Senator John Kerry attacks Mitt Romney’s op-ed against Obama Iran policy

By Tracy Jan

March 6, 2012

2 minutes to read

WASHINGTON — Senator John Kerry on Tuesday afternoon attacked the op-ed Mitt Romney penned in the Washington Post this morning that criticized President Obama’s policy on Iran.

Kerry, chairman of the foreign relations committee, speaking on the Senate floor, called Romney’s column as “inaccurate as it was aggressive.’’

“Every candidate for the Oval Office has the right to criticize the president,’’ said Kerry, who was the Democratic nominee for president in 2004. “But, particularly this week, while Prime Minister Netanyahu is in Washington meeting with the administration to chart a path forward, we should all remember that the nuclear issue with Iran is deadly serious business that should invite sobriety and serious-minded solutions, not sloganeering and sound bites. This can’t become just another applause line on the Republican presidential stump.’’

In the op-ed, Romney, fighting for the Republican presidential nomination, called Obama “America’s most feckless president since [Jimmy] Carter’’ and said that as the president “frets,’’ the radical regime is developing a bomb.

Romney, saying that the combination of sanctions and offers of negotiation with the mullahs in Tehran are bound to fail, laid out some of the steps he said he would take to prepare for a US strike designed to take out the Iranian nuclear program, including dispatching aircraft carriers to the Persian Gulf and increasing military aid to Israel.

“We can’t afford to wait much longer,’’ Romney wrote, “and we certainly can’t afford to wait through four more years of an Obama administration.’’

Kerry proceeded to pick apart Romney’s plan, saying he proposes action after action that Obama has already taken, starting with missile defenses to protect against Iran and including tightening sanctions on Iran.

“Mitt Romney is just trying to ignore, twist, and distort the administration’s policy to drive a wedge in our politics,’’ Kerry said.

“Talk has consequences,’’ he said earlier. “And idle talk of war only helps Iran by spooking the tight oil market and increasing the price of the Iranian crude that pays for its nuclear program. And to create false differences with the president just to score political points does nothing to move Iran off a dangerous nuclear course.

“Worst of all, Governor Romney’s op-ed does not even do readers the courtesy of describing how a President Romney would do anything different from what the Obama administration has already done.’’