Republican presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee, recently spoke up about the Bush Administration’s foreign policy problem:

“They’ve done a poor job of communicating and consulting countries much as they have, frankly, the American people,” Huckabee told about 150 people at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a center-right think tank in Washington. “Our prestige in the world has been marred.” […]

“When we first invaded Afghanistan, Iran helped, especially in dealings with their ally, the Northern Alliance,” he said. “They wanted to join us in fighting al Qaida. …The CIA and State Department supported a partnership. Some in the White House and beyond did not. And when President Bush included Iran in the axis of evil, everything went downhill pretty fast.” […]

“The administration has quite properly said it will not take the military option off the table. But if we don’t put some other options on the table, eventually the military option becomes the only viable one. Right now we’re proceeding down only one track,” he said.

I’m glad to see that he reaches far enough back to bring up President Bush’s “axis of evil” formulation. After September 11, 2001, it was commonly thought that Iran had the potential to become an ally of the U.S. in the middle east. The Iranian government wanted to help us with the war in Afghanistan. Students and younger Iranian citizens were growing increasingly displeased with the rule of the Ayatollahs. It was a time when Iran had a chance to become a more modern, open nation.

I remember watching President Bush give his State of the Union Address in January of 2002, where he declared Iran part of the “axis of evil.” Any post-9/11 good feelings I had about the man went out the window that night when he unveiled his completely thoughtless foreign policy.

But how did the Iranian people feel about this? I think they told us when they went from electing the reformist Mohammad Khatami in 2001 to electing Mahmoud “let’s wipe Israel off the map” Ahmadinejad in 2005.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007 at 7:15 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.