"Docrodile" <swampth...@hellsbayou.net> wrote:

Candidates Hold to Their Stances on Iran

....while mental cases are still misunderstanding the
issues. \

What else is new...

Of-course, Gary, this iz in stark contrast to what the right-wing
NeoCON artists,
Gerbilfrickers, panderers & wailing wall headbanger sycophants are
trying to portray as gospel.

Iran iz no threat to the good ol' US of A, nor iz it at all interested
in attacking Europe. Even the Russians are wary of the Zionazi agenda,
& would not stand idly by whilst Isreal or agents of Israel attack
Iran.

Of-course Iran might be a threat to Israel, but so what the frickin'
FRICK ?!?!?

Iz it at all worth having a nuclear war in the Middle East & a global
economic depression just for the sake of saving perhaps 6 million
completely worthless useless greedy selfish arrogant ungrateful
parasitic ingrates ?!?!

Iz it really worth it ?!??

HOOROO

UNCLE WALLY

On Dec 4, 4:04 pm, "Docrodile" <swampth...@hellsbayou.net> wrote:

Candidates Hold to Their Stances on Iran
By MARC SANTORA
Published: December 4, 2007
MANCHESTER, N.H., Dec. 3 - The campaigns of the leading Democratic
candidates seized Monday on an intelligence report showing that Iran had
halted its development of nuclear weapons, saying the findings justified
their more cautious approach to Tehran.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's national security director, Lee
Feinstein,
said the report's findings "expose the latest effort by the Bush
administration to distort intelligence to pursue its ideological ends."
He
added that the report "vindicates" Mrs. Clinton's approach, which he
described as "vigorous American-led diplomacy, close international
cooperation and effective economic pressure, with the prospect of
carefully
calibrated incentives if Iran addresses our concerns."

In fact, in September Mrs. Clinton, Democrat of New York, voted in favor
of
a Senate measure declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guards
"proliferators
of mass destruction," a vote that was condemned by her rivals in the
Democratic field. After the vote, her aides issued a statement saying,
"The
Revolutionary Guards are deeply involved in Iran's nuclear program."

Mrs. Clinton's rivals used the release of the report on Iran on Monday to
condemn the Bush administration, as well as to once again attack Mrs.
Clinton's vote on declaring the guards a terrorist organization. That
vote,
they suggested, was evidence of her hawkishness on Iran.

"The juxtaposition of this N.I.E. with the president's suggestion of
World
War III serves as an important reminder of what we learned with the 2002
National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq," said Senator Barack Obama,
Democrat
of Illinois, in a statement. "Members of Congress must carefully read the
intelligence before giving the president any justification to use
military
force."

Republicans, who have been condemning Iran in the campaign, reacted more
tentatively to the report, without backing away from their past
statements
about Tehran, including talk of military strikes and "bombardments."

"For years now, the Islamic Republic of Iran has defied and played games
with every international effort aimed at persuading the country to halt
enriching uranium," Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York,
said
in a statement. "Sanctions and other pressures must be continued and
stepped
up until Iran complies by halting enrichment activities in a verifiable
way."

That was a shift in tone from his previous comments, but he did not say
that
he may have overstated the case against Iran.

In October, speaking to the Republican Jewish Coalition, Mr. Giuliani
said:
"As we all know, Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, and they're threatening
to
use them. If I'm president of the United States, I guarantee you we will
never find out what they will do if they get nuclear weapons, because
they're
not going to get nuclear weapons."

Even before the report was released, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr.,
Democrat
of Delaware, had scheduled a speech in Iowa on how the United States
could
avoid war with Iran. He gave the most detailed reaction and rebuttal to
those who were sounding increasingly hawkish.

The new intelligence, he said in the speech, clearly shows that "war is
not
inevitable."

Other Republican candidates echoed Mr. Giuliani in suggesting continued
adherence to a muscular approach to Iran. Mitt Romney, the former
governor
of Massachusetts, has talked more often about the theoretical challenge
of a
nuclear-armed leadership in Tehran than about the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan.

When asked about the intelligence report at a news conference here, he
did
not back down from his past statements.

"I believe we are always strongest when we negotiate from a position of
resolve," he said. "The economic and diplomatic sanctions that I
described
make all the sense in the world."

As to his past language about the potential for a need to confront Iran,
he
said, "Of course we will maintain our military options."

Neither Mr. Giuliani nor Mr. Romney seemed to address the idea that their
past hawkish statements were based on intelligence that has proved
flawed -
reminiscent of the intelligence about unconventional weapons that led to
the
war in Iraq.

"I have not said anything in that regard I regret," Mr. Romney said.

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, has taken a slightly
different
line on Iran than his rivals, often focusing on reports that it was
supplying weapons to militias in Iraq that were being used against
American
troops.

Mr. McCain said the release of the report was such a "rare occasion" that
he
would still "have to try and make sense of it" before commenting in
depth.
But he did say that Iran was still bent on the destruction of Israel and
on
interfering in Iraq, and that therefore the sanctions against Tehran were
appropriate. Referring to the war in Iraq, he said, "We were deceived by
intelligence reports in that situation," and because of that, the public
is
"justifiably skeptical."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/us/politics/04campaign.html?ref=pol...