Garance Franke-Ruta

OFF THE TABLE. Well, whaddya know — one potential ’08 candidate has already taken a military strike on Iran off the table. Republican Chuck Hagel said the following, according to a Think Progress summary of an April 2006 Reuters story: �I do not expect any kind of military solution on the Iran issue,� Hagel told […]

DEMOCRACY IS IN THE STREETS. Kenneth Baer and Matt Yglesias are also digging into the question of whether or not Democratic presidential candidates should or will take the military option off the table when discussing Iran. What I’m not seeing from any of the candidates, though, is one of the most compelling arguments against military […]

THE IRAN OPTIONS. I spent much of the day at the National Iranian American Council/New America Foundation conference, “US-Iran Relations: collision, stand-off, or convergence?,” about which more tomorrow, so am just getting around to Ezra‘s item. I’d like to agree with the commentator who argued that it would be a politically disqualifying act for any […]

RICHARD COHEN COMES CLEAN. And does so with self-deprecating grace: how come [Clinton] now says she did not think Bush, armed with a congressional resolution, would hurry to war? I certainly did. It was about the only thing I got right about the war, which, the record will show, I supported. If I were running […]

OBAMA & DEAN ON IRAN. Not to run this into the ground, but looking into what various politicians, left and right, have actually said about Iran has proved surprisingly eye-opening, and made me think perhaps we were all being a bit hard on John Edwards by focusing only his comments to Herzliya last week. For […]

MITT ON IRAN. And here is Mitt Romney on how to handle Iran, in remarks at the Herzliya conference in Israel, where he was the only one of the five American presidential contenders to deliver his speech in person: First, we must continue tighten economic sanctions. Our model should be at least as severe to […]

WHAT REAL HAWKISHNESS LOOKS LIKE. Lest everyone get so entangled in parsing the statements of Democrats that they forget the country contains a lot of people to the right of Iowa caucus-goers, here’s what a real Iran hawk sounds like. Here’s John McCain on Meet the Press in 2004: SEN. McCAIN: [T]his is a harsh […]

NEGOTIATIONS ARE TO BUSH�S RIGHT? Since Matthew Yglesias picked up my item yesterday and linked to his own recent Guardian Online column about Hillary Clinton�s hawkishness as a reply, I wanted to note two instances in his column where I believe he is playing by Clinton Rules in attacking her. Matt writes: �From smacking down […]

PACE SHOOTS DOWN THE ANONYMICE. The A.P. reports: Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. forces hunting down militant networks that produced roadside bombs had arrested Iranians and that some of the material used in the devices were made in Iran. ”That does not translate that the Iranian government per […]

THROWING IN THE TOWEL. Blue Mass. Group has the backstory on why John Edwards blogger Amanda Marcotte resigned yesterday. –Garance Franke-Ruta