Kyodo World Service, September 28th, 2007
Selected editorial excerpts from the U.S. press:
DEMOCRATS AND IRAN (The Wall Street Journal, New York)
Kudos to Hillary Clinton -- yes, you read that right -- for her
Senate vote this week urging the U.S. to designate Iran's Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist organization.
That's more than can be said for her primary competition of Barack
Obama, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson and John Edwards, who assailed her
on this score at Wednesday's Democratic Presidential candidates
debate at Dartmouth. These are men who seem to fear the Netroots more
than the mullahs.
Mrs. Clinton's vote was on a symbolic amendment offered by
Connecticut maverick Joe Lieberman and Republicans Jon Kyl and Norm
Coleman. After marshaling the evidence of Iran's terrorist activities
in Iraq, the amendment stated that ''it is a critical national
interest of the United States to prevent [Iran] from turning Shi'a
militia into a Hezbollah-like force that could serve its interests
inside Iraq.'' Twenty-one Democrats, including Joe Biden and John
Kerry, apparently found this too shocking to support and voted nay,
as did Republicans Chuck Hagel and Dick Lugar.
We probably shouldn't complain when 76 Senators, including a
majority of Democrats, show some foreign-policy sense. Still, it's
telling that the Democrats only agreed to the amendment after
demanding that its language be edited to remove a statement that ''it
should be the policy of the United States to stop inside Iraq the
violent activities and destabilizing influence'' of Iran.
The mullahs are supplying the shaped-explosive charges to Shiite
militias that are killing or maiming Americas in Iraq. But these
Senators are afraid even to suggest that the U.S. might use some kind
of military force to save the lives of American soldiers. And they
want to be Commander in Chief?
At Dartmouth, Mrs. Clinton defended her vote by noting that it
''gives us the options to be able to impose sanctions on the primary
leaders to try to begin to put some teeth into all this talk about
dealing with Iran.'' That's right. With Americans having just had a
Close Encounter of the Third Kind with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it's no
surprise that her relative hawkishness is only widening her primary
lead.
(Sept. 28)
