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Kerry: Let’s Talk to Iran to “Reclaim the Moral High Ground”
hotair.com ^ | May 24, 2008 | Allahpundit

Posted on 05/24/2008 4:23:00 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY

Behold the “global test” in action. Pray tell, dear Waffles, from whom will we be reclaiming it?

"Dialogue helps us isolate Ahmadinejad rather than empowering him to isolate us. More important, even if we fail to reach an agreement, engaging Iran will spark three conversations likely to strengthen our position…

The third conversation is with the world. By engaging Iran, we reclaim the moral high ground — no small feat. If Iran refuses to budge, we have new leverage to expose it as a threat whose bad intentions cannot be explained away."

I’m curious to hear how Iran’s intentions might otherwise be “explained away.” Presumably he believes, as Obama does, that “Iran’s support for militant groups in Iraq reflected its anxiety over the Bush administration’s policies in the region,” but as I’ve noted before, that theory fails to account for the fact that both Hezbollah and the nuclear program were in business long before Bush came to power. Even under the most blinkered, charitable reading of the regime’s behavior, that they’re fighting some sort of defensive war instead of engaging in fundamentalist expansionism (or something even darker), their “anxiety” over Israel’s capabilities will remain no matter what sort of deal we reach with them. How far is Kerry willing to go to ease Iran’s troubled mind? Or to put it differently, after years of negotiations with Europe plus an offer of unspecified concessions from the United States in 2006 which, per Condi Rice, apparently remains on the table, at what point will it be safe to conclude that Iran has refused to budge? This goes to the heart of conservatives’ fears about Obama, not that he’d be willing to talk to Iran before considering a military option but that he’ll never consider a military option, no matter how dire the threat may become. It’s diplomacy literally unto death, which I think is why so many righties equate his rhetoric about negotiation with appeasement. To borrow a favorite concept of the left, how about some benchmarks up front to gauge whether progress in negotiations is sufficient to warrant further diplomacy or whether it’s time to consider other options?

The other two “conversations” he has in mind, incidentally, are with the Iranian people, who supposedly need to be formally informed that their government’s earning them a bad name internationally even after two rounds of UN sanctions, and with the regime itself, which may ultimately warm to a deal “at the right moment” even though Democrats are hellbent on removing any leverage we might have in moving the warming process along. Exit question one: If Obama does meet with Iran, it’ll be perfectly okay if McCain tries to undermine his presidential authority by badmouthing him abroad, right? Exit question two, per Kerry’s reminder that Ahmadinejad is “neither Iran’s supreme leader nor someone whom Obama specifically promised to meet”: If he’s so inconsequential a figure, why did Waffles himself single him out as the world leader he’d most like to throw off a cliff two years ago?


TOPICS: Editorial
KEYWORDS: ahmadinejad; blahblahblah; iran; jfkerry; kerry; obama; stuckonstupid
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Comment #1 Removed by Moderator

To: Free ThinkerNY

We already have the moral high ground, you idiot.


2 posted on 05/24/2008 4:24:33 PM PDT by Hoodat (Bull Moose Party Member)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

btw, your second photo is a fake. Jane Fonda was added. She is clearly upright in front of a standing microphone.


3 posted on 05/24/2008 4:26:04 PM PDT by Hoodat (Bull Moose Party Member)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

The 2nd photo is phony.


4 posted on 05/24/2008 4:27:02 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist (Bipartisanship: Two wolves and the American people deciding what's for dinner)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Hey John! Let’s talk to the South Vietnam government........ oh wait, never mind!


5 posted on 05/24/2008 4:29:40 PM PDT by Mark (Don't argue with my posts. I typed while under sniper fire..)
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To: Free ThinkerNY
..(quoting a commercial). Kerry wouldn't know the moral high ground if it climbed up on his lap and called him papa.
6 posted on 05/24/2008 4:34:10 PM PDT by Doogle (USAF.68-73..8th TFW Ubon Thailand..never store a threat you should have eliminated))
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Is his picture still hanging in the Vietcong War Heroes Museum?

7 posted on 05/24/2008 4:36:50 PM PDT by melt (Someday, they'll wish their Jihad... Jihadn't.)
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To: Hoodat; Extremely Extreme Extremist

Sorry. You’re right. It is fake.


8 posted on 05/24/2008 4:36:50 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY ((((Obama's issues would be better resolved in a psychotherapists office, than in the Oval Office))))
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To: Free ThinkerNY
“Reclaim the Moral High Ground”

Grovel to Islamic pigs...

9 posted on 05/24/2008 4:37:28 PM PDT by johnny7 (Don't mess with my tag-lines!)
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To: Free ThinkerNY
per Kerry’s reminder that Ahmadinejad is “neither Iran’s supreme leader nor someone whom Obama specifically promised to meet”

So Barry is going to meet with these guys in his first year in office?!?:

Oh yeah, that makes his theory sound better.

10 posted on 05/24/2008 4:38:17 PM PDT by Fox_Mulder77
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To: Free ThinkerNY
"The third conversation is with the world. By engaging Iran, we reclaim the moral high ground..."

We don't need the "moral" high ground. We have Iran pinned in with Afghanistan on one side and Iraq on the other side. That *IS* the moral high ground! The only one they understand!

The only thing Kerry would be good for in all of this is as a boy-toy for a Mullah.

11 posted on 05/24/2008 4:39:05 PM PDT by avacado
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Kerry couldn’t describe the moral high ground if his traitorous life depended on it....

Such a phony POS.


12 posted on 05/24/2008 4:42:11 PM PDT by river rat (Semper Fi - You may turn the other cheek, but I prefer to look into my enemy's vacant dead eyes.)
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To: Hoodat

You can talk to iran all you want and claim a moral highground—the fact of the matter is, the only ground they want to see you in is a cemetary.


13 posted on 05/24/2008 4:42:21 PM PDT by freeangel ( (free speech is only good until someone else doesn't like what you say))
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To: Free ThinkerNY

“I voted for it before I voted against it.”


14 posted on 05/24/2008 4:44:59 PM PDT by txrangerette (Just say "no" to the Obama Cult and the Clinton Machine!!)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Why can’t this idiot just GO AWAY????


15 posted on 05/24/2008 4:45:50 PM PDT by Just Lori (There is nothing democrat"ic" about democrats.)
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To: Free ThinkerNY
Several years ago a friend invited me to a comedy show. I had to pay 20 bucks to go see a few entertainers in one place at the same time. I had no idea about what I was in for.

Folks such as Robin Williams, Chevy Chase, Tom Rush, Peter Paul & Mary, and others.

It was not until after I was already there that I realized that it was a campaign event for that POS john kerry who was running for Lt. Governor.

I really dislike that guy. Prudence (and a concern for maintaining my FReeper status) prevents me from going on a real tirade here.

16 posted on 05/24/2008 4:53:48 PM PDT by Radix (Think it is bad now? Wait until you have to press "2" for English!)
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To: Free ThinkerNY; Liz; calcowgirl; Calpernia; indylindy; pissant; SoConPubbie; AuntB; ...
“McCain’s affinity for the hidebound conventional wisdom of our foreign policy solons is not news. As he told the Detroit News during the 2000 campaign, upon being asked about the first thing he’d do as president: “The first thing that I would do is call in John Kerry, Bob Kerrey, Joe Biden, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry Kissinger, Dick Lugar, Chuck Hagel, and several others and say, ‘We’ve got to get foreign policy, national security issues back on track.”

I do so hope that no publicly avowed McCain voters are sneering at Kerry's words in the story referenced, above; as this is precisely the same John F. Kerry their boy wants to bring into his innermost circle of advisors, insofar as the WOT (and our troops stationed) is concerned.

"Will do the right thing by the U.S. military," my wide, hairy white hinder.

17 posted on 05/24/2008 4:55:54 PM PDT by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle (If McCain really CAN "win without conservatives," then why do you care if I vote for him or not?)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

The Moron Speaks Again.


18 posted on 05/24/2008 5:04:32 PM PDT by rlmorel (Clinging bitterly to Guns and God in Massachusetts...:)
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To: Radix

That’s okay. You don’t need to go on a tirade. I share every single thought of yours regarding Massachusetts politicians, as only a conservative stuck in Massachusetts can appreciate completely.


19 posted on 05/24/2008 5:07:51 PM PDT by rlmorel (Clinging bitterly to Guns and God in Massachusetts...:)
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To: Free ThinkerNY
Let’s Talk to Iran to “Reclaim the Moral High Ground”

Socialist translation: Let's appease all those who want to destroy the U.S.
20 posted on 05/24/2008 5:09:43 PM PDT by Man50D (Fair Tax, you earn it, you keep it!)
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