John Kerry, "Romney’s wrong-headed assertions about Iran": The Friend of the Butcher of Damascus Knows No Shame

In the spring of 2009, the cornerstone of the newly inaugurated president's foreign policy had been to demonstrate that Bush's "Axis of Evil" had been a figment of the Republicans' imagination: With a Coke and a smile and Obama's silver tongue, Iran and Syria, both "misunderstood," could be brought back into the bosom of the civilized world. As part of this gameplan, Obama disgracefully remained silent during Iran's failed Green Revolution. Meanwhile, Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had repeated meetings with Syria's President Assad, nothwithstanding Assad's involvement in the 2005 murder of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a friend of the West.

As reported by The Wall Street Journal as late as March 2011 (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703576204576227131356932482.html):

"A key supporter of Mr. Assad in Washington has been Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The former presidential candidate has held nearly a half-dozen meetings with Mr. Assad in recent years, according to this staff. The two men have sought to map out the terms of a renewed Syrian-Israel peace track.

Even this month, as protests starting gripping Syria, Mr. Kerry said he thought Syria's president was an agent for change.

'President Assad has been very generous with me in terms of the discussions we have had,' Mr. Kerry said during a March speech at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 'I think it's incumbent on us to try to move that relationship forward in the same way.'"

Yes, Kerry, who might succeed Hillary as Secretary of State, is dangerously naive.

Today, in a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Romney’s wrong-headed assertions about Iran" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/romneys-wrong-headed-assertions-about-iran/2012/03/07/gIQAcKCvxR_story.html), Kerry, who knows no shame, criticizes Romney for attacking Obama's policy on Iran:

"What exactly does [Romney] think we’ve been doing for the past three years? When Obama took office, Iran was in the ascendancy. Its reach through proxies such as Hezbollah threatened the United States, its allies and the region. The international community was divided; diplomacy was stalled.

But in June 2010, with a decisive push from Obama, the United Nations put in place the most comprehensive sanctions the Iranian government has ever faced — with restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities, banks and financial transactions, and the Revolutionary Guard Corps.

. . . .

Obama also worked closely with Congress to pass legislation that strengthened existing unilateral sanctions, and he signed an executive order enforcing tough new sanctions on Iran and its central bank."

Excuse me, John, but throughout most of 2009 Obama and you were busy with your charm campaign aimed at Iran and Syria, which allowed Iran to progress with its nuclear weapons development program largely unimpeded. Consider that the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Yukiya Amano, has just informed a closed-door meeting of the IAEA's governing board that since late last year, Iran has tripled monthly output of higher-grade enriched uranium (see: http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=260522).

Obama has worked closely with Congress to pass legislation to strengthen existing sanctions? Yeah, right. In fact, in recent months Obama bitterly opposed the US Senate amendment enabling the president to sanction foreign banks carrying out a "significant financial transaction with the Central Bank of Iran" (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/12/iran-obamas-secret-agenda.html).

Bottom line: Kerry, who made a fool of himself in Damascus, should have long ago resigned as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and has no business criticizing Romney on this issue.