The great Iran divide

Political connections

By Ronald Brownstein

updated 11:37 a.m. ET Nov. 2, 2007

WASHINGTON - The debate over Iran is rapidly moving in opposite directions in the Republican and Democratic presidential races -- virtually ensuring that the eventual nominees will collide over the issue in next year's general election.

The leading Republican candidates, in a rhetorical arms race, are talking tough about using military force if it's necessary to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Most of the Democratic field, conversely, is voicing growing skepticism about a pre-emptive attack on Iran and is accusing front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton of helping President Bush move toward one.

These mirror-image debates are widening the distance between the parties on a challenge that appears likely to share the spotlight with the Iraq war in next year's campaign debate over foreign policy. "I think you are going to see a big divide between the two parties on this," says Joe Trippi, a senior strategist for former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C. "There is real potential this will, and should, be a major issue going into the general election."

Iran is already emerging as a major focus in each nomination fight, although it is creating sharper differences between Democrats than Republicans.

The leading Republican contenders have all applauded Bush's sharpening public criticism of Iran and his decision last week to impose sanctions on Iran's military, including the elite Revolutionary Guard Corps. The GOP contenders "are all within the same range," said Clifford May, president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a conservative national security advocacy group. "They all understand the enormous consequence of letting Iran obtain nuclear weapons."

While declaring that their first moves as president would involve economic and diplomatic pressure on Iran, the leading Republicans have leapfrogged Bush in openly threatening a military strike if Iran continues its nuclear development program. "I guarantee you we will never find out what they will do if they get nuclear weapons," former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani recently told the Republican Jewish Coalition, "because they're not going to get nuclear weapons."

Last week in New Hampshire, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney delivered an even more explicit warning. "If for some reasons they continue down their course of folly toward nuclear ambition, then I would take military action if that's available to us," he declared. "We have a number of options -- from blockades to bombardment of some kind -- and that's something we very much have to keep on the table."

Among the top Republican candidates, the sole dispute over Iran has revolved around whether Romney would be too slow to resort to force. When Romney was asked in an October debate whether he would seek congressional authorization for a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, he said he would "let the lawyers sort out" the answer. That response prompted Giuliani and Sen. John McCain of Arizona to charge that Romney might hesitate too long before confronting Iran.

The Democratic contest, meanwhile, is speeding in the opposite direction. Edwards, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, and several of the second-tier candidates are relentlessly criticizing Clinton for having supported a September Senate resolution that urged Bush to designate the Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization. (Obama missed that vote.)

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Clinton's critics argue that Bush could interpret the resolution as permission for military action against Iran and extending the U.S. mission in Iraq to counter Iranian influence there. The New York senator has vehemently denied that interpretation -- most notably in an October mailing to Iowa Democrats. Although she voted for the resolution encouraging Bush to censure the Revolutionary Guard Corps, she is also co-sponsoring a bill that would require him to get congressional authorization before striking Iran militarily.

But Obama and Edwards show no signs of dropping this cudgel even though Bush, in the sanctions announced last week, did not go as far to target the Revolutionary Guard as the resolution urged. Each of Clinton's top rivals has integrated attacks on her vote into his own stump speech. And Edwards, along with several of the second-tier candidates, pounded her over the vote in Tuesday's Democratic debate. Clinton's vote, Edwards insisted on Tuesday, "literally gave Bush and [Vice President] Cheney exactly what they wanted."

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