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Rice: US Not Looking for War
US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice responded to ElBaradei:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sought today to minimize any sense of division within the Bush administration over Iran after the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency delivered a pointed new warning against what he called the “new crazies†pushing for military action against Tehran.
“The President of the United States has made it clear that we are on a course that is a diplomatic course,†Ms. Rice said here. “That policy is supported by all of the members of the cabinet, and by the vice president of the United States.â€
Absolutely ludicrous that this response, this explanation, is deemed necessary by Rice et al. ElBaradei should not have said what he said, the US should have told him so, and that should have been the end of it. It is not ElBaradei’s job to criticize US foreign policy: it is his job to make sure that countries like Iran do not develop nuclear weapons. Rice should have said that ElBaradei should focus a bit more on doing his job, and a bit less on what America does.
Cross posted at my own blog.
64 Responses to “Rice: US Not Looking for War”
Entropy,
When we sign international treaties, like the Geneva conventions, they become U.S. law. They are not superseded by U.S. law, they are a part of it.
Chris is correct, but does not go far enough, actually. Not only do ratified treaties become U.S. law, they become constitutional law. Article VI of the Constitution gives treaties the same status as the Constitution itself.
Of course, there exists a great deal of disagreement about the meaning of many treaty obligations, so simply waving a treaty around rarely objectively resolves any argument about policy.
Entropy- parliamentary democracies don’t have mob rule. Votes of no confidence can force a pm to step down if there’s sufficient pressure. Tony Blair stepped down due to lack of public support recently.
As far as my democracy comments- they might be a little out of date. Now we call countries like S.A , Jordan and Egypt- moderate Arab countries. We did play politics with democracies during the CW. Still even now, in the ME we were unable to accept the results of truly democratic elections in Palestine,or support the original PM in Iraq (forgot his name- the one before Maliki) and pressured for a change in regime.
Turkey is not a dictatorship or a democracy but it is autocratic.
In my dissertation research, I code Turkey as a democracy, albeit one in which the military plays an unusual role of “vetoing” certain configurations under certain circumstances.
A very good minimal definition of democracy is “a system of government where parties lose elections”. This is a good definition because it serves to separate states with sham elections from states with genuine electoral contest. It is also good because it does not import policy preferences into the definition of “democracy” and thus allows a wide range within democracies. In short, it doesn’t reduce “democracy” into “governments we like”.
Both Iran and Turkey are democracies under this definition.
Ratified treaties are no different than any other US law. Jason, I’m not sure what you mean my “constitutional” law since every law in the US is by definition constitutional unless ruled otherwise by the supreme court. The only thing that supersedes laws passed by Congress is the Constitution itself, including amendments. Treaty ratification does not rise to this level and so is equivalent to any US law Congress passes (as the quote from article VI below indicates).
But you’re right that treaty obligations are very much open to interpretation.
Yes, and last time I checked, we don’t use the parliamentary system here, so Bush’s approval ratings are meaningless, just as Congress’ are. That’s what regularly scheduled elections are for.
Damn Michael I get it now, you are advocating the reverse of what the communist did all around the world by spreading democracy by any means nessicary. Ever wonder why so many ended up disliking them?
Your view is loony toons man, and extremely dangerous for my country to be your personal proxy to do this btw. When you gotta pony up then you get to rattle the sabre, and untill then you are playing chess with my ass, not yours safely tucked away in a country without a target on it’s ass. Your country have people actively trying to harm your citizens with terrorist attacks lately?
I take the use of this country as the point of the sword while you are somewhere around the end of the hilt to be extremely full of “kill em all and let god sort em out” T-shirt kind of bravado you don’t have the gonads to do personally by enlisting in this army….which can be arranged as an immigrant now ya know? And you get citizenship for doing it as well!
So come on over, and join up to go off and fight in your calling Michael, Bush is waiting for a few more good men to send to Iraq-Afghanistan….heck maybe Iran who knows now? No more talking tough like the talk tough tag lines on that T-shirt man join today!
“supreme law of the land” means that treaties, like the Constitution itself, cannot be altered or overridden by mere statute. That’s what I was talking about. Congress can’t pass a law that contradicts the Constitution and Congress can also not pass a law that contradicts a treaty (except of course by pulling out of the treaty entirely IAW whatever processes for doing so exist within the treaty).
Michael- I know when you first came here I called you a neocon and you got offended so I took it back. But lately I’ve been wondering if I should reevaluate that decision, because you are really sounding like a Dutch neocon on speed, lol. Barry Goldwater would be horrified!
Entropy- Yes elections work fine when they’re not stolen as in 2000. That was the most anti-democratic move of all.
And if presidents ignore the will of the people they can be impeached. Of course the present day congress doesn’t have the cojones for it.
Kritter,
Let’s not rehash the 2000 election again, ok? The opinion that the election was “stolen” is just that – opinion.
President’s cannot be impeached simply for ignoring the “will of the people” even if one assumes that low opinion poll ratings is the “will of the people” in this regard. They can, however, fail to get reelected, which is what our system is all about. Don’t worry, the next 18 months will go by quicker than you think.
Jason,
The issue of treaties is quite complex. I dug through my bookmarks and found this on the topic. Suffice it to say that an argument could be made either way and historically it has been.
LOL! Guess you haven’t read Conscience of a Conservative yet huh?
And no you should not take your apology back since I am not a neoconservative. Seemingly, you believe that people who are more hawkish are automatically neocons. That’s simply not true. Do some research.
You might call me a hawk, which I am, but that’s not the same as a neocon.
And Kim, if Saddam had stayed within his borders in 1990 then the first Gulf War wouldn’t have happened. And if he had abided by the terms of the cease fire (not a treaty, but a cease fire) which ended that war, then he would have had claims of sovereignty.
Personally I think that disputes will not be able to be solved without war until mankind evolves to the point that sovereignty includes a definition of minimal human rights and decent governance; there should be a standard by which the international community can reckon with tyrants. For example, by your definition Hitler could have kept within his own borders and still exterminated all of the German Jews, and the international community would not have been able to act.
I’m not disagreeing with the first Gulf War CS. I’m saying it violates international law to invade because a country is a dicatatorship. That should not be our standard since many countries are dictatorships, many of which we have and do support.
MvdG- how do you differentiate between a war hawk and a neocon? People can be hawkish on wars and yet recognize the rights of sovereignty of nations.