SAY YOU, SAY ME. Since we're all about The Plank today, I'd like to somewhat belatedly endorse John Judis' item from yesterday on John Edwards's recent pandering about how he would handle Iran. Judis, one of the most trenchant critics of Bush's imperial foreign policy at The New Republic (and on Middle East affairs for The Prospect), wrote: "Edwards continues to fly blind on foreign policy. He says whatever he thinks an audience wants to hear." It was eye-opening how Edwards' newly freed authentic self just happened to express so exactly what such radically different audiences wanted to hear. Because it wasn't like he spoke to just any foreign policy conference in Israel. The only other American politicians who presented at the 7th Herzliya Conference on the Balance of Israel�s National Security, at which Edwards delivered his remarks by satellite, were Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Mitt Romney. Which is to say, a significant chunk of the Republican '08 field. As for American speakers who had not held office, this year's Herzliya roster included such luminaries as Richard Perle, James Woolsey, Charles Murray, and Alan Dershowitz. That should give you some sense of the audience, as might panels on the Iranian nuclear threat from conferences in 2006 and 2003, which featured such presentations as Michael Ledeen on "How to Liberate Iran". Indeed, as far as I can tell from the past conference agendas, the only elected Democrat to have previously addressed the Herzliya Conference was former president Jimmy Carter, who could hardly have been accused of pandering to the audience when he spoke in 2006. Also, contra Matt Stoller, my foreign policy sources say that Edwards' more recent remarks on Iran are not necessarily being interpreted as a backpeddling or repudiation of his Herzliya stand. "I don't see any real difference or evolution," a source familiar with the Herzliya crowd told me. Rather, the more temperate rhetoric Edwards has been using with American audiences -- and, specifically, liberal American ones -- is understood as what American politicians have to do to win office. But unless and until Edwards takes any options off the table (an approach he told Ezra would be "foolish") we have to assume he meant what he said at Herzliya, even if he's chosen to court the blog-reading Democratic primary audience in a more gentle voice. After all, as Edwards explained at Herzliya, Americans have yet to be "educated to come along with what needs to be done with Iran."
--Garance Franke-Ruta
