"I believe that we lost critical time in dealing with Iran, because the White House chose to downplay the threats, and to outsource the negotiations. I don't believe you face threats like Iran or North Korea by outsourcing it to others, and standing on the sidelines. We cannot, and should not, must not, permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons. In order to prevent that from occurring, we must have more support, vigorously and publicly expressed, by China and Russia, and we must move as quickly as feasible for sanctions in the United Nations."
The above is a direct quote from Hillary Clinton, January 2006.
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/huston/060120
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One of the findings of the 9/11 Commission concerns Iran and its alleged support for Al Qaeda. U.S.-Iranian policy has been in the deep freeze for 25 years. How is that going to change with Kerry?
John Kerry regards an Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism armed with nuclear weapons as unacceptable. He has a multiple-part strategy that is much more realistic than the Bush administration's. One is to rejoin and work through the international legal framework on arms control. That will give greater force to the major powers if they have to deal with violators. Secondly, he has laid out, I think in the most comprehensive way in modern memory, a program to secure nuclear materials around the world—particularly in the former Soviet Union but also in the places where research reactors have existed that could be susceptible to proliferation. The point is to try to prevent Iran from ever getting this material surreptitiously. Thirdly, he has proposed that rather than letting the British, the French and the Germans do this themselves, that we together call the bluff of the Iranian government, which claims that its only need is energy. And we say to them: "Fine, we will provide you the fuel that you need if Russia fails to provide it." Participating in such a diplomatic initiative makes it more likely to succeed"
The above is Jamie Rubin, Kerry advisor, talking to Newsweek during the election.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5570503/site/newsweek/
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"International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA): "We are not facing an imminent threat. We need to lower the pitch."
In response, Kondracke claimed that "the experts that I talked to think that on the basis of what the Iranians have announced that they are going to do, as to enrichment ... they will be able to have enough fissile material of their own making for a bomb sometime next summer, summer 2007." Guest-host Chris Wallace then asked, "So, a little over a year?" Kondracke responded, "Yeah." NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson later added: "[A]s Mort said, time is running out. Pretty soon, Iran is going to have the bomb."
The above is from FOX NEWSs panel:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200604030003
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Hersh and today's Washington Post can be all a twitter because Bush just might take action to prevent Iran from nuking us to smithereens, but for many months, the left has been advocating just that.