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Toomey’s dead wrong on Iran

Last week, Republican Senatorial candidate Pat Toomey wrote an op-ed that criticized President Obama on Iraq and Afghanistan.

Toomey must think he has an inside track on the war in Afghanistan. In fact, he seems to think he has better intelligence than President Obama and, therefore, is now lecturing him on Iran. In his hubris, Toomey fails to hit the mark with his “advice.” Frankly, it seems as though Toomey hasn’t been keeping up on the national security issues he is espousing.

First, to clarify, contrary to Toomey’s assertion, Obama supports sanctions against Iran and has been working toward them, both domestically and internationally.

Toomey has failed to recognize that the the Obama administration has been rightfully keeping a low profile on the congressional sanctions efforts in order to be able to continue his administration’s good-faith negotiations with Iran on its nuclear materials. Rather, the president has been focusing the efforts of his efforts on the potential source which is in greater jeopardy—that of the United Nations. In fact, just this week Obama pressed the issue of sanctions against Iran with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan at a meeting at the White House; Turkey currently has a seat and a vote in the UN Security Council.

Second, it is difficult to understand how Toomey can possibly lump Iran and Afghanistan together in terms of a threat to U.S. national security.

The attacks of 9/11 were plotted and executed by Taliban-shielded Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. President Obama’s new strategy seeks to target some of those same perpetrators, who now reside along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. Toomey also incorrectly describes the perceived threat in Afghanistan as the Taliban. The president was clear on that—the primary focus of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan and Pakistan is to root out al-Qaeda.

Finally, the most disturbing element of Toomey’s op-ed by is his fear-mongering rhetoric—words that echo the language used by the Bush administration in describing the alleged “weapons of mass destruction” prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. That fear-mongering led us into a $700-billion war—while the Bush administration ignored Afghanistan.

And although Iran has made it clear it seeks to develop nuclear weapons—which should not be tolerated by the U.S. or the international community—anti-Americanism should not be cited as a reason to impose sanctions on or preemptively go to war with another country.

Perhaps Toomey needs to brush up on his foreign policy with his handlers in Washington before he makes inaccurate pronouncements, logical missteps, and second-guesses President Obama again.

December 9, 2009 at 9:45 am

--Abe Amoros

Tags: Pat Toomey

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