Romney: Outrageous Ahmadinejad Would Ever Be At Ground Zero
Gov. Romney: Ahmadinejad Should Not Be At U.N.
Gov. Romney: Ahmadinejad Shouldn't Be Allowed At Ground Zero
"Second, we must impose diplomatic isolation of Iran's Government. Ahmadinejad should not be provided the trappings, respect, and recognition of a responsible head of state as he travels. In fact, when former Iranian President Khatami traveled to Boston last year to lecture at Harvard University, I denied him state police security for his visit. The real question is: why was he invited in the first place? Ahmadinejad is even more strident than Khatami. He should neither be invited to foreign capitals nor feted by foreign leaders. This would have important symbolic significance, not just to Ahmadinejad, but to the people of Iran.
"Someone else considering a run for the White House recently addressed the Iran issue, and you won't be surprised to find out that I don't agree with her approach.
"In a speech last night in New York City, Senator Hillary Clinton said that she needs to quote 'understand' unquote Iran better – and to help her with her education process, that we should quote 'engage Iran' unquote.
"Friends, someone who doesn't understand Iran hasn't been paying attention – at this point, we don't need a listening tour with Iran. While I support gathering intelligence about our adversaries in any way possible, engaging is not the right policy. To the contrary, economic and diplomatic isolation must be our priority.
"Indeed, she argued that our strategy of engagement with the Soviet Union during the Cold War was a model for how we could deal with Iran. Now, for all the former Soviet Union's flaws, at least they maintained a commitment to national survival. They were not suicidal. The same cannot be said about the Iranian regime. And we must stop making analogies that are disconnected from the world in which we operate.
"And someone who wants to engage Iran displays a troubling timidity towards a terrible threat."
Governor Mitt Romney
In an interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos on February 17, he characterized Iran as "a genocidal nation, a suicidal nation, in some respects."
"Well," replied Romney, "it's a nation where people participate in suicide bombing and that kind of a suggestion, I think it was former President Rafsanjani who talked about Israel being a one-bomb nation, meaning they could not survive one bomb, but they, Iran, could survive one bomb. It's like, 'Are you kidding? Are you suggesting that you'd be willing to take a bomb in order to eliminate another people?' This is a nation where the genocidal inclination is really frightening and having a nation of this nature develop nuclear weaponry is unacceptable to this country and to the Middle East."
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