Hey, Sen. Kerry has an Op-Ed in the NYT on Iran!

He also knows this: on Monday, one leading neocon position was that they wanted Ahmadinejad to win because that would give them a chance to bomb Iran or allow Israel to, and because it was naive folly to believe there could be any opening for democracy in Iran. Once they realized that this looked and was objectively vile, as well as being empirically wrong, most changed tack and argued that Obama wasn't doing enough to support the revolution. The difference lies in their cynicism not my incoherence.

John Kerry is RIGHT: This is an "Iranian Moment"

I am really proud of Senator John Kerry for getting out into the public sphere and explaining to Americans that the US needs to be cautious and nuanced at this fragile moment in Iran's political course.

Barack Obama was wrong to comment at all in his offhanded comparison of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mir-Hossein Mousavi. Many Iranians felt as if Obama -- who has invested so heavily in trying to communicate with Iranian citizens in the past -- dissed their aspirations for change.

That said, America ought not to be injecting itself into Iran's political debate either in ways that make it an easy target for Ahmadinejad's thugs or in ways that undermine the democratic and reform aspirations of the impressive, risk-taking protesters.

John Kerry, who chairs the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, shared the following on CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer:

Time for an Israeli Strike?

By John R. Bolton
Thursday, July 2, 2009

With Iran's hard-line mullahs and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps unmistakably back in control, Israel's decision of whether to use military force against Tehran's nuclear weapons program is more urgent than ever.

Iran's nuclear threat was never in doubt during its presidential campaign, but the post-election resistance raised the possibility of some sort of regime change. That prospect seems lost for the near future or for at least as long as it will take Iran to finalize a deliverable nuclear weapons capability.

Accordingly, with no other timely option, the already compelling logic for an Israeli strike is nearly inexorable. Israel is undoubtedly ratcheting forward its decision-making process. President Obama is almost certainly not.

He still wants "engagement" (a particularly evocative term now) with Iran's current regime. Last Thursday, the State Department confirmed that Secretary Hillary Clinton spoke to her Russian and Chinese counterparts about "getting Iran back to negotiating on some of these concerns that the international community has." This is precisely the view of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, reflected in the Group of Eight communique the next day. Sen. John Kerry thinks the recent election unpleasantness in Tehran will delay negotiations for only a few weeks.