs/soren_dayton/2008/may/19/obama_iran_not_a_threat
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