2008 Polls National Iowa New Hampshire General Election GOP | Dem GOP | Dem GOP | Dem Head-to-Head

---

July 27, 2006

Special Report Roundtable - July 27

FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The root cause of the problems is terrorist groups trying to stop the advance of democracies. Hezbollah attacked Israel. I believe Hezbollah -- I know Hezbollah is -- is connected to Iran and now is the time for the world to confront this danger.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: And which is presumably why the president is letting Israel have, as far as the U.S. is concerned, a pretty free hand in dealing with Hezbollah. Some thoughts on all this now from Fred Barnes, executive editor of the "Weekly Standard"; Mort Kondracke, executive editor of "Roll Call"; and the syndicated columnist, Charles Krauthammer, FOX News contributors all.

So, how's it going?

MORT KONDRACKE, "ROLL CALL": They degraded Hezbollah by a lot, they, more than the Hezbollah is letting on. Hezbollah is claiming that they have only lost 85 soldiers or something like that and the Israelis think it's in the hundreds. The targets that the Israelis were after, besides infrastructure and stuff like that, was long-range missiles and so far there have been no Zelzal missiles fired, which are the 125 mile range missiles that could reach Tel Aviv.

Another major target was Nasrallah himself, the leader of Hezbollah who is an extremely charismatic, and Israelis will admit, a very effective organizer against them and has become sort of the hero of all the bad guys in the world to the point where I think that's why Ayman Zawahiri sort of leapt into the picture today, you know, saying...

HUME: Of course, another tape.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, by the way, we're here too and we support Hezbollah. Now, he's a week late doing this and I think that it's probably out of Nasrallah envy.

FRED BARNES, "WEEKLY STANDARD": It was -- it was -- for him it was tape No. 10 this year and Osama's had five. Look, I certainly don't diminish the impact of al Qaeda around the world and the threat it poses, but these guys out tapes, I mean, they -- they've simply become blow hards. I don't think they're really in charge of al Qaeda. It seems to be running on its own.

Look, the most important thing here is -- well, the two important things: One, how much Israel is willing to do and they don't seem to be willing to mount an all-out offensive and an all-out effort to destroy Hezbollah and, two, how tough President Bush will hang and not ask for a cease-fire that, you know, the rest of the world, except the Israelis seems to want. And so far Bush, I think, has been very tough and is willing to go more weeks. I think we -- I'm sorry to hear that Condoleezza Rice is going to return to Jerusalem over the weekend, you know that's...

HUME: You think no good could come of that?

BARNES: I don't think any good could come of that. Every day without a cease-fire is a good day, as far as I'm concerned, at this point.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: The Israelis are relying on the air campaign and have had a lot of success in knocking out a lot of Katyushas and long-range missiles, but what worries me in the leadership. The entire war cabinet meeting of last night was leaked and showed up in "Haaretz," the Israeli newspaper, this morning. And you read it as if you were reading the minutes. And Israel is being led by three untested leaders: The prime minister, defense minister, and the foreign minister. None of them have the military background and they are relying on the generals.

The problem is they don't seem to have a strategic objective. And I don't think they quite understand how much the relationship with the United States is hinging on the military success. This is the first time in decades that Israel's position as a strategic ally is being tested. Hezbollah is an enemy of America. It's an ally of Iran, which an enemy of America, and a threat. And here is a chance for Israel to actually defeat an American enemy to act as ally and not liability. A lot is riding on that and that's why Secretary Rice and the president are taking a lot of heat in allowing Israel to act militarily. But the hesitation with which Israel is approaching a ground assault worries me because ultimately Hezbollah will not be defeated and will come out of this revived if its territory is not taken away.

BARNES: And the Israelis are the only ones that can do that. If you have got an international force in there, they're not going to disarm or dismantle Hezbollah. They're not going to go fight them. They're not going to get them get them out of the area, you know, 10 or 15 miles north of the Israeli border. I think -- what are -- the Israelis want just a mile and a half or something like that? I don't see how that helps very much. But if the Israelis don't do it, then nobody is going to do it. I mean, look, negotiations, you think talking to Syria, you think talking to the Iranians somehow then Hezbollah's going to throw down their arms and march out of that area? Not a chance. If the Israelis don't do it, it won't be done.

KONDRACKE: Well, supposedly the generals, the army general's, at least, do want to go in greater strength and it's the leadership that doesn't want to do it. The air force apparently thinks it can handle it, but, you know, air forces usually do. But the army generals, supposedly, want to go in and really clean out Hezbollah. The leadership in the country seems to be afraid that they would get bogged down, they would have to occupy the place forever.

HUME: So, what's the likely outcome here?

KONDRACKE: Well, I don't see -- I don't think that Condi Rice's return to the region necessarily means that we are going to call a cease- fire. I think that the Israelis are going to get to do as much as they want for a couple of weeks...

HUME: But your view, Charles, is they may not want to do enough?

KRAUTHAMMER: Right. Well, likely outcome is it'll be a half job. You'll have a international force, Hezbollah will retreat, it will not be disarmed, and it will live to fight another day, perhaps in a year or two. But, yes, another day.

HUME: When we come back again with our panel, the Senate takes up the nomination of someone else who's living to fight again another day. U.N. ambassador John Bolton whose recess appointment will soon may expire and is up again for full confirmation by the Senate. Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KERRY: This has been going on for five years, Mr. Ambassador.

BOLTON: It's the nature of multilateral negotiations, Senator.

KERRY: Why not engage in a bilateral one and get the job done? That's what the Clinton administration did.

BOLTON: Uh, very poorly since the North Koreans violated agreed framework almost from the time it was signed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: A little exchange there between John Kerry, a continuing critic of Ambassador Jon Bolton at the U.N. and Bolton himself. Back with our panel now, Bolton's up again, of course, his nomination is up, it's probably not going get acted on right away, but its -- a vote could be in the offing. How did Bolton do? How's done? And what's likely to be the outcome here?

BARNES: Well, he won that fray with Senator Kerry, that's for sure. I don't know what Kerry was thinking about the agreement that that Clinton administration made that was violated, as he said, almost immediately. You know, there have been three.

HUME: You're talking about the agreement with North Korea on its nukes.

BARNES: Hey, on nukes. That's -- I mean, that's why we are having another round of negotiations because they violated that one. You know, there have been three, at least in my lifetime, there've been three really great U.N. ambassador from the United States. One, of course, was Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the `70s and then Gene Kirkpatrick under Ronald Reagan in the `80s, and now John Bolton.

And what is -- what is it that they have in common? They are there, they believe their mission is to defend and protect and promote the interests of the United States, the world's greatest democracy and that's what they do and a lot of other people at the U.N. don't like it, other ambassadors. You know, a lot of the side -- of the democrat's side of this story with the "New York Times" on Sunday with 30 ambassador from other countries said, you know, John Bolton's a little too rough and we're not going to do U.N. reform because he is too aggressive in seeking it and things like that. It was a laughable story. Such courageous, 30 ambassador from other countries, not one of them willing to have his name be used. John Bolton is not a part of the go-along to get-along club up there and that's why -- and that's why he is effective in promoting American interests there. I don't see any reason why he shouldn't be confirmed.

KONDRACKE: Well, he's obviously up there for a different purpose than U.N. ambassadors usually are.

HUME: But it's an interim appointment, Mort, it expires in a few months

(CROSSTALK)

What are his chances of having his confirmation actually acted on? The votes are there if it ever gets acted on?

KONDRACKE: Yeah, well, the democrats are going to hold him up until September. There's not going to be a vote before the recess. The question is, now, John Chafee, I mean George Voinovich, John Chafee of the republican from...

HUME: Linc Chafee.

KONDRACKE: Linc Chafee, I'm sorry, Linc Chafee, son of John Chafee.

BARNES: John Chafee would have voted for him.

KONDRACKE: Right. Well, Linc Chafee did vote for him the last time, but people who don't like Bolton and are hoping that he won't get confirmed were sort of encouraged because Chafee gave him a hard time about, you know, whether the United States is in favor of a contiguous Palestinian state and are we fighting terrorism or is it terrorism a technique. In other words, he was not a friendly interrogator today. Voinovich has decided, the other republican who was against him the last time has decided to be for him, but Chafee is now a question mark.

HUME: So, what do you think?

KONDRACKE: I -- well, Chafee voted for him the last time and I, you know...

HUME: So, they're -- but in order.

KONDRACKE: He's have to announce his change...

HUME: Will the democrat's filibuster?

KONDRACKE: No, I think they won't filibuster. I don't think they could mount a filibuster.

HUME: Well, well, then, then.

KONDRACKE: Then eventually he'll get confirmed.

HUME: Charles?

KONDRACKE: And republicans ought to welcome a debate -- an open debate on him, because if we have clips like the exchange with him and Kerry, Bolton will win every time. Look, democrats are criticizing Bolton because he's not a man who gets consensus, as if our objective in the U.N. is to get a consensus. When you're in a den of thieves consensus is not what you want, you want to advance your interest. The great advocate of that was the one ambassador that Fred had mentioned, the great democrat, Pat Moynihan, who wrote an article 31 years ago called "The United States in Opposition" in which he described how we ought to act in the U.N. and that is to understand that it is a den of dictators and also corrupt officials who are almost inveterately against the United States and instead of working with them, which is entirely useless, you should stand up and defend America and its values and that's exactly what Moynihan had had done and that's what Bolton is doing. And if the democrats want to argue that instead we ought to be dealing with the corrupt bureaucracy and with those dictators, it's a debate we ought to welcome.

KONDRACKE: Well, and the other question would be is if the Bolton agenda.

HUME: Quickly.

KONDRACKE: .up at the U.N. were adopted, would the U.N. be a better organization and I think the answer is absolutely yes.

HUME: Quickly, Fred.

BARNES: And the democrat's wanting to get consensus on resolutions which are not enforced.

---

Sponsored Links

About Us | Contact | Advertise | Privacy Policy         © RealClearPolitics 2006