Agence France-Presse,
WASHINGTON: New US sanctions on Iran Thursday sent shockwaves through the 2008 White House race, in which Tehran's behavior is fanning foreign policy rows among saber-rattling Republicans and war-wary Democrats.
The Bush administration's new weapons and terrorism sanctions against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Quds force provided fresh fodder for candidates, less than 10 weeks before first party nominating contests.
Democrats John Edwards and Barack Obama accuse front-runner Hillary Clinton of easing the path to war with Iran, and say she is repeating mistakes which led to the US invasion of Iraq.
Republicans meanwhile warn of the threat of a nuclear armed Iran to avoid talking about the US entanglement in Iraq, and to pose as tough commander-in-chief material to please hawkish conservative supporters.
Edwards on Thursday quickly brought up Clinton's vote last month for a Senate bill which branded the guard corps a terrorist organization — a resolution critics claim could lay the groundwork for US military action.
“I learned a clear lesson from the lead-up to the Iraq War in 2002,” Edwards said in a statement.
“If you give this president an inch, he will take a mile — and launch a war.”
“Senator Clinton apparently learned a different lesson. Instead of blocking George Bush's new march to war, Senator Clinton and others are enabling him once again.”
But Clinton hit back with her own statement, saying the sanctions strengthened diplomatic attempts to ease the current nuclear crisis with Iran.
“I believe that a policy of diplomacy backed by economic pressure is the best way to check Iran's efforts to acquire a nuclear weapons program and stop its support of terrorism, and the best way to avert a war,” she said.
“I've been concerned for a long time over George Bush's saber rattling and belligerence toward Iran.
“The Bush administration should use this opportunity to finally engage in robust diplomacy to achieve our objective of ending Iran's nuclear weapons program, while also averting military action.”
Obama has also hammered Clinton over Iran.
On Tuesday, he sent a postcard to Iowa voters saying he was “the only major candidate for president to oppose both the Iraq War from the very start and the Senate amendment that raises the risk of war with Iran.”
Clinton's campaign points out that Obama might have a better case, had he been in the Senate to vote against the Iran amendment.
The former first lady uses the prism of Iran to suggest that Obama is too inexperienced to be US president.
In July, she pounced on Obama's comment that he would be ready to meet leaders of US foes including Iran and North Korea as president as “irresponsible” and “naive.”
Obama spat back that Clinton was no more than “Bush-Cheney lite.”
Long-shot Democrat Chris Dodd responded to Thursday's announcement on Iran sanctions by saying it “smacks, frankly, of a dangerous step toward armed confrontation with Iran”
Republicans have used Iran to brand Democrats as soft on national security.
Last week, Republican front-runner Rudolph Giuliani warned he would be ready to take military action, though he admitted it could be “dangerous.”
“If I am president of the United States, I guarantee you, we will never find out what they will do if they get nuclear weapons, because they are not going to get a nuclear weapon.”
“The military option is not off the table,” he told the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Mitt Romney, another top Republican candidate, has called for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be indicted for genocide, while his rival Fred Thompson has denounced “terror masters” in Tehran.
Romney spokesman Alex Burgos said Thursday the former Massachusetts governor backed tightening economic sanctions as one of the most important measures that could prevent Iran going nuclear.
Candidates walk a fine line on this key foreign policy issue, appeasing core supporters, but risking inflammatory missteps and boxing themselves in, should they reach the White House.
In a recent Republican presidential debate, Senator John McCain raised eyebrows when he said a strike against Iran, which denies developing nuclear weapons, is “maybe, closer to reality than we are discussing tonight.”
