After President Obama's warm praise of Hillary Clinton on Monday, the Huffington Post failed when it tried to conjure up a split between the two over Iran.
Incredibly, the piece it ran yesterday, "Is Team Clinton Campaigning Against President Obama On Iran Diplomacy?" by Robert Naiman, relies on an obvious error in the transcript from last week's debate to score a point for Bernie Sanders. The HuffPo piece says Clinton's team attacked Bernie unfairly for supporting President Obama's efforts to engage Iran.
None of it is true.
HuffPo claims that President Obama called for the restoration of diplomatic relations with Iran on January 17, the date of the debate.
Wouldn't HuffPo have reported such a newsworthy announcement, if it really happened? It would have been a major news story around the world, if the President said it.
To support its fabrication for the benefit of Bernie, HuffPo's writer only has a rather obvious error in the January 17 debate transcript. It was Andrea Mitchell who put the words in the President's mouth (if you believe the transcript) during a question about Iran.
Here's the video clip:
Andrea’s question begins with a summary of the President’s statement earlier that day.
“Senator Sanders, the nuclear deal is now enforced. Iran is getting it's billions of dollars, several Americans who have been held are now going to be heading home. The president said today, "it's a good day. It's a good day for diplomacy.”
Then she asks:
“Is it time now to restore diplomatic relations for the first time since 1979 and actually re- opened a U.S. Embassy in Tehran.”
But the transcript says:
“It's a time now to restore diplomatic relations for the first time since 1979 and actually re- opened a U.S. Embassy in Tehran."
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The President did have good news earlier that day about the release of five Americans who had been held in Iran. He never said, ungrammatically or otherwise, “It's a time now to restore diplomatic relations for the first time since 1979 and actually re- opened a U.S. Embassy in Tehran." He never said anything like it. The transcript is posted on the White House website.
The President was optimistic but cautious. In the video clip, he speaks about significant differences that remain between the US and Iran. Tough talk is sometimes a part of diplomacy.
Of course, even as we implement the nuclear deal and welcome our Americans home, we recognize that there remain profound differences between the United States and Iran. We remain steadfast in opposing Iran’s destabilizing behavior elsewhere, including its threats against Israel and our Gulf partners, and its support for violent proxies in places like Syria and Yemen.
We still have sanctions on Iran for its violations of human rights, for its support of terrorism, and for its ballistic missile program. And we will continue to enforce these sanctions, vigorously. Iran’s recent missile test, for example, was a violation of its international obligations.
And as a result, the United States is imposing sanctions on individuals and companies working to advance Iran’s ballistic missile program. And we are going to remain vigilant about it. We're not going to waver in the defense of our security or that of our allies and partners.
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Hillary Clinton supports the President’s multi-lateral approach to diplomacy and she played a key role to bring Iran to the table for the P5+1 nuclear non-proliferation deal. She spoke about it in 2012 while she was still Secretary of State.
One, Iran’s nuclear activities. How were we going to confront what was a clear threat? How could we unify the international community so they were not either on the sidelines or actively trying to undermine our diplomatic efforts?
So what we did was to first decide we had to give diplomacy a real chance. And President Obama extended an open hand to the Iranian people. In our public diplomacy, we used every channel, from satellite TV and Twitter, to old-fashioned snail mail. We cemented our partnership with European allies. We reengaged with institutions like the International Atomic Energy Agency. We convinced the entire Security Council, including Russia and China, to enact the most onerous sanctions that ever had been and to keep up the pressure.
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It’s ridiculous for anyone to suggest that Bernie is on board with Obama and that Clinton is not while citing an objective that isn’t even part of the current administration’s foreign policy. I’d count on Hillary Clinton, working with partners and allies to restore diplomatic relations with Iran. She’s right that Bernie Sanders isn’t suited for foreign policy.
I notice that he has people around him who see grievances where there are none and he doesn’t acknowledge his vote in favor of the 2001 AUMF which began the Endless War on Terror and the War in Afghanistan. He would be a foreign policy nightmare for the US.
For those who would like to know more about the ongoing diplomatic initiative with Iran, I recommend the excellent interview that appeared in the New Yorker a month ago. Robin Wright is the founder of the Iran Primer, the place to go for news about Iran. Javad Zarif is the candid and interesting Foreign Minister of Iran. The tweet links to the interview.