'I'll go toe-to-toe with rogue states': Obama
Democrat presidential hopeful Barack Obama cast himself as the leader the US needed to stand up to and engage renegade nations such as North Korea.
’We need a president who’ll have the strength and courage to go toe-to-toe with the leaders of rogue nations, because that’s what it takes to protect our security,“ the Illinois senator told Democrats at a rally in Des Moines, Iowa.
“That’s what I’ll do as your next commander in chief.”
Obama and rival Hillary Clinton have had a running argument since clashing in last week’s debate over how far the US should be willing to go in its diplomacy with countries such as Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea.
After a viewer asked the Democratic presidential candidates if they would be willing to meet those nations’ leaders, Obama said it was a disgrace that the US would not hold talks with them.
For role models, he invoked late presidents John F Kennedy and Ronald Reagan for their Cold War diplomacy.
Clinton, who has criticised the Bush administration for not engaging Iran and Syria directly, said she would not meet the leaders of those five nations in the first year of her presidency before knowing what their intentions were. After the debate, Clinton called Obama naïve.
But last night Obama said he would be willing to meet the leaders – without conditions – in the first year of his presidency, contrary to “the chattering class” in the nation’s capital who “want to focus, like they always do, on who’s up and who’s down”.
Obama cited Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural address saying that the nation must never negotiate out of fear, but also never fear to negotiate.
“I was called irresponsible and naïve because I believe that there is nobody we can’t talk to,” said Obama, drawing loud cheers.
“We’ve got nothing to fear as long as we know who we are and what we stand for and our values.”
Obama said his campaign was about “turning the page on a failed foreign policy and having the strength to engage our adversaries and protect American interests around the globe”.
When dealing with renegade nations, Obama said, the Bush administration had mistakenly been led by a “guiding diplomatic principle” that it could punish a nation by refusing to talk.
“I am confident we can go before the world and talk to the worst dictators and tell them we don’t believe in your values, we don’t believe in your human rights violations, we don’t believe in you exporting terrorism, but if you are willing to work with us in a better direction then we’re willing to talk,” Obama said. “We shouldn’t be afraid.”
