 CANTERBURY, N.H. (AP) - Hillary Rodham Clinton called Barack Obama naive when he said he'd meet with the leaders of Iran without precondition. Now she says she'd do the same thing, too.
During a Democratic presidential debate in July, Obama said he would be willing to meet without precondition in the first year of his presidency with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea.
Standing with him on stage, Clinton said she would first send envoys to test the waters and called Obama's position irresponsible and naive.
But asked about it Thursday by a voter, the New York senator said twice that she, too, would negotiate with Iran ``with no conditions.'' ``I would engage in negotiations with Iran, with no conditions, because we don't really understand how Iran works. We think we do, from the outside, but I think that is misleading,'' she said at an apple orchard.
| We understand the basics. Iran is a thugocracry with religious thugs in charge. They're stealing pretty much everything that isn't nailed down. They're running the economy for their own benefit. They're putting their trusted lackeys, friends and children in charge of everything. They're keeping their people in line with brutal repression and increasingly hysterical threats of outsiders coming to invade their country. Did I miss anything important? |
She characterized her recent vote to label Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization as a way to gain leverage for those negotiations.
Obama and other rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination have been criticizing Clinton's vote late last month in favor of the resolution, comparing it to her 2002 vote authorizing the war in Iraq. They have suggested that the Iran vote was the first step toward a military invasion there.
| Not necessarily an invasion, but they finally got one right: it is indeed a step on the road to the use of force. And getting near time to do it. |
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