The presidential campaign in the US grinds on and McCain appears more desperate each day as he lashes out at Obama. He is now almost calling him a socialist. All too sadly apart from Americans being so insular and ignorant of the world outside their own borders, the severe downturn in the US economy seems be dominating the electioneering. And then there is that other "distraction" Sarah Palin.
Roger Cohen, writing his op-ed piece in the NY Times [and IHT] reflects on how resolving the issue of Iran ought to be America's number one job:
"Until he retired from the State Department earlier this year, Nicholas Burns was, as under secretary of state for political affairs, the lead U.S. negotiator on Iran.
And how many times, during his three years in this role, did he meet with an Iranian?
Not once.
Burns wasn’t allowed to. His presence was supposed to be the reward if the Iranians suspended uranium enrichment and sat down at the table.
Burns, now 52, joined the State Department in 1980. He’s among a generation of U.S. diplomats who have never set foot in Iran, the rising power of the Middle East, even with oil at $70 rather than double that.
Let me put this bluntly: If we’re serious about the Middle East, this has got to change.
Wall Street has marginalized foreign policy in the U.S. election campaign, but it will return to center stage on Nov. 5. The in-box of the next president will include two intractable wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) and a tight timetable, of perhaps two years, for preventing Iran from securing nuclear weapons capability.
That’s an Iran-dominated agenda. Apart from the nuclear issue, which has tended to override everything, long-term stability in both Iraq and Afghanistan is inconceivable without some Iranian cooperation, as is peace in Lebanon and a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
On Iran, Barack Obama and John McCain could scarcely be further apart. Obama has said of Iran that, “For us not to be in a conversation with them doesn’t make sense.”
McCain has sung “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran” to the tune of a Beach Boys number — a joke, no doubt, but one reflective of the confrontational tone of his foreign policy pronouncements."
Read on here.
Roger Cohen, writing his op-ed piece in the NY Times [and IHT] reflects on how resolving the issue of Iran ought to be America's number one job:
"Until he retired from the State Department earlier this year, Nicholas Burns was, as under secretary of state for political affairs, the lead U.S. negotiator on Iran.
And how many times, during his three years in this role, did he meet with an Iranian?
Not once.
Burns wasn’t allowed to. His presence was supposed to be the reward if the Iranians suspended uranium enrichment and sat down at the table.
Burns, now 52, joined the State Department in 1980. He’s among a generation of U.S. diplomats who have never set foot in Iran, the rising power of the Middle East, even with oil at $70 rather than double that.
Let me put this bluntly: If we’re serious about the Middle East, this has got to change.
Wall Street has marginalized foreign policy in the U.S. election campaign, but it will return to center stage on Nov. 5. The in-box of the next president will include two intractable wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) and a tight timetable, of perhaps two years, for preventing Iran from securing nuclear weapons capability.
That’s an Iran-dominated agenda. Apart from the nuclear issue, which has tended to override everything, long-term stability in both Iraq and Afghanistan is inconceivable without some Iranian cooperation, as is peace in Lebanon and a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
On Iran, Barack Obama and John McCain could scarcely be further apart. Obama has said of Iran that, “For us not to be in a conversation with them doesn’t make sense.”
McCain has sung “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran” to the tune of a Beach Boys number — a joke, no doubt, but one reflective of the confrontational tone of his foreign policy pronouncements."
Read on here.
Comments