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December 05, 2007

Iran & why we need Merkley

The ongoing brouhaha about the newest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions (pdf warning) underscores why America in general and Oregon in particular need to replace Senator Gordon Smith with Jeff Merkley.

Gordon Smith has dutifully rubberstamped the Bush administration's War Is Peace, Sanctions Are Diplomacy policy with respect to Iran, and before that, with respect to Iraq.

What seldom seems to get mentioned about Jeff Merkley is his "substantial background in national defense and foreign affairs" long before very successfully turning his sights to the Oregon legislature. Not only does his extensive resume include seven years as president of the World Affairs Council of Oregon, which he remains a trustee of, but the man was a weapons analyst, for jiminy's sake! First for the Department of Defense and later for Congress.

When Jeff Merkley stated in a 2003 address to the Oregon legislature just days after Bush order the invasion of Iraq that "I have not been and am not today persuaded that Iraq was a significant threat to the United States or that the war we fight today is the best strategy to fight terrorism or the wisest application of our superpower resources," that was no mere politician speaking. He was also speaking as something of an expert on these things. And while his fellow candidates in the Democratic primary race to... ahem... forcibly retire Gordon Smith are good people who undoubtedly have the best of intentions, only Jeff Merkley brings this kind of direct and indirect expertise to the proverbial table.

In a world where wars and rumors of wars are so common that we've become jaded to the prospects of any of it actually affecting us, Jeff Merkley brings the kind of gravitas on issues of war and peace that Oregonians and indeed all Americans stand to benefit greatly from.

Posted by Kevin at December 5, 2007 01:17 PM