On Middle East, McCain Vows to Stay the Course

[laststeamtrain]

On Middle East, McCain Vows to Stay the Course
By Jim Lobe*

WASHINGTON, Jun 2 (IPS) - In a major address on Middle East policy Monday, Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican candidate for president, pledged to maintain the Bush administration's hard line against Iran and expressed strong scepticism about the ability of the current Palestinian leadership to reach a peace accord with Israel.

McCain, who was speaking at the opening session of the annual policy conference of the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), called for much tougher international sanctions against Iran, including a "severe limit on Iranian imports of gasoline" and a "worldwide divestment campaign" directed against companies doing business with the Islamic Republic, as a means of forcing it to freeze its alleged nuclear weapons programme.

And he ridiculed his likely Democratic rival in the November elections, Sen. Barack Obama, for proposing unconditional talks with the Iranian leadership on a range of issues, despite the fact that a new poll just released by the Gallup organisation found that nearly six in 10 U.S. voters, including nearly half of all Republican respondents, believe a U.S.-Iranian summit would be a "good idea".

"...(W)e hear talk of a meeting with the Iranian leadership offered up as if it were some sudden inspiration, a bold new idea that somehow nobody has ever thought of before," he said. "Yet, it's hard to see what such a summit with President (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad would actually gain, except an earful of anti-Semitic rants, and a worldwide audience for man who denies one Holocaust and talks before frenzied crowds about starting another."

"Such a spectacle would harm Iranian moderates and dissidents," he went on, "as the radicals and hardliners strengthen their position and suddenly acquire the appearance of respectability."

McCain's remarks were the latest in an ongoing rhetorical tit-for-tat between him and Obama, whose views on engaging Iran without conditions reflects the views of much of the U.S. foreign policy establishment, including even two of his key policy advisers, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and neo-conservative thinker, Robert Kagan. They have called for direct talks with Tehran if, for no other reason, than to rally public and international opinion behind the U.S. in any future confrontation.

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http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42628
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[Hydra]

1. Hmm, no surprise there

I have to ask, though- is anyone talking about leaving the middle east?