|
 "Diplomacy can work," Sen. Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Sunday as he urged negotiations. A dissenting voice from the campaign, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, said the U.S. should stick to back channels instead of high-stakes talks face to face. "BlackBerrys work," he said.
President Bush said last week he would hold firm in isolating Iran and in not ruling out pre-emptive military action despite a U.S. intelligence estimate that found Iran had stopped atomic weapons development in 2003. "Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous and Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon," he said.
No one from either party disputed that assertion. But evidence that Iran responded at least partially to pressure is bringing the "carrot and stick" argument to the fore.
"The shift in results over the last two years has been rather dramatic," GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel, a member of the Intelligence Committee, said in a broadcast interview joined by Rockefeller, D-W.Va. "We need to start talking with them."
Rockefeller agreed and pointed to a breakthrough in what was long thought to be another intractable problem. "North Korea was an absolute impossibility as far as ever backing off their nuclear program," he said. "Now they've stopped and they're inviting Americans in to watch them take it apart."
U.S. and Iranian officials have held three rounds of talks at the ambassador level over security in Iraq, in a measured and tentative departure from a three-decade-long diplomatic freeze. They formed a subcommittee to continue those discussions.
McCain said Iran's export of explosives into the hands of Iraqi insurgents, its danger to Israel, sponsorship of terrorism in the region and continued enrichment of uranium require the U.S. to keep the military option alive and to approach the question of high-level negotiations warily.
"The most overrated aspect of our dialogue about international relations is direct face-to-face talks," he said. "BlackBerrys work. Emissaries work. There's many thousands of ways to communicate. The question is, are you going to have direct talks, and does that enhance the prestige of the president of Iran?"
Democrat Joe Biden of Delaware, a 2008 White House hopeful, recalled Bush's comment in October that people "interested in avoiding World War III" should make sure Iran does not achieve the capability to make nuclear weapons. That rhetoric sounded much like the pumped-up justification for invading Iraq, said Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
[to top of second column]
 |
 "This has a strange echo of Iraq," he said. "Same kind of malarkey being spoken about now.
"Yes, they are a problem. There's a way to deal with them. One, make sure your allies stay with you, and you have credibility to continue to put pressure on them, offering them both carrots and sticks. Let them know what the isolation means. Let them know what would happen in fact if they cooperate."
House GOP leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said he did not know which intelligence report to believe
-- the new one expressing confidence that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 or the report in 2005 saying the program was continuing.
"Let's just understand that Iran continues to be a threat," he said. "Their leadership is on the verge of being crazy."
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said Bush is no doubt right that Iran could eventually transfer its nuclear energy program to military ends but that calls for talks, not threats. "The time for diplomacy at the highest levels is now," she said.
Democratic presidential candidates largely agree Iran should be engaged more directly while leading Republican candidates including Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and McCain have expressed doubt such talks would achieve anything. Giuliani said Sunday the military option should be maintained and the U.S. should apply "as much pressure as we're capable of."
New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's Democratic rivals have assailed her for supporting a Senate resolution designating Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. They said that step could be used as a pretext by Bush for war. She said her vote was meant to encourage diplomacy.
Republican Mike Huckabee, who has spoken in favor of diplomatic engagement, was caught unawares when asked last week about the intelligence report that was roiling Washington and the campaign. He misstated the circumstances of its release when asked about it Sunday.
"It actually, I recall, was released at 10 o'clock that morning, and it was late that afternoon that I sat down with some reporters," he said.
In fact, the report was released Monday and he was asked about it Tuesday at a dinner with reporters, more than 24 hours later.
McCain and Huckabee spoke on "Fox News Sunday;" Feinstein and Boehner on CNN's "Late Edition;" Rockefeller and Hagel on CBS' "Face the Nation"; Biden on "This Week" on ABC; and Giuliani on "Meet the Press" on NBC.
[Associated
Press; By CALVIN WOODWARD]
Copyright 2007 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
