Lieberman, Kyl And Bears: Oh No...

Two opponents of Hillary Clinton are attempting to link the sanctions imposed by the administration against Iran today to a failure of judgment by Sen. Hillary Clinton.

There's no polling to suggest that Democratic primary voters link the saber-tapping against Iran to the run up to the war with Iraq, but Edwards, Joe Biden, Dodd and Barack Obama are beginning to fill in the picture.

First, Dodd:

"The glaring omission of any new diplomatic measures by the President today is the reason I voted, and urged my colleagues to vote, against the Kyl -Lieberman resolution on September 26.

"The aggressive actions taken today by the Administration absent any corresponding diplomatic action is exactly what we all should have known was coming when we considered our vote on the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment, and smacks, frankly, of a dangerous step toward armed confrontation with Iran."

Then Edwards:

“Today, George Bush and Dick Cheney again rattled the sabers in their march toward military action against Iran. The Bush Administration has been making plans to attack Iran for many months. At this critical moment, we need strong leadership to stand against George Bush’s dangerous ‘preventive war’ policy, which makes force the first option, not the last.

“I learned a clear lesson from the lead up to the Iraq War in 2002: if you give this president an inch, he will take a mile - and launch a war. Senator Clinton apparently learned a different lesson. Instead of blocking George Bush’s new march to war, Senator Clinton and others are enabling him once again.

Substantively, Lieberman-Kyl is not the 2002 vote. But politically, it's a minefield for Clinton. The Bush Administration seems not to be interested in proposing any new diplomatic initiatives. So every action they take will play into the hands of Clinton's rivals. They'll say: "Ok, Hillary, you promised us that Lieberman-Kyl was aimed at promoting a diplomatic course, but the Bush Administration seems to have a very different interpretation."
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