Posted by
Always To The Right on Sunday, December 30, 2007 9:16:58 PM
Look
carefully at the foreign policy positions of the top five contenders
for the Republican presidential nomination and you find a huge
difference between those of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and the
other four: former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani; former Massachusetts
Gov. Mitt Romney; Sen. John McCain; and former
Sen. Fred Thompson – particularly when it comes to the usefulness (or
lack of usefulness) of sitting down to negotiate with Iran.
Broadly speaking, the “other four” appear to understand that the United States
is in a long-term struggle against the forces of radical Jihad,
represented by terrorist groups such as al Qaeda and backed by state
sponsors of terrorism led by Iran.
They understand that, dating back to the presidency of Jimmy Carter,
specifically January 1979 when Ayatollah Khomeini and his fellow
Islamists overthrew the Shah, Tehran has been waging war against the
United States, whether we realized it or not. This war has taken many
forms: taking American diplomats hostage; sponsoring terrorist
organizations such as Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad;
encouraging such organizations to stage murderous attacks such as the
October 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine Barracks
in Beirut; the June 1996 bombing of a housing complex for American
servicemen in Saudi Arabia; and roadside bomb attacks in Iraq that have
killed and maimed American troops are just some of the methods used.
He adds that “we cannot allow Iran to push its theocracy into Iraq.” All of this makes sense. But how do we make this a reality? That’s where Huckabee begins to get into trouble. Washington has “valuable incentives to offer Iran: trade and economic assistance, full diplomatic relations and security guarantees,” he says.
. . . But
judging from what Huckabee has said and written on the subject to date,
he doesn’t have a clue about how to actually achieve this. . . .
But for now, Mike Huckabee seems perfectly content to recycle canards and the political Left’s talking points about the Bush Administration’s approach towards Iran. So long as he continues to spout such nonsense, he does not deserve to be taken seriously as a president capable of leading America’s struggle against Jihadist terror and its state sponsors.