For all that has been written over the years about the supposed political genius of Karl Rove, the real man of genius in this cycle has to be former Pres. Jimmy Carter, who is valiantly waging a one-man campaign to make Barack Obama’s foreign policy positions (whatever they are today) seem moderate by comparison.
Jimmuh, currently at the Hay-on-Wye festival, is claiming that Israel has 150 nuclear weapons in its arsenal. He also argued that the US should talk directly to Iran to persuade it to drop its nuclear ambitions. He bases the latter argument in part on the following “reasoning“:
What happens if, in three years’ time, Iran has a nuclear weapon? I’m not sure that is going to happen, but if it does, what do we do? They are rational people like all of us in this room. Do they want to commit suicide? I would guess not. So what we have to do is talk with them now and say to them we want to be their friends…
The United States must let Iran know that we want to give them fuel and everything they need for a non-military nuclear program…
Of course, there is all sorts of evidence that Islamist fundamentalists can be suicidal. Moreover, for the past three years or so, the US has negotiated with Iran, working directly with the EU-3 (the UK, France and Germany), the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (whose investigation Iran continues to stonewall) and the UN Security Council. Furthermore, Iran has consistently rejected Russia’s offers to provide Iran with enriched uranium for civilian purposes, in exchange for an agreement to stop uranium enrichment in Iran.
However, Carter’s statements allow Obama another opportunity to distance himself from Carter and thereby create the illusion that he is moderate on foreign policy by comparison.
Carter has yet to blame the Mossad for that 1979 rabbit attack, but the election is over five months away.
(h/t Memeorandum.)
Update: Jimmuh’s wackitude at Hay-on-Wye continues with a call for the Britain and other European governments to break from the US over the international embargo on Gaza.
Barack Obama = Jimmy Carter with melanin
However, Carter’s statements allow Obama another opportunity to distance himself from Carter.
What? Obama could no more renounce HOPE than he could Marxism.
What would you call our current president`s foreign policy position? Conservative? War doesn’t seem to be working out very well for us as far as I can tell. At least talk is cheap.
<em>The United States must let Iran know that we want to give them fuel…</em>
What if we just give them some hints about where to find it? Like, um…right underneath them.
#3 What would you call our current president`s foreign policy position? Conservative? War…
We are not at war with Iran Ed. We have been attempting to talk to them for years. Do you ever read a newspaper?
I can’t believe this invertebrate was our president. Hey Dhimmi, how about doing the Habitat for Humanity thing in the West Bank. To hell with the Palestinians, they had their chance, and they chose chaos. What happened to Arafat’s wife? She took the money, ran, and didn’t give a rat’s ass about the Palestinian people! We chose you as a leader, and suffered the consequences. Shouldn’t the Palestinian have that same right? Didn’t you verify the election? If you’re so concerned send them your money. You’re as outdated as Disco!
War doesn’t seem to be working out very well for us as far as I can tell.
If by “us” you mean “the Islamofascists and their fellow-travelers on the American Left”, you have a point. Otherwise, not so much.
I think you need to report to your nearest indoctrination center for a Pravda upgrade, ed.
Okay, that’s weird. A minute ago I got a WYSIWYG editor, but now it’s back to a plain text box.
I assume blog tweakig is still in progress?
what I am wondering about is where Carter was getting this info about 150 nuclear weapons ?
Who is that spy?
As far as suicidal, Karl, again-there is no country in the whole world which is….
Separate terrorist individuals could be…
OK, sashal, it’s technically true that a country can’t be suicidal. The leaders of a country–like Iran–can, however, encourage suicide bombing by it’s more zealous citizens.
Iran sponsors suicide. Clear enough for you?
Cowboy, don’t waste your time with the likes of sashal. He/she will take things literally when it suits their position, and use metaphors to inflame rather than inform when it doesn’t. thor is notorious for this tactic during a post. Joe Biden and Chris Dodd are their senate equivalent. They are full of rhetoric, and use non sequiturs the instant their arguments falter. Welcome to the blogosphere!
sashal,
The “suicidal” link takes you to Jeffrey Goldberg:
“this story” is a column in the JPost, noting not only that Hamas is pursuing a policy likely to result in losing Gaza, but also the following examples:
Add Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s end times belief in the so-called “Twelfth Imam,†his reported past as an instructor for teeenage suicide squads during the Iran-Iraq war, and his celebration of that mindset as Iran’s president. Add the Iranian mullocracy’s approval of those suicidal war tactics and continued support for Ahmadinejad. None of it inspires the sort of confidence in Iran’s rationality that Carter seems to have.
Oh… I wish JeffG would do a brief conversation with Jimmy Carter’s sweater, cuz O!’s telling us we can no longer eat/drive/live as we wish anymore without the permission of the world is SO 70’s-retro!
Anyone wanna bet Jimmeh’s got a flag flying outside his Plains plantation today…a white one?
I most certainly hope so. Were I the Israeli head of state I’d want enough to cripple (in the case of significant active attacks) or kill (in the case of existential-threat attacks) every major Islamic state in the area at once (say, from Pakistan to Lybia, on the outside), and enough left over after that to deter those who might object too strenuously. I hope they’ve got enough delivery systems, though.
My ongoing fear is that Barack Obama would be a worse President thatn Jimmah Carter.
I am re-thinking my position.
O’K, but where the fuck this info about 150 nuclear weapons is coming from.
I hope they have thousands, but isn’t that supposed to be a secret number anyhow?
So, what Carter is doing is divulging information, unless he is just blatantly taking shit out of the blue sky
“Comment by sashal on 5/26 @ 11:12 am #
As far as suicidal, Karl, again-there is no country in the whole world which is….”
Once again, sashal proves the depths of his ignorance of history,
Look up Germany, Nazi, and 1945, April.
“Comment by sashal on 5/26 @ 12:33 pm #
O’K, but where the fuck this info about 150 nuclear weapons is coming from.”
Dude, Carter was President of the United States.
He had a security clearance.
Karl,
The Mad Mullahs have no illusions about suffering the consequences of a nuclear attack on Israel, and they don’t care:
He might not be saying that they will absolutely use the Bomb as soon as they get it, just that they are not concerned with what the Israelis might do in return – there are a billion Muslims in the world and the Israelis can’t kill them all.
President Carter? Thank you for you taking my question. I’m curious, how did speaking with the Iranians work our for you?
Dhimmi “spoke with” the Iranians for 444 days, as I recall.
That would be Mordechai Vanunu. This is old news.
The classic example of national suicide is Imperial Japan. The IJN was shattered, the airforce was resorting to suicide attacks that were not stopping the allies. Most major cities had been gutted in fire raids. Imports were nil. And the Japanese government continued to fight on. Hiroshima was nuked and they continued to fight. Nagasaki was nuked and they continued to fight until the Emperor himself, in an unprecedented move, personally intervened and said enough. It took a blockade, the destruction of all useful offensive forces, the destruction of all major cities, and two nukings to get them to quit. (Based on the battles of Saipan and Okinawa the casualties for the Japanese – both military and civilian – in the event of an allied invasion of the home islands – would have staggered belief. Even a blockade for another six months would have resulted in mass starvation.)
That is how national suicide is done.
See also Burma.
One of the best books about the battle for Okinawa is “With the Old
Breed” by E. B. Sledge.
http://tinyurl.com/53837u
It was especially nice of Jimmy to tell the world about Israel’s nuclear weapons capacity. Maybe he could release some more secret info, a few documents and codes while he’s at it.
Can I just interject at this point to say that Carter needs to drink a nice, tall frosty glass of Shut The Hell Up, with a chaser of plutonium?
This dumbass long ago locked in the “worst former American President” award and is shooting for the world title.
I’ve updated my Jimmy Carter threat level advisory accordingly (click my name).
I can’t begin to expres the shame I feel at sharing a city, a state with that poor excuse for a human being. Still, he’s human and he’ll die soon. Then we’ll only have to listen to Billy Jeff.
As long as we Stop The Obama Ex-Presidency, Now!
You can leave the “magnificent” off this sawed off sorry little bastard of a peanut farming Nobel Prize winner. It may take the patience of Job while waiting for it, but ultimately this little jerk will shuffle off this mortal coil and we will have heard the last of Jimmuh.
The title suggests that you might have read his book. I sure hope you mean the one about his mother, and not about Palestine. Yuk.
So what we have to do is talk with them now and say to them we want to be their friends…
I am trying to decide if it is senility or battered woman syndrome. What do you all think?
I’m less interested in Jimmah than I am in the smarmy b*ds with him at Hay-on-Wye.
Did it not occur to anyone to ask him, “Mr. Carter, you negotiated with the Iranians for over a year. What did you offer? What did you get?”
Regards,
Ric
“What did you get?â€Â
That one is easy, he got sent back to Plains.
Well, yeah, B Moe, you know that and I know that.
What does Jimmah think he got? More important, what did he offer?
Regards,
Ric
Well, you know, it’s been rumored for years that Rosalynn Carter preferred her GSP escort (in toto, naturally) to Jimmah.
Damned if that wouldn’t make for good blackmail.
Oh yeah, just forget about those so-called “hostages’. They were guests of Iran, put up in the finest Holiday Inn we could find, with room service, private security and even restraints to keep them from falling and injuring themselves! Really, it was a kindness provided by our friends, solely for their protection!Trust me on this!
That damn Reagan screwed everything up!
What does Jimmah think he got? More important, what did he offer?
It occurs to me that among a certain camp the outcome is the least important aspect of any situation. To appear to be doing well is the only thing that really matters, and on that front Jimmuh is a world champ. It’s a bit Machiavellian to be sure, but it fits everything the senile old hater and those who agree with him do.
Someone please point me to a news article where Jimmy Carter is outraged over Hezbollah’s recent military action in Lebanon. He never seems overly concerned about the terrorist behavior of Hamas or Hezbollah(proxies of Iran & Syria), but he has plenty of criticism for Israel and the US. I guess he’ll call for a UN Human Rights Commission report, right? Oh wait, they’ll be too busy investigating the US for racism.
He really is disgusting. Why doesn’t he just tell everyone where they are? Maybe give out the GPS coordinates?
We’ve been at war with the mullahocracy of Iran since 1979.
Just because for most of the last twenty eight years our government has been content to take repeated kicks to the groin (and pile up dead servicememebers) doesn’t mean we haven’t been at war.
It just means that people like James Earl Carter have had too much of a say in how we , shall we say, participate.
We could kill every Persian in Iran and I wouldn’t shed a tear. Nukes or E-tools, I’d take a part in that job for free. Kill the mullahs because it’s the right thing to do, kill the rest because if they cleaned their own shit up we wouldn’t have to.
And that is called “sending a message”. Do you think we’d have to spend five years trying to get the lights back on ANYWHERE if we actually went back to fighting wars like they were like, you know, fucking wars?
I miss my friends. And I’ve come to hate the political elite of this country almost as much as I hate those that murdered my friends. And that’s not good, and that’s why I’m building fences, washing clothes, and doing chores today.
And God bless and keep America… from harming herself.
Have a FINE day.
Sigh. I have tried to defend Prez Carter in the past. But he needs to be muzzled. The Iranians should send him a monthly stipend since he insists on being so helpful to them. I heard on NPR this morning that the Iranians directly quoted his idiot statement about Israeli nuclear arms to defend contining their nuclear program. Nice fucking job, bucky.
Fun times.
It occurs to me that among a certain camp the outcome is the least important aspect of any situation.
You mean the kind of people who think a Muslim apostate is the best choice to negotiate with Islamic Fundamentalists?
On the plus side, he can really pound a nail.
Have I ever asked you guys for anything? Ever?
I don’t want much, but if it’s not too much to ask, I’d like to be dropped in the Yukon with Jimmy Carter, then as we’re walking along I’d like for us to come upon an 1800 lb grizzly with her cubs, I’d like to have a really good digital video camera, I’d like for Jimmy to say “I’ll talk to her, let her know that we want to be her friends.”, I’d like to have plenty of battery power in the camera, I’d like to then be airlifted out, and then I’d like to have a really festive YouTube party.
You can have the party at my new gig:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=379181712
I’d like to witness 1800-pound grizzlies mating. Monster grizzly schlong, schwing!
They do it grizzly-style