On Wednesday, the Senate, by a vote of 76-22, voted to recommend to President Bush that he classify Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization. Several Democrats including Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid joined with Republicans to pass this non-binding resolution. There are three reasons why branding Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization was a bad idea.
First, taking steps that are openly confrontational towards Iran allows the government of Iran—in particular its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—to use our open hostility towards Iran to motivate his people; thus, strengthening his grip on power. If we are serious about weakening Ahmadinejad we should stop tweaking him—especially when we are doing it with stupid, meaningless non-binding resolutions. To say nothing about the public perception problems that this vote will cause us in the rest of the Islamic world.
Second, By adopting this resolution, the Senate is moving down the road towards giving President Bush authorization to attack Iran. For this reason, it is shameful that the Democratic Party’s leader in the Senate and the leading contender for the Party’s nomination would foolishly back this resolution. The last thing we need is President Bush and the rest of his cronies using a vote in Congress to justify their choice to take us into another war. I can not believe that Reid and Clinton learned so little from the vote in 2002 authorizing war in Iraq.
Lastly, Calling an element of the Iranian military a terrorist organization—even if you believe it is—weakens your ability to negotiate. As long as our government continues insulting Iran, it will make Iran very reluctant to work with us. As the situation in Iraq gets worse there may come a time when we want to have a dialogue with Iran, and giving them another reason to hate us will do nothing to get them to help us. If we really want to reach a diplomatic solutions for the problems that Iran is causing we have to be careful about what we say about Iran in public.
September 27, 2007 at 3:54 pm |
good points… but do they FIT the definition of terrorist?
September 27, 2007 at 8:37 pm |
I don’t believe that we know for sure whether the Islamic Revolutionary Guard fits the deffinition of a terrorist organization. The Bush administration would like us to believe they do, but they also wanted us to believe that there were WMD in Iraq and that Iraq was linked to 9-11. I have no problem believing that Iran is causing many problems in the world, and I do not want them to have a nuclear weapon, but I believe that calling Iran’s military a terrorist organization does nothing to help in that regard.
September 30, 2007 at 4:19 am |
I agree that it’s a totally politicized statement… and that your analysis is correct.
September 30, 2007 at 3:20 pm |
[...] organizations. Earlier this week, in a post I wrote reacting to the United States Senate’s misguided decision to label Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard a terrist organization that one of the real problems [...]
October 1, 2007 at 6:19 pm |
Here are my suggestions for a new America that are not in any paticular order.
1 Spank the media good!
2 You lie and cheat in the goverment, you will be exposed to a special prison
3 No relatives can be President if one is already in the house. One President per family. Two Clinton’s and two Bush’s is retarded.
4 Help others including ones that hate us eventually they will either turn around and be cool or the rest of the world will see they are being dicks and then everybody will hate them. Also instead of being the first guy to throw the punch see if the others will first and then join and kick their ass.
5 Instead of pouring money into other countries (Billions and Billions) use it for ourselves for cancer reasearch disasters police homeland secruity missle defense fuel alternatives. I would also give to all American’s 1/2 off on college loans for 4 years taxes paid. I have more ideas on this issue.
6 A program that brings us back together with Nations.
7 A program that if the president’s approval rating dips below a certain anount for a certain amount of time the vice president will step in.
8 Slowing down wastefull building, I mean two Mc Donald’s and two Sunoco’s not even a half a mile apart is retarded!
9 Establish great morals in our society like help your neighbor, do unto others etc. drilled into our heads via our favorite box the TV. I dont talk to my neighbors much nor do they to each other. I want to change that. I want to unite our neighbors so we can be United again.There is nothing wrong with being good and supporting.
10 More advertisement on amount of family time and also less on TV time. the fatest laziest country subjected to much tv. Let’s not force but put the word out that to much TV sucks!
11 Employees rights
12 Father and son rights
13 I can go on.
I do not like Hillary and I wish the underdog for once can win the presedency!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
November 19, 2008 at 7:43 pm |
just meandered by….
God love google, nice site. Take care….