Bolton Slams Obama For Being ?Timid? On Iran, Then Admits U.S. Options Limited Because Of Bush?s Failures
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on June 24th, 2009 4:34 am by HL
Bolton Slams Obama For Being ?Timid? On Iran, Then Admits U.S. Options Limited Because Of Bush?s Failures
Yesterday on Fox News, Sean Hannity and former U.N. ambassador John Bolton joined the right-wing chorus hitting President Obama’s response to the Iranian election crisis. Bolton repeatedly said Obama should act more forcefully and offer the “possibility of concrete assistance” to the Iranian protestors: BOLTON: Well, it’s not at all what they want, and you know […]
Yesterday on Fox News, Sean Hannity and former U.N. ambassador John Bolton joined the right–wing chorus hitting President Obama’s response to the Iranian election crisis. Bolton repeatedly said Obama should act more forcefully and offer the “possibility of concrete assistance” to the Iranian protestors:
BOLTON: Well, it’s not at all what they want, and you know what’s worst of all about this, looking at President Obama, is not only that he’s being timid, he’s being disingenuous. The real reason that he won’t speak out has nothing to do with this argument that we don’t want to meddle. […]
[Obama] is abandoning the people in the streets and not providing any possibility of concrete assistance to them.
Hannity then asked Bolton whether he agreed with Lt. Col. Ralph Peters’s recent New York Post op-ed, in which he wrote that Obama’s “silence” is “a blank check for the current regime.” Bolton surprisingly backtracked and seemed to contradict his statements from a few moments earlier, claiming it’s better to be “prudent” right now because the United States isn’t in a position to “provide concrete assistance”:
BOLTON: Well, I think it’s mostly right except I would say this. Because including during the Bush administration we did not prepare adequately for this potential revolutionary moment, we’re not really in a position now to offer much concrete assistance.
And I don’t want America to be in a position where we urge people in the streets and then watch them die. I’d rather be a little bit prudent and prepare for the long-term where we really can provide concrete assistance.
Watch it:
So basically, Bolton wants Obama to stand with the Iranian protestors and provide the “possibility of concrete assistance,” even though he also thinks the United States is in no position “where we really can provide concrete assistance”? Of course, this call to be “prudent” comes from a man who wanted Obama to launch “meaningful efforts at regime change” just a few months ago. Bolton’s claim to want to assist Iran’s “people in the streets” also rings hollow, given that he has wanted to bomb them for years.
Transcript:
HANNITY: Barack Obama saying we’re meddling? This has nothing to do with us? It doesn’t matter which side wins? I’m thinking this — is that Reagan? Is that really what the people of Iran want from America?
BOLTON: Well, it’s not at all what they want, and you know what’s worst of all about this, looking at President Obama, is not only that he’s being timid, he’s being disingenuous. The real reason that he won’t speak out has nothing to do with this argument that we don’t want to meddle. The Iranian regime is already accusing us of that.
The real reason is the president is determined to find a way to try and negotiate with the regime, with Khamenei, with Ahmadinejad about their nuclear weapons program. This is a policy doomed to failure. But it explains why he won’t speak out in defense of representative government and individual liberty in Iran.
HANNITY: Well, is that why he’s basically a signal that he will work with them regardless of who wins out here?
BOLTON: He did indeed, and he has done that since his inaugural address where he said to regimes that stay in power by silencing the opposition and deceit and corruption, I will extend a hand.
Well, check, check, check, that certainly describes the regime in Iran, and he is abandoning the people in the streets and not providing any possibility of concrete assistance to them. […]
HANNITY: What do you think of Ralph Peters? He says our silence is complicity and that by Obama and the administration being silent that it represented a green light to the mullahs for a crackdown?
BOLTON: Well, I think it’s mostly right except I would say this. Because including during the Bush administration we did not prepare adequately for this potential revolutionary moment, we’re not really in a position now to offer much concrete assistance.
And I don’t want America to be in a position where we urge people in the streets and then watch them die. I’d rather be a little bit prudent and prepare for the long-term where we really can provide concrete assistance.
Gingrich-Run Coal Company Front Group Airing Anti-Climate Legislation TV Ads
Newt Gingrich’s 527 organization, American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF), took to the airwaves yesterday in opposition to the Waxman-Markey clean energy reform bill. The 30-second attack ad falls highlights the Gingrich-inspired Republican strategy of calling the bill a “national energy tax”: Now Congress is about to make things dramatically worse by passing a new […]
Newt Gingrich’s 527 organization, American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF), took to the airwaves yesterday in opposition to the Waxman-Markey clean energy reform bill. The 30-second attack ad falls highlights the Gingrich-inspired Republican strategy of calling the bill a “national energy tax”:
Now Congress is about to make things dramatically worse by passing a new national energy tax. We’ll lose more jobs, pay more for gas and electricity, pushing our economy to its breaking point. Stop the national energy tax, call your member of Congress before it’s too late.
Contradicting ASWF’s “energy tax” attack, a Congressional Budget Office analysis of Waxman-Markey found that the legislation only costs the equivalent of a postage stamp a day, while sharply cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Watch the ASWF ad:
An investigative piece by the Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson exposed Gingrich’s American Solutions as a front group for Peabody Energy, the world’s largest coal company. ASWF raked in over a quarter-million dollars in contributions in 2008 from the coal juggernaut, while receiving much of its remaining funding from a host of right-wing billionaires including casino kingpin Sheldon Adelson.
As climate change reform comes closer to a reality, expect to see more fear-mongering from these fossil-fueled front groups. Yesterday the GOP sent candles to lawmakers to “thank” Obama for “taxing our lights out.” Republicans called for the construction of 100 new nuclear power plants that same day. The fossil-fuel-dependent future promoted by Gingrich’s front group is catastrophic, as it “ignores the nightmarish damages that would be caused to our air, water and climate.”
