Saturday, May 17, 2008

Obama Adopts Bush Policy on Iran

Ed Morrissey has a great column at Hot Air regarding Barack Obama's shifting positions on Iran.

Last summer, especially during the YouTube debate, Obama railed against the Bush administration policy, with “failed” being about the kindest term he could muster. Now, however, he has adopted the Bush policy towards Iran in toto. No talks with Iran until they end their nuclear-weapons programs, progressively tougher sanctions until they comply with international non-proliferation regulations and UN Security Council resolutions — that is exactly what the Bush administration has done since 2003.
What prompted this turn towards neocon policy? Obama can’t shake the consequences of his answer during that July debate and the promise of unconditional direct presidential-level talks with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the first year of his presidency. Even our allies, even those who thought Bush to be too hard line on Iran, don’t see what this would accomplish, other than boosting the prestige of Ahmadinejad and the mullahcracy’s hard-liners and further entrenching them in Iran. As John McCain put it yesterday, what exactly will Obama negotiate with Ahmadinejad? The destruction of Israel’s “stinking corpse”, or their grievances about the falsity of the Holocaust?

The moonbatosphere is filled with arguments that Obama's "quick response" shows how engaged he is on foreign policy. What it really shows is that Obama recognizes how stupid his original let's-negotiate-with-terrorists-and-radicals policy was.