It was Iran, as well as Iraq, Darfur and other crisis locales, that caused Bill Richardson, the former UN envoy and now New Mexico governor, to tell the assembled Democrats, “Experience in foreign affairs has never been more important.”
Richardson touted his credentials as a globe-trotting ambassador who has negotiated with the North Koreans, Yugoslavia’s late leader Slobodan Milosevic, and others.
He also won a standing ovation from the crowd when he spoke about getting American troops out of Iraq, declaring “a struggle between a country’s warring factions, where both sides hate the United States, is not worthy of one more lost American life.”
In that light, Richardson was exactly the right candidate to whom to pose the Iran questions that were troubling some Democrats at the DNC event.
“We’re at a very dangerous level right now because we have a policy of confrontation and not a policy of dialogue,” Richardson said.
He called for a “tough smart dialogue” with the regime in Tehran; "I would open a dialogue with some of the members of their foreign ministry; I know some of them; I negotiated with them before, when I was a congressman.”
He said the Bush administration has been “strengthening the hard-liners in Iran who, I believe, want a confrontation with the United States, like the president of Iran (Ahmadinejad). Instead we should be speaking to the Democratic forces in Iran: young people, intellectuals, and the business community.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16961133/Richardson is saying much of what Clark has been saying regarding Iran, and like Clark he has the experience to back it up. I like that.
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