crossposted on Daily Kos
I think I have it figured out- the reason Barack Obama was for it before he went silent on it before he was against it. "It", of course, is the designation of Iran as a threat in the Mideast, and the various military, diplomatic, and economic sanctions proposed to deter its growing influence.
In November 2006, Barack was all for deterring Iran (and Syria) by maintaining a military presence in Iraq. In April 2007 he co-sponsored Senate Bill 970, which designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, and proposing trade, banking, and diplomatic sanctions against Iran as a way of increasing pressure on Iran to negotiate.
But then things changed. When the Kyl-Lieberman amendment was proposed last month addressing the situation with Iran, Foreign Relations Committee member Obama was conspicuously absent as Hillary Clinton and his other Senate Democratic colleagues negotiated a removal of offending sections to "support the use... of military instruments in support of the policy" to contain Iran's influence, and bring it into alignment with Barack's previously stated position. And he was absent for the vote on this amendment.
But this was not the final episode in this curious tale.
Even after the initial support of sanctions against Iran followed by the sudden disappearance of words and actions supporting them during the Kyl-Lieberman debate, negotiations, and vote, things changed
Just yesterday, after a total silence of two weeks on all things Kyl-Lieberman following the vote,
, saying...
...just last month, the Senate voted for an amendment that raises the risk that we could repeat the mistake of Iraq. Here is why this amendment is so reckless. It opens with seventeen findings that highlight Iran’s influence inside of Iraq. Then it says we have to structure our military presence inside Iraq to counter Iran. It goes on to say that it is "a critical national interest of the United States" to prevent the Iranian government from exerting influence inside Iraq. Why is this amendment so dangerous? Because George Bush and Dick Cheney could use this language to justify keeping our troops in Iraq as long as they can point to a threat from Iran. And because they could use this language to justify an attack on Iran as a part of the ongoing war in Iraq.
But wait. Let's look at his position in November 2006. at that time, his words in a policy speech were:
We would make clear in such a scenario that the United States would not be maintaining permanent military bases in Iraq, but would do what was necessary to help prevent a total collapse of the Iraqi state and further polarization of Iraqi society. Such a reduced but active presence will also send a clear message to hostile countries like Iran and Syria that we intend to remain a key player in this region... Make no mistake- if the Iranians and Syrians think they can use Iraq as another Afghanistan or a staging area from which to attack Israel or other countries, they are badly mistaken. It is in our national interest to prevent this from happening. We should also make it clear that, even after we begin to draw down forces, we will still work with our allies in the region to combat international terrorism and prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. It is simply not productive for us not to engage in discussions with Iran and Syria on an issue of such fundamental importance to all of us.
Strange, no? In November 2006, Obama was calling for a military presence in Iraq sufficient to deter Iran (and Syria) from meddling in Iraqi affairs. We as a nation were going to "prevent it from happening." In April 2007, he co-sponsored a resolution which reiterated the threat of Iran, and proposed working with the UN, international bankers, and other countries to deny Iran access to trade and other economic and diplomatic privileges as a method of ensuring compliance.
This is in marked contrast to his statement yesterday condemning structuring our military presence in in Iraq in a manner to counter Iran, claiming that such a structuring would allow President Bush to justify keeping our troops in Iraq as long as the Iranian threat continued, and even allow him to attack Iran.
So why the sudden switch? What could explain this puzzling behavioral pattern of supporting military and other deterrents, then a long period of silence and inactivity, followed by an emerging contradictory position?
One possibility: dissociative amnesia.
This tragic mental disorder is characterized by pervasive memory deficits too significant to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness. One of the various subtypes, systematized amnesia, is characterized by a loss of memory for a specific category of information, as we are observing in this case. It is theorized that the precipitating event in such episodes may be some sudden traumatic event...
But Barack Obama had been showing signs of strain for at least the last two weeks. Possible prodromal symptoms included his mysterious silence during the Kyl-Lieberman vote. Barack Obama was AWOL while Hillary Clinton, working with her Senate colleagues, was marking up the bill to de-fang it by removing Lieberman's objectionable sections which would advocate "support (of) the use... of military instruments in support of the policy" to contain Iran's influence Despite his membership on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which would indicate to most reasonable observers that this matter was indeed some of his business, Barack Obama was...somewhere else.
Quietly somewhere else. Invisibly somewhere else.
He managed to make a statement objecting to the amendment 10 hours after it had been voted on, and looked like he was on the mend, but then... amnesic symptomatology manifested itself again. For the next 14 days, from September 26 to October 10, Barack Obama made twenty-four public speaking engagements in his pursuit of his party's nomination and said... NOTHING AT ALL on Kyl-Lieberman. Zip. Nada. It was as if he had totally repressed all memory of this event.
Finally, on 10/11/07, another traumatic event...
Fox News poll - 10/11/07
... snapped him out of what may have been a fugue state. Barack Obama spoke, but it was like listening to a different person speaking, not the Barack Obama of November 2006 and April 2007. Now, all of a sudden, instead of supporting his previous position of maintaining a "reduced but active presence" and "doing what is necessary" to "send a clear message to hostile countries like Iran and Syria that we intend to remain a key player in this region", it seems that the new version of Barack Obama now believes that maintaining troops in Iraq will only give George W. Bush an excuse to attack Iran. Poor Barack. The poor man obviously has no memory at all of his previous position on this important foreign policy issue.
But don't despair. You CAN do something to prevent the tragedy of Americans being afflicted by this disabling disorder. Please, please give generously to the National Dissociative Amnesia Foundation. These fine people are working night and day to avoid the tragedy of amnesic episodes. Some day, they'll find a cure.
UPDATE: Check out Jeff Dinelli's take on this over at The Left Coaster in his post, The Audacity of Hypocrisy and Distortion
Also, Wolf Blitzer asked Barack Obama why he missed the vote. Obama tries to explain why this vote was not worth showing up for then, but is so important now...
BLITZER: Let's talk about that specifically right now. The other day the senate voted 76-22 in favor of what's called the Lieberman/Kyl amendment that said, "It is the sense of the Senate that the United States should designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist organization." Senator Clinton voted in favor of that resolution. You were absent. You didn't show up for that vote, but you say you would have voted against it. First of all, why didn't you come to the Senate and make your vote?
OBAMA: Well, I was in New Hampshire at the time. This is one of the problems with running for president. You can't always anticipate which votes are which, but I put out a statement at the time stating that this was a bad idea and that I would have voted against it and here's why.
We know in the past that the president has used some of the flimsiest excuses to try to move his agenda, regardless of what Congress says. We know that there was embodied in this legislation or this resolution sent to the senate, language that would say our Iraqi troop structures should in part be determined by our desire to deal with Iran. Now, if you know that in the past the president has taken a blank check and cashed it, we don't want to repeat that mistake.
BLITZER: Wouldn't that vote, Senator, this is what your critics are hammering away at you. Wouldn't that vote be more important than campaigning in New Hampshire, given the significance of what you're describing right now?
OBAMA: We don't always know what votes are scheduled and when. If you're in New Hampshire, then it's hard to get back, but this wasn't a close vote. What it should have been, though, is a vote that sends a message to the American people that we're not going to keep on giving George Bush a blank check. That's, unfortunately, what we did.
link
(OK- i'll break it down for you humor-impaired types. the "dissociative amnesia" stuff is snark, and is a tongue-in-cheek effort to explain barack obama's remarkably agile recent political behavior, not an effort to make any statements about his actual mental condition. if you want my serious opinion, barack's a fine, well-adjusted, healthy democrat, one of the many excellent candidates we are blessed with this election cycle, and my number two choice for the nomination. i think that his original position re: iran is essentially the same as hillary's, and ought to be in the party platform next summer- economic and diplomatic sanctions, engagement with the UN and other international bodies to address the nuclear threat, and strong diplomatic initiatives to engage the iranians in meaningful bilateral negotiations instead of pouting like george w. has been doing the past few years.)
