The Aipac Primary
By DAVID FIRESTONE
NYT
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Iran represents one of the world’s most grave foreign policy challenges, but don’t look for much gravity in the speeches to American Israel Public Affairs Committee this week by the top three Republican presidential candidates. There will be plenty of empty fist-shaking and ridicule of President Obama at the pro-Israel lobbying group, but not a single new thought for preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
The three candidates – Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich – have consistently been at their most dangerous when discussing the Middle East, combining a simplistic bellicosity toward the Islamic world with a reflexive agreement with the Israeli right. They routinely misread the American Jewish community and the electorate at large as being monolithically in favor of military action against Iran.
On Sunday, Mr. Romney said Iran will finish a nuclear weapon if Mr. Obama is re-elected, but not if Mr. Romney defeats him. How, precisely, will he disarm Iran? By imposing crippling sanctions, he said, and keeping a military strike on the table.
That, of course, is exactly what the Obama administration has already done (and what the last Republican president did not do well enough). The sanctions now in place are the toughest ever, choking off Iran’s exports. On Sunday, in his speech to Aipac, Mr. Obama made clear that he will not accept a nuclear-armed Iran, and is prepared to use military force to prevent it if necessary.
(More here.)
NYT
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Iran represents one of the world’s most grave foreign policy challenges, but don’t look for much gravity in the speeches to American Israel Public Affairs Committee this week by the top three Republican presidential candidates. There will be plenty of empty fist-shaking and ridicule of President Obama at the pro-Israel lobbying group, but not a single new thought for preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
The three candidates – Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich – have consistently been at their most dangerous when discussing the Middle East, combining a simplistic bellicosity toward the Islamic world with a reflexive agreement with the Israeli right. They routinely misread the American Jewish community and the electorate at large as being monolithically in favor of military action against Iran.
On Sunday, Mr. Romney said Iran will finish a nuclear weapon if Mr. Obama is re-elected, but not if Mr. Romney defeats him. How, precisely, will he disarm Iran? By imposing crippling sanctions, he said, and keeping a military strike on the table.
That, of course, is exactly what the Obama administration has already done (and what the last Republican president did not do well enough). The sanctions now in place are the toughest ever, choking off Iran’s exports. On Sunday, in his speech to Aipac, Mr. Obama made clear that he will not accept a nuclear-armed Iran, and is prepared to use military force to prevent it if necessary.
(More here.)
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