Richardson: Disarm US, Give Nukes to Iran!
Patriot Games
Friday, Feb. 9, 2007 7:38 a.m. EST
Bill Richardson: U.S. Needs 'New Realism' on Nukes
Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson said Thursday the United
States must lead the way on global struggles by reducing its nuclear
weapons, closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and dramatically
cutting energy use.
In the first foreign policy address of his nascent candidacy, Richardson
indicated he would reverse many Bush administration policies if he is
elected to the White House in 2008. The New Mexico governor called his
proposals "new realism."
"This administration's lack of realism has led us to a dangerous place,"
Richardson said during a speech to the Center for Strategic and
International Studies. "So America needs to take a different path - a path
based on reality, not unilateralist illusions."
Richardson is an underdog in the Democratic race but is pegging his
candidacy largely on his foreign policy credentials. He's a former
ambassador to the United Nations, energy secretary and congressman who has
extensive experience after years of freelance diplomacy.
Richardson, now governor of New Mexico, said demonstrating a commitment to
multilateral cooperation could start by expanding the U.N. Security Council
from its current five permanent members to 10. He said he would grant
membership but not veto power to Germany and Japan and representation to
Asia, Africa and Latin America, perhaps with countries in those regions
rotating the seat.
He also called for the United States to join the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on
curbing such emissions "and then go well beyond it."
He said that would mean sacrifice to cut oil imports from 65 percent of
fossil fuel use to 10 percent in 15 years. He said it would require a
massive public and private investment in renewable technology and a drastic
increase in automobile fuel economy standards. "This has to be led by a
president," Richardson said.
Although the United States is the world's leading emitter of greenhouse gas,
President Bush has argued that joining Kyoto would slow the U.S. economy
intolerably and that it should have required reductions by poorer but
fast-growing nations, such as China and India. Richardson said China and
India certainly should be part of the solution and coaxed into cooperation
through diplomacy.
Richardson said he would increase diplomacy across the globe, particularly
in Iran, North Korea and Syria.
"We need to stop treating diplomatic engagement with others like a reward
for good behavior," Richardson said. "The Bush administration's refusal to
engage bad regimes has only encouraged and strengthened the most paranoid
and hard-line tendencies."
Richardson said other countries will not take the nuclear nonproliferation
treaty seriously until the United States leads a global effort to reduce
nuclear weapons, "including our own."
Richardson also said to win the war against Jihadism, the United States must
first live up to its own ideals.
"Prisoner abuse, torture, secret prisons, renditions, and evasion of the
Geneva conventions must have no place in our policy," Richardson said. "If
we want Muslims to open to us, we should start by closing Guantanamo."