Stop the War Threats, Emphasize Diplomacy with Iran, Says Bob Barr
From Barr 2008:
Washington is filled with rumors of pending American or Israeli military action against Iran, says Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party candidate for President. But “an attack on Iran would be unnecessary, counterproductive, costly and dangerous,” he warns.
Our own intelligence services tell us that Iran is not actively working to build a nuclear bomb and is years away from having nuclear weapons capability. “There is no imminent threat, and only an imminent threat can ever justify a preemptive strike,” insists Barr. “The tragedy in Iraq demonstrates the counterproductive consequences of initiating war without any compelling justification.”
Although Sen. John McCain claims to want diplomacy to work, he has joked about attacking Iran, singing “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” to the old Beach Boys’ tune Barbara Ann. Sen. Barack Obama has raised the issue of talking with hostile regimes essentially at any time and any place with any hostile regime, but nevertheless pointed to the possibility of military action when he spoke to AIPAC. “Neither Sen. McCain nor Sen. Obama can be trusted to keep the peace,” says Barr.
The potential consequences of war, Barr explains, “include attacks on our troops stationed in Iraq, threats to the Gulf oil trade, terrorist attacks around the world, subversion of friendly Arab and Muslim governments, destruction of the democracy movement within Iran, and enduring hostility towards America throughout much of the world.” To risk paying such a price without attempting to deal directly with the Iranian regime “would be counterproductive, costly, and dangerous. Even as our hand-picked and supported Prime Minister Maliki in Iraq talks with Iranian leaders, and even as the Olmert government in Israel talks with the Assad regime in Syria, the Bush Administration refuses to engage one of the largest and most important countries in that part of the world – Iran. This makes no sense.”
Moreover, notes Barr, a former House member, “the power to declare war on Iran lies with the Congress, not the president.” Unfortunately, presidents have routinely abused their role as commander-in-chief of the military. “The president is to direct any war, but the Constitution vests the power to decide if there will be a war in the legislative branch,” emphasizes Barr.
Defusing the confrontation with Iran will not be easy, notes Barr, “but any nonproliferation strategy must begin with diplomacy and include a willingness to address the other side.” In this way President George W. Bush has failed, and Sen. McCain is set to follow in his footsteps. Sen. Obama may be more inclined to try a new approach, but “he is a weather vane, pushed around by the lightest political breezes,” says Barr. “We need new leadership that is both strong and thoughtful to meet today’s many serious foreign policy challenges, such as Iran.”
Barr represented the 7th District of Georgia in the U. S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003, where he served as a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, as Vice-Chairman of the Government Reform Committee, and as a member of the Committee on Financial Services. Prior to his congressional career, Barr was appointed by President Reagan to serve as the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, and also served as an official with the CIA for eight years. He has graduate and undergraduate degrees in international relations and has lived in both Iran and Iraq.
Since leaving Congress, Barr has been practicing law and has teamed up with groups ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to the American Conservative Union to actively advocate every American citizens’ right to privacy and other civil liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Along with this, Bob is committed to helping elect leaders who will strive for smaller government, lower taxes and abundant individual freedom.
June 10th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Seems a little thin on content.
I am disappointed that Barr did not take this opportunity to condemn the Bush administration’s threats of further economic sanctions. To a Libertarian, these should be viewed with just about as much repugnance as threats of bombing – as the effect is often of the same magnitude.
June 10th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Is there anything that anybody can do that meets your approval? From a casual observer of this site, it seems the only thing you seem to do is tear down people in the party. Why don’t you put your money where your mouth is and run for a position in the LP to make some of the changes you’d like to see instead of just being a blog-bully?
June 10th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Kudos to Bob Barr from this long time anti-war Libertarian. It’s a great message that Americans can understand.
June 10th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Jim: Susan DID run for a position…and was defeated.
June 10th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Uh, Jim, Susan has, including running for LNC at the last convention. She’s also a very active party member.
June 10th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
“There is no imminent threat, and only an imminent threat can ever justify a preemptive strike,” insists Barr.
This is the only thing wrong with this release. NO threat can justify an preemptive initiation of force on anybody. This is more of the “He hit me back first” mentality that plagues the pro-war crowd. Defense is reactive, not proactive in the use of force. Proactive use of force is aggression. The moment they shoot at us, then it is defense, not a second earlier.
June 10th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
re: “NO threat can justify an preemptive initiation of force on anybody.”
I would consider nuclear missiles crossing the Pacific and aimed at US cities a valid imminent threat that we should act upon.
Likewise, if there were 30,000 tanks on the American border, barrels pointed in our direction, and sappers were destroying the border fence, that would also be a valid imminent threat.
If Chinese planes are dropping paratroopers over major American cities, I’d call that a valid imminent threat—even if no Chinese boots have hit the ground yet.
I guess if a bomb is still in the air over New York City, force can’t be used because no one will die for at least five more seconds.
June 10th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Agree with Michael’s comment (re: pre-emptive strike)
Jim writes From a casual observer of this site, it seems the only thing you seem to do is tear down people in the party.
Thanks for pointing that out, Jim. I do try to emphasize positive as well as areas for improvement, but it may very well be that much more of the negative is in evidence here. I appreciate knowing that’s the impression you have gotten, though it’s not pleasant to hear, of course.
I did run for a spot on the national committee, and did fairly well, but not well enough to take a seat. I am very active in North Carolina’s LP, where I save most of my (considerable) charm and cuddliness for speaking to total strangers about libertarianism. My comrades I feel like I can take a bit sterner/more direct tone with, but you remind me that it’s just as important to cultivate good feelings with allies. Thanks!
June 10th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
DD, I’m not sure of Michael’s response, but I do understand that it’s a matter of judgment. There is some concern because of Barr’s lack of specificity (and his history) that he could mean the usual sort of thing by ‘threat’ – that is, any country that has nuclear weapons that the US government doesn’t want to have them is an imminent threat. Because Barr was not specific, may people will wonder what he means by ‘threat’.
June 10th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
So I’m at the local ATM. A guy walks up and produces a revolver aimed right at my gut. If I were a pacifist, which I’m not, I would hand over what the robber wants and he would probably still shoot me just for fun. If I had a CCP and was trained for close quarter combat, which I am, I would produce my own pistol and stop the robbery dead in its tracks. I wouldn’t wait for the robber to SHOOT FIRST.
If a POTUS had credible intelligence reports stating ICBM’s armed with nuclear, biological or chemical warheads were being fueled and aimed at targets in CONUS with an ETA of 15 minutes, I think I would agree with a preemptive first strike. Go Bob!
June 10th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
GeorgiaJaw, there’s a helluva difference between street crime and international war.
First of all, if a thug is pointing a gun at you, that’s no threat. That’s a crime.
Second of all, if a nation points weapons at you, that’s a threat. But they haven’t shot yet. Need I remind you that the Soviets over the whole Cold War had nukes aimed at us in a constatn state of fueling/defueling, mainly because that was how they were designed and it was necessary for them to do so? Yet we did not strike the Soviets over that! Why not? Because it would have been suicidal and we knew it, and so did they, which is why they did not strike either. Contrast that with Iran, who is not a threat for nukes in the first place, and Iraq never was either. If Bush wanted to strike Iran because Ahm-dinnerjacket was part of the group of militants wanted for a legitimate act of war, taking our embassy officials hostage in 1979, then he might have a legitimate case. but it would still take a declaration of war.
June 10th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
If a POTUS had credible intelligence reports stating ICBM’s armed with nuclear, biological or chemical warheads were being fueled and aimed at targets in CONUS with an ETA of 15 minutes, I think I would agree with a preemptive first strike.
I wouldn’t call either your response to the gunman or the ICBM’s ‘preemptive’. Preemptive means, to me, something more like you seeing a guy with a gun while you’re standing at the ATM and deciding to shoot him rather than risk the possibility that he may be planning to rob you.
I am not sure what ‘preemptive’ means to Barr. We are left fairly unclear at what point he would consider an attack to be a good idea. I think the use of the word ‘preemptive’ confuses things precisely because it is taken to mean ‘before an attack’.
June 10th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
For Denver Delegate:
“I would consider nuclear missiles crossing the Pacific and aimed at US cities a valid imminent threat that we should act upon.”
Nope, that’s an act of war, not a threat of war. Big difference. The shot has been taken, even if it takes 20 minutes to reach the target.
“Likewise, if there were 30,000 tanks on the American border, barrels pointed in our direction, and sappers were destroying the border fence, that would also be a valid imminent threat.”
The tanks on the border are a threat, but why are they there, exercises, perhaps, which happens all the time, even by our own troops? By itself that is no act of war, even if it makes the neighbors nervous.
But destroying the border fence, yes, that is a sovereignty violation and is an act of war.
“If Chinese planes are dropping paratroopers over major American cities, I’d call that a valid imminent threat—even if no Chinese boots have hit the ground yet.”
Nope, that’s an act of war sicne they violated our sovereign airspace.
“I guess if a bomb is still in the air over New York City, force can’t be used because no one will die for at least five more seconds.”
See the missle example debunking above.
Amazing how people cannot tell the difference between potential acts and actual acts. Potential acts still my not necessarily happen. Actual acts have happenend. “Threats” have the potential to become actual acts of war. “Imminent” is a conclusion only and is based on perception only. People thought war over Cuba in 1962 was “imminent”, and they were wrong.
June 10th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
I knew I would draw a response or two from this…
June 10th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
I thought Barr’s statement about Iran was fine. He demonstrated knowledge of the players and dynamics in the region; the consequences of military action and an called for explicit adherance to the Constitution’s war powers.
Given the “axis of evil” propaganda over the past 7 years he can’t say the “Iranians are a fine, peaceloving peoples whose possession of nuclear weapons is their inalienable right.” (even if it is true – why can’t I have nukes if I promise I won’t use them first)
His answers seemed informed and sensible. Nothing wrong with that.
June 10th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
All this discussion about ‘threat’, and ‘act of war’ is so removed from reality, that one wonders if people know anything about Iran. E.g. a nation that has been around for 3000 years. Or, that it has not attackecd anyone since the 1700s, etc.
Take a reality check, visit
http://www.bibijon.org/iranimage/
June 10th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
People equate Iran with Iraq and that’s a dangerous mistake. There are a lot of different underlying issues with Iran and while we should always “carry a big stick” we don’t have to always lay it on the table first.
June 10th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
To Quote Ronald Reagan…
“Freedom has never been so fragile so close to slipping from our grasp as it is this moment. Our Democratic opponents seem unwilling to debate these issues. Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us they have a Utopian solution of peace without victory, they call their policy “accommodation”. And they say if we’ll only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy he’ll forget his evil ways and learn to love us. All who oppose them are indicted as war mongers. By committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now you can give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skins we’re willing to make a deal with your slave masters. Alexander Hamiltion said a nation which can prefer disgrace to danger, is prepared for a master, and deserves one.
Now lets set the record straight…
There’s no argument over the choice between peace and war. But there’s only one guarantee you can have peace and you can have it in the next second…surrender.
Admittedly there’s a risk in any course we follow other than this but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement. And this is the specter our well meaning liberal friends refuse to face, that their policy of accommodation is appeasement. And it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender, If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand, the ultimatum… and what then?
He has told them that we are retreating under the pressure of the war, and some day when it comes time to deliver the final ultimatum our surrender will be voluntary because by that time we will have been weakened from within morally, spiritually and economically. He believes this because from our side he’s heard voices pleading for peace at any price, or as one commentator put it, “he’d rather live on his knees than die on his feet”. And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don’t speak for the rest of us. You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery.
If nothing in life is worth dying for, then when did this begin? Just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses should have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the Pharoes? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the “shot heard round the world”? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazi’s didn’t die in vain.
Where then is the road to peace? Well it’s a simple answer after all. You and I have the courage to say to our enemies there is a price we will not pay there is a point beyond which they must not advance. And in destroying, they would destroy that which represents the ideas that you and I hold dear. This is the meaning, in the phrase of Barry Goldwater, “peace through strength”. Winston Churchill said the destiny of man is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we’re spirits not animals, and he said there’s something going on in time and space and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty. You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We’ll preserve for our children this the last, best hope of man on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”
June 10th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
John, that’s a nice long lecture, and while it has some accuracy, it misses a major point.
Even while at war with our enemies, declared or not, we have been talking to them. Until this administration, that is.
You cannot have accomodation or appeasement, or compromise, or peace, without that diplomatic discussion, even and ESPECIALLY after the bullets start flying.
The error in reasoning is the same one that the Donderos of the world make: that any compromise or negotiation is giving in, giving up, and appeasement in the Chamberlain sense. That is just not true, and history bears it out. Korea 1953 ended the fighting on a compromise that is still in effect today with the DMZ. Desert Storm ended its fighting with a compormise that we let Saddam be and he wouldn’t go after Kuwait again (we screwed that up with our post-WWI-like demands on top of that, but that’s another story.). Grant compromised with Lee at Appotamattox, which allowed the Confederates to simply stop fighting and go home, when Grant could have defeated them to the last man in another week or so. We compromised with Japan to end WWII, probably saving millions of lives in the process (which would have been the death count if we had to invade their home islands, A-bombs or not).
Negotiating from a position of strength is not appeasement or surrender! It is, however, a sign of diplomatic maturity and honor to say, “Enough, let’s end this.” If we sat down at the table with Iran and talked with them, we are still in the position of strength, and it would be the right thing to do. It could even prevent a war that nobody outside 1600PA wants. Iran doesn’t want a war with us, and the American people don’t want war with them. Only the Bush cabal does, under the bogus nuclear weapons excuse and only then over the Caspian oil field of some 400B barrels and a pipeline route.
This proper exercise in doplomacy is what should have been done in the first place, and it has been ignored, because Bush is stuck in kindergarten-playground diplomacy mode, and we live in a grown-up international world. In other words, the actions are the wrong ones, and the rest of the world sees it and knows it.
Barr, to his credit here, sees and acknowledges that. My only dispute was with his preemptive comment, which was dealt with above.
June 10th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
I believe Barr framed this issue well, while establishing both subtly of analysis and a clear direction for foreign policy.
Reading between the lines, there’s a difference between noninterventionism and anti-pre-emption. It’s also a complex world, and many many interlocking treaties and so forth.
June 10th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Oh, yes, the term “a former House member” is weak, IMO.
Perhaps “a former Congressman”?
June 10th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
War or no war? History tells us that wars are fought; some good some bad. Wars will always be fought on earth. Power is a God given scepter, when used correctly, brings fourth a means to an end. When someone says that they will destroy a nation (i.e. Iran will destroy Israel) and its not just some punk kid in a school yard, but a nation with power and the means to do it now or later, WAR is just. Especially when the nation, Israel, did nothing to Iran to provoke it, other than just exist. History tells us of spies that saw what a bad nation was planning to do in their nation. The spies told the leader of their own nation what was brewing and the nation of the spies took out the nation. Yes, preemptive war is wise. Preemptive was is a must, and fools sit back and wait for a bomb to hit them first. It’s wrong to war with no proof, unless it’s for means written in our constitution … for natural resources to maintain our power and leadership as written by our fore fathers. So will we go to war for oil? Yes, it’s in our constitution. The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few; and the few can be a whole nation if need be, but a nation that does not have the scepter of power; a nation that has resources that would better in the hands of a just nation. The USA is a just nation. We need not justify anything to anyone, our history shows we are just. WW3 started a few years ago, it’s just getting started and it’s about resources and power. Who do you want to oversee the world and its power and resources? Not the UN, they will sanction the enemy until the UN is in a closet with their heads in the ground as the enemy is kicking down their door. War is bad, war is horrible, but war is a reality. Some day there will be no war, for God Himself will kill off the evil of this world here shortly. In the meantime, we humans have the power.
June 10th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Maybe Barf should stop the hypocrisy and emphasize the fact that he is a con artist (politician). This is the same statist that voted FOR illegal wars of aggression. Of course, he has suddenly changed his tune to pander to the gullible barfers.
June 11th, 2008 at 3:08 am
SIGH, IF ONLY MARY WERE IN CHARGE. SHE WOULD KNOW HOW TO HANDLE ALL OF THE BAD PEOPLE. IN MARY’S WORLD, THE PRESIDENTS ‘NUCLEAR FOOTBALL’ WOULD ‘RUST IN PEACE’. MARYTOPIA WOULD SETTLE DISPUTES WITH OTHER COUNTRIES VIA OVER THE COUNTER TRADES OF UNDER AGED CHILDREN, ALL WE NEED IS LOVE. WE LOVE YOU MARY!
June 11th, 2008 at 5:11 am
disinter: not all politicians are con artists, though a whole many. I believe Barr is sincere, he is a little less radical (in the good sense) on certain issues than Paul, but still very close to him. I detect Barr is moving closer step by step to Paul, but he may also be able to persuade some people not yet persuaded by Paul. As you indicated on your blog, with the “white extremists” there is some difference. Paul state the philosophically pure issue and Barr probably has the same in mind, but think it is politically more “expedient” and “strategically better” ? to do it the way.
Obviously I am closer to Paul than Barr, but Barr is getting there and “sufficiently Paul-like”. At the FFF conference Paul delivered a very good speech and mentioned some good things about CIA operatives, of which he has been very critical. With his positive comments he most probably has Michael Scheuer end Bob Barr in mind.
Are you going to attend the TX LP meeting tomorrow? Then you can meet Barr and rant and ask him and get a first hand impression of him.
June 11th, 2008 at 10:27 am
Reading John’s comment, I was amazed how artfully he avoided mentioning Hitler and Islam. Thinking, the pomposity sounds familiar, I went looking and found the following from the NY Times:
To be neoconservative is to bear almost daily witness to the resurrection of Adolf Hitler. “Truly Hitlerian,” the Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer pronounced Saddam Hussein’s saber-rattling before Iraq invaded Kuwait. Three days after the 9/11 attacks, Paul Wolfowitz, then deputy defense secretary, opined that Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda followers “misread our system as one that’s weak, that can’t take casualties. ... Hitler made that mistake.” Norman Podhoretz, the former editor of Commentary, said of the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last spring, “Like Hitler, he is a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system.” In the same month, the defense analyst Richard Perle mused on whether it had been “a correct reading” of the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat “to believe that business could be done with him that would produce a result? I don’t think so. These are the difficult decisions. Diplomacy with Hitler. Chamberlain went to Munich, presumably on the theory that you talk to your enemies and not to your friends, and what did it produce?”
Just about the only place the neoconservative movement can’t locate Hitler is Nazi Germany. In 1943, the founding-neocon-to-be, Irving Kristol, publicly dismissed the “near hysterical insistence upon the pressing military danger,” Jacob Heilbrunn reports in his new book, “They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons.” While the Nazis herded Jews into the gas chambers, Kristol, then a 23-year-old Trotskyist, held fast to his conviction that the Allies were no different from the Axis in their imperialism. Kristol took this view because he was “indulging in an abstract crusade for a better world.”
Sound familiar? In March 2003, Kristol’s son, William, the editor of The Weekly Standard (and now a New York Times Op-Ed columnist), cheered on the United States invasion of Iraq while bin Laden remained at large. Hussein, Kristol wrote with Lawrence F. Kaplan, was “a threat to civilization” and defeating him would kick off a glorious campaign to spread freedom and democracy across the globe. Although William’s argument was precisely opposite to Irving’s 59 years earlier, it sprang from the same crusading myopia.
Neoconservatives don’t think small. They also tend to spurn empirical methods of inquiry, giving the lie to Kristol père’s famous aphorism that a neoconservative is a liberal who has been mugged by reality. It’s truer to say that a neoconservative is a liberal (or, more often these days, just a plain old conservative) who has been seduced by the notion that America is in steep decline and must reassert itself as a moral and military force in an otherwise corrupt world. Neocons bear, Heilbrunn writes, “an uncompromising temperament” and a prophetic cast of mind, and they “use (and treat) ideas as weapons in a moral struggle.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/books/review/Noah-t.html?ex=1359781200&en=8303569e618a634a&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Also See
http://www.amconmag.com/2008/2008_01_28/review1.html
June 11th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Barr’s statement on Iran is good as far as it goes, but it fails to address the core issue. That is whether ‘pre-emptive’ (actually preventive) war is an effective or moral approach to nuclear non-proliferation.
June 11th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
I don’t believe Barr is sincere, for three reasons. His explanations for the changes in his views are for the most part poorly reasoned, and thus unconvincing. He is inconsistent on some issues, such as DOMA and the Iraq war. He continues to characterize his own record as pro-liberty.
Will those who believe in Barr’s sincerity state their reasons?
For me Barr’s insincerity is the second most important reason that he is an unsuitable standard bearer for the Libertarian Party. The most important is his repulsive, backward social conservatism. I think the LP should wear a face that is attractive and forward-looking.
The choice of Barr reflects badly on the Libertarian Party, and thus on the libertarian movement.
June 11th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
Help give Americans a choice, pledge to donate on July 2nd 2008, barrbomb.com
June 15th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
i do believe that west is wasting time (are grossly decieved),Iran is in the verge of mastering enrichment,they are meaning to convert all the world to shiet religion and taking all to the promised heaven
there is no difference between khameney and saddam and adolf hitler.
there is no use of talk with them . only two ways:
1)military attack and suppoting internal insurgency
2)makin them to complete suspension
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