The vice-president suggested recently that the Obama administration is reversing Bush policy on Iran. That's false, as Mona Charen shows today:
"Our administration is reviewing policy toward Iran,” Biden declared, “but this much I can say: We are willing to talk.” Unlike whom? Obama’s predecessor? The Bush administration held at least 28 separate meetings between Americans of ambassadorial rank and Iranian officials. According to the Middle East Forum, more than 16 meetings were held in Geneva and Paris from November 2001 through December 2002 between Ryan Crocker, then the deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, and senior Iranian foreign-ministry officials. A number of high-level direct negotiations were conducted in 2003, and a number of indirect contacts were maintained through the Europeans between 2003 and 2007. In March 2007, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, held a meeting with an Iranian team at a conference of Iraq’s neighbors in Baghdad. Khalilzad’s successor, Crocker, also met with the Iranian ambassador. Thus the U.S. gave full backing to a (fruitless) European Union initiative to negotiate with Iran about its nuclear program."
Conservatives and Republicans must not let the Obama Democrats get away with falsifying the historical record. And that goes for Obama's claims in recent days that free-market and laissez-faire economics are at fault for our current economic troubles--the Bush administration (unfortunately) grew government in the last 8 years; they didn't reduce it (does ANYONE remember October's financial bailout legislation????)
